Berlin 2025

In her new feature documentary Only on Earth (premiering in Berlin’s Generation Kplus and sold by Autlook), Danish director Robin Petré isn’t observing the wildfires in southern Galicia from a safe distance, zooming in with telephoto lenses. Not a bit of it - rather, she is at the heart of the inferno. “We are actually inside those fires,” the director extinguishes any idea that she and her team were staying back as the heat rose. She explains more to BDE.

The Pluto Film boss is in Berlin with Circusboy in Generation, and two doc projects at EFM; The Jacket by Mathijs Poppe and The Underground Railroad, made by friends and fellow filmmakers, Martijn Blekendaal and Finbarr Wilbrink. Cölle tells BDE that she is looking to board documentaries as well as dramas at an earlier stage, with the “possibility to co-produce, to get into the funding [of documentary] and to offer a way to be part of the financial structure of projects.”

A gentle and heart-warmingly non-judgmental film, Denis Côté’s Paul is a compassionate observation of a shy and unusual man and the life of subservience he chooses to lead. While the subject matter could have been treated salaciously or shot for laughs, in the hands of the experienced and wise Côté it is an intelligent examination of an eccentric but endearing human being.

With its intriguing combination of tranquility and urgency, Kateryna Gornostai’s feature documentary - the only non-fiction film selected for Berlinale Competition – captures a year in the lives of teachers and pupils within multiple Ukrainian schools as the Russian invasion unfolds, sometimes just a stone's throw from the classroom.

The leading sales outfit will handle world sales on Tamara Stepanyan’s new feature doc, a co-production between Armenia and France, and set to world premiere February 16. My Armenian Phantoms is described as an evocative journey through the forgotten world of Armenian cinema and its legacy. “The film celebrates a cultural legacy which has unfortunately long been overshadowed and we cannot wait for the audience to experience the power of this cinema,” says Suzanne Nodale, Cinephil co-Managing Director.

When Tamara Stepanyan’s father, the renowned Armenian stage and screen actor Vigen Stepanyan, died aged 68 in 2021, she felt an overwhelming sense of bereavement. “This was a big trauma because it was really a very unexpected death. He died very fast and sudden,” the Armenian director recalls to Business Doc Europe. “I had this desire, a very profound one, to continue the discussion with him.”

On 15 February, the EFM hosted a panel titled “Encouraging Growth: The Journeys of Highly Acclaimed Documentaries,” moderated by Deadline’s Matt Carey. The event featured Mediawan’s Head of Doc Sales, Arianna Castoldi, and Les Films du Losange’s Head of Int’l Sales, Alice Lesort, who discussed the remarkable trajectories of Johan Grimonprez’s Oscar-nominated Soundtrack to a Coup d’État and Mati Diop’s Golden Bear winner Dahomey, two films that have resonated strongly with both audiences and critics worldwide.

In her new feature doc, world-premiering in Berlin, Luzia Schmid profiles the extraordinary German actress, singer, author and femme fatale Hildegard Knef, a woman of immense contradictions, but who, despite having worked with the greatest movie directors of the era such as Billy Wilder to Carol Reed, made few truly memorable films. “I instantly fell in love with her because I felt that nobody in Germany would talk so freely and so charmingly about things not working out well,” says director Schmid.

Documentary is once more in the ascendant at Berlinale with more than 50 non-fiction films in official selection and a reinstated Doc Salon programme (14-18 February) at EFM, during which networking and knowledge-sharing will be placed centre-stage. “There was a missing link because Doc Salon had happened until the pandemic, but then it hadn't been reinstated after the pandemic,” says new Berlinale Pro chief Tanja Meissner. “So there was a real gap for these people to meet, to mingle and to network because, as you know, networking is the biggest asset in our industry.”

Business Doc Europe caught up with Paula Ossandón Cabrera, Director of Chiledoc. During our chat we zoomed in on a recent survey published by the body highlighting the Southern American country’s thriving non-fiction scene, areas for improvement, co-productions, nurturing talents and, of course, Chile’s presence at this year’s Berlinale and EFM.