Nick Cunningham

The Barcelona-based outfit is co-founded by Juan Solera and Jota Salinas. “We understand that audiences today are more empowered than ever, and they have the ability to choose exactly what they want to watch. This growing demand challenges us to represent high-quality documentaries that educate and also captivate through strong entertainment value,’’ says Head of Acquisitions & Sales Solera.

Seventeen films from 13 countries make up the Official Selection of the Pamplona-based event, running February 24 to March 1. The opening film is Tent City by Miñuca Villaverde, while Frans van de Staak’s Sepio will close the festival. This year close to 900 films were submitted. The main award is the Punto de Vista Grand Prize for Best Film, valued at 10,000 euros.

Danish producer Signe Byrge Sørensen talks to Japanese director Shiori Ito about the Oscar-shortlisted Black Box Diaries in which Ito embarks on a courageous investigation into her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

Organised by the Balkan Documentary Center, the 20-project, 3-module Balkan Watchers programme “addresses the urgent need for independent media and diverse voices in regions where freedom of expression can be restricted, and media professionals often encounter challenges such as censorship, threats, and limited resources.” The deadline for application submissions is now January 19, 2025.

The market for co-creation and co-production of DOK.fest München is looking for “strong documentary projects” across all development stages and formats for its next edition running 7 to 11 May 2025. DOK.forum Marketplace presents up to 40 selected projects participating in on-stage pitch events, roundtables and one-to-one meetings, connecting them with high level international professionals. Deadline: January 17.

Director Agniia Galdanova discusses her multi award-winning feature doc telling the story of Gena Marvin, a queer performance artist who protests on the streets of Moscow both about the invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s barbaric LGBTQ+ legislation. The film is squarely in the frame for Oscar consideration. “Public performance has to irritate,’ Galdanova says of her subject. “It has to leave you with more questions than you had before and it has to be uncomfortable, both for people who are watching and also for the performer.”

Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie discuss their powerful Sundance winner that concerns the historical sexual and emotional abuse meted out by Catholic schools in Canada to the country’s Indigenous communities - and the folk who survived it. “For nearly three years, we lived alongside our participants, feeling the rawness of their pain and bearing witness to the bravery in their resilience, while documenting a vibrant world in a moment of historic reckoning.”

The Cinéma du réel professional sidebar event for projects nearing completion “actively supports the distribution, promotion and placement of feature documentaries by linking, at a key stage of the production process, project holders (filmmakers and producers) to industry professionals.” The projects are selected in line with the editorial policy of the host festival, running 26-27 March 2025.

Running 12-16 May 2025, DocsBarcelona Industry is one of the core professional meeting points for the non-fiction sector in Europe, and will award prizes valued at 15,000 euros. The deadline for project submission is January 27, 2025. DocsBarcelona festival will celebrate its 28th edition from May 8-18 2025, with five competition sections and prizes of 20,000 euros.

In its final round of funding in 2024, the Finnish Film Foundation’s board gave development and production support to seven documentary features and one doc series. These include John Webster’s Burnt Earth (Yellow Film & TV) and Inka Achté’s Soap Fever, produced by napafilms. Additional support was given to 4 fiction features and a short, bringing the amount of Finnish production support to 3 million euros.