Nick Cunningham

As doors closed on the festival's 49th roll-out, The Cats of Gokogu Shrine by Japanese director Kazuhiro Soda was handed the “Laceno d’Oro 49” Award. Portuguese filmmaker Frederico Lobo received the “Gli occhi sulla città” Award for Quando a Terra Foge, while Si dice di me by Isabella Mari picked up the “Laceno d’Oro Spazio Campania ‘Chiara Rigione’ Award.” All awards...

Recent winner of the Best Short Documentary prize at the 2024 IDA Awards, the New York Times Op-Docs film Instruments of a Beating Heart serves up a tear-jerking bundle of joy as a classful of Japanese children at elementary school compete to perform Ode to Joy to the new intake of first graders. “My six years in Japanese elementary school made me who I am - and that's why I wanted to make this film,” director Ema Ryan Yamazaki tells BDE.

Carla Gutierrez’s debut feature Frida, which won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at Sundance 2024, concerns the iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and looks to be a strong contender as awards season approaches. “We wanted to make a film about a woman who made the choice not to contain her own voice,” says Gutierrez of her subject who, she argues, came to global prominence only with the emergence of feminism in the 1970s and the movement's recognition of the ‘personal as political.’

Hot on the heels of its IDA Awards success, No Other Land (Palestine/Norway/US) by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra & Hamdan Ballal, was named winner in the European Documentary category of the 37th European Film Awards. The European Young Audience Award went to The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Norway) by Benjamin Ree, produced by Ingvil Giske.

The Palestine/Norway/US film bagged the Best Feature Documentary and Best Director Awards December 5 during the International Documentary Association Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. The Best Cinematography gong went to Ruslan Fedotov for Queendom, while Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat picked up two prizes; for Best Editing and Best Writing. All awards…

Brazilian Petra Costa’s film investigates the increasingly powerful grip that evangelical Christian leaders hold over politics in her home country. “In our story, we look at what happens in Brazil as a fable of our times,” says Costa, who was nominated for an Academy Award® in 2020 for The Edge of Democracy. The film was an Official Selection at the Venice, Telluride, New York Film, Camden International, IDFA, Chicago International, and Montclair Festivals.

The Netherlands-based Movies That Matter human rights film festival invites participants to apply for its five-day workshop and networking programme on how to organise a human rights film festival or mobile cinema project, taking place from 22–26 March 2025. For this edition, the festival will seek to unite new and experienced film festival professionals from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Submission deadline: January 5.

Producer/director Maria Colomer has been appointed new Head of Programming and Co-Artistic Director of DocsBarcelona. Colomer will work alongside Èric Motjer, the current Head of Industry, to co-lead the creative and strategic vision of the festival. Colomer succeeds Anna Petrus, who held the position of Programming Director and Artistic Director at DocsBarcelona since 2023, bringing “bold, diverse, and committed programming choices,” the festival writes.

The second annual Floodlight Summit will bring together top international investigative journalists who will present selected investigations to leading entertainment creators for potential screen adaptations. The invite-only event takes place on Dec. 6-8 in Cartagena, Colombia, with participants attending from more than 25 countries across five continents.

Submitted for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film categories of the upcoming Academy Awards, the Swedish feature doc The Last Journey comprises an emotional, at times hilarious, roller-coaster ride as Filip Hammar takes his aging, despondent father back to the coastal town in the south of France where very year the family spent their summer holidays. Hammar and co-director Fredrik Wikingsson talk to BDE about Sweden’s highest-grossing documentary ever.