Baltic Sea Docs 26

“At its centre, Cords of Bliss is first of all a film about my brother Bakyt and the relationship between us. I have known him all my life, of course, but in many ways I still do not know him,” director Janyl Jusupjan tells BDE of her new feature project, pitched in Riga. Bakyt may have had hearing loss since childhood, but he is still one of Kyrgyzstan's most respected performers, researchers and teachers of the kyl-kyyak, an ancient two-string bowed instrument deeply connected to Kyrgyz nomadic culture.

Eight awards were handed out at the end of the 30th Baltic Sea Docs which this year ran September 6 to 11. The inaugural ARTE European Talent Development Award, which comprises a €10,000 development grant in exchange for a first-look deal, was won by the Lithuanian project Two of Us (pictured), directed by Jūratė Samulionytė, and produced by Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė and Danielė Kunčinaitė. A total of 26 documentary projects were selected for this year’s edition.

The call for documentary projects is now open for the 30th edition of Baltic Sea Docs, the region’s leading documentary co-production pitching forum, taking place in Riga, Latvia on 6–11 September 2026. In addition to projects participating for the first time, up to four projects previously pitched at Baltic Sea Docs and now in post-production will be presented in the Coming Soon session.

This year, Baltic Sea Docs celebrates its 30th edition, marking three decades of supporting documentary filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and beyond. The 30th edition of the forum will take place from 6–11 September 2026. The project selection for the upcoming edition has concluded, with a total of 26 documentary projects selected for presentation.

In Ukrainian Yevhen Titarenko’s I See No Death, currently in early post-production and selected for Baltic Sea Docs, two friends volunteer for the war and become FPV drone operators. The camera stays with them long enough to observe how death gradually stops being an event and becomes a job. “The drones themselves are not the main subject of the film for us,” producer Natalia Khazan tells BDE. “What interests us is a simple question: what happens to a person when they kill another human being but do not physically see their death?”

“What began as a playful creative experiment developed into a deeply personal story exploring the mother-son dynamic, the concept of home, and rebuilding distant family relationships,” explains Estonian producer Merili Laur of Beautiful Stupid Thing, directed by Carlos E. Lesmes and selected for Baltic Sea Docs. In the film, which is currently in post-production, Carlos and his mother Angela reunite after she takes the transformative decision to migrate from Colombia to Estonia.