Nick Cunningham

In her short film, shortlisted for the Oscars and shot over one incendiary week of politics in Montana, Kimberly Reed follows transgender politician Zooey Zephyr as she faces down Republican opponents (and some of their vociferous wives), at the same time celebrating trans and queer identity both across the State and within Zooey's personal orbit. “I'm interested in small microcosms of story that unpack much larger worlds of complicated social issues that we are on the verge of grappling with,” Reed tells BDE.

The Female Filmmakers Support Programme, launched by UNIQA SEE FUTURE Foundation in co-operation with Sarajevo Film Festival and Slano Film Days, aims to “support and empower women in film from the six countries where UNIQA Insurance operates in South East Europe.” “This initiative reflects our commitment to promote women in the film industry and provide them with the financial and career development support,” comments Slano Film Days director Mirsad Purivatra.

The call is open for creative feature-length documentary projects and docuseries in development and early production stage that “challenge genres, formats, and media boundaries.” The workshop is designed for creators mainly from Central and Eastern Europe and/or creative documentary projects dealing with stories from the region. Deadline: February 28 2025.

Netflix has announced the 6 filmmakers who will receive funding and professional support to make a short documentary as part of the Fund’s third roll-out. All were asked to pitch one idea each inspired by the prompt - you’re never gonna believe this! “We’re confident that we’ve found some of the most exciting and talented upcoming filmmakers in the industry and we’re looking forward now to collaborating on their productions and releasing their finished films next Summer,” commented Netflix’s Kate Townsend.

Fifteen films will now advance in each of the Documentary Feature Film and Documentary Short Film categories of the 97th Academy Awards®. One hundred and sixty-nine films were eligible for the Doc Feature category, while 104 films qualified in the Short Doc category. Nominations voting begins on January 8, 2025, and concludes on Sunday, January 12. Final nominations for the 97th Academy Awards will be announced on Friday, January 17.

The feature doc, directed by Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson and produced by Lars Beckung and Petra Måhl, received nominations December 17 in the Best Film, Best Documentary, Best Director and Best Screenplay categories. Loran Batti’s G - 21 Scenes from Gottsunda is nominated in the Best Film, Best Doc and Best Director categories. The Guldbagge Awards ceremony will be held in Stockholm on January 13, 2025.

In the late 1990s the young gay Amichai Lau-Lavie appears in New York in drag as Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross. Years later he shocks everyone with his decision to become a rabbi himself, studying in the Conservative tradition of Judaism. Director Sandi DuBowski discusses his feature doc, which word-premiered at Tribeca, with editor, writer, story consultant, director and friend Yael Bitton.

Punto de Vista announced December 12 first details of the programme for its nineteenth edition, to be held from February 24 February to March 1 in Pamplona, Spain. These include retrospectives of the work of Dutch film-maker Frans Van de Staak and French film-maker Anne-Marie Faux. Furthermore, programmer and filmmaker Miriam Martín presents Adiós a los animals, her new series about the extinction of wild animals.

The award honours German and international documentary film productions in which filmmakers with disabilities play a leading role. The prize is sponsored by the Werksviertel-Mitte Stiftung and comes with a cash endowment of 5,000 euros. The closing date for entries is 3 February 2025. The 40th edition of DOK.fest Munich runs May 7-18 2025.

Oscar-nominated Indian director Shaunak Sen discusses Nocturnes with filmmakers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan. It is a film that “sidesteps a lot of the usual pitfalls of the regular environmental or ecological film. It is not proscriptive, it is not pedantic and aesthetically unfolds an argument [using] the composite of sound and images that works on very many subliminal levels.”