Cannes 2022

Chiledoc Director Paula Ossandón and Chief Executive Diego Pino outlined the Chilean offer at the Cannes festival and market in 2022 ahead of the May 23 Chilean Showcase. “Chile has a tradition of documentary but in the last 10 years we have had an internationalisation of Chilean films. We created Chiledoc thinking about how to support new filmmakers and [to help] experienced filmmakers be present in these kind of festivals,” says Pino.

In each of the past three years, Anna Berthollet of Lightdox has acquired a great new doc at Visions du Réel which was then selected for Cannes ACID. Over the same period her company Lightdox has been one of Cannes Docs’ featured exhibitors. Which makes it all the more surprising that Berthollet will be visiting the world’s leading film festival for the first time in 2022. A prospect she is relishing, she tells Business Doc Europe.

Hot Docs award-winning producer Johannes Schubert (Austria) outlines to BDE his plans for the 2022 EFP programme and explains his fascination both for the doc form and its practitioners. "Documentary filmmakers are incredibly kind and open-minded people. They are ambassadors for a better world and are courageous. I am longing for collaboration with them, and together we always try to challenge the status quo."

The celebrated French writer talks about her archive documentary, selected for Directors Fortnight and co-directed with her son David Ernaux-Briot, which is comprised of home footage filmed by her then husband in the 1970s and 80s and accompanied by a very pointed commentary on when and why all the footage was shot. Son David joins her in conversation with BDE.

The morning after the world-premiere of Moonage Daydream, Brett Morgen answered questions posed by Mandy Chang (Global Head of Documentaries at Fremantle) before an audience of doc professionals. “I was definitely interested in creating a non-biographical experience,” he said. “With Bowie, it was perfectly suited for that, because David Bowie is all about projection.”

Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa discusses his latest documentary, about the little attention paid to the suffering of Germans after the 2WW carpet bombing of cities such as Dresden. It is a film with much contemporary resonance, as it is selected for Cannes even as the war continues to rage in Ukraine.

For his directorial debut, Ethan Coen offers up a vibrant and often exhilarating look at the turbulent life of a true rock’n’roll legend, dealing with the demons that drove Jerry Lee Lewis. To an extent this is a non-judgmental film that is as much about his determined resilience as it is the scandals that haunted his life, but it is also tight and lean, brimming with mesmerising footage and illuminating interviews.

The Location Guide, Filmmakers for Ukraine and EUFCN are organising a fundraising campaign at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in support of the Ukrainian filmmaking community. Ukrainian lapel pins will be sold during Cannes Film Festival at events and pavilions, and a minimum donation of EUR10 is required by scanning a QR code.

Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream will open this year’s Sheffield DocFest on 23 June. Written, directed, edited and produced by Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture, Cobain: Montage of Heck, Jane) the doc presents "a genre-defying immersion into the art and sounds of David Bowie." Moonage Daydream will world premiere as a Midnight Screening at Cannes 2022.

Tel Aviv-based Cinephil has been making waves in the Marché this week with a slate of new docs, among them Julie Bertuccelli’s feature Jane Campion: The Cinema Woman, which has been screening in Cannes Classics. The archive-based doc looks at the life and career of Campion, the director of Power Of The Dog and The Piano. Cinephil MD Olivier Tournaud tells BDE about the Campion doc and his entire Cannes slate.