Cannes 2024

“The whole philosophy of Cannes Docs is all about going beyond a strict industry approach, to advocate for creative, author-driven, arthouse documentary cinema, and for all kinds of forward-thinking political values that I feel our community always has, at heart, to champion,” Pierre-Alexis Chevit says on the eve the 2024 event. Core activities this year include a Palestinian showcase, ongoing support of the Ukrainian doc industry via three special screenings & two new project presentations, a host of industry debates on core topics, and interviews with top doccers such as Raoul Peck and Nicolas Philibert.

French director Yolande Zauberman’s documentary La belle de Gaza, which world-premiered May 17 as a Special Screening at Cannes, has an unapologetically straightforward approach to the trans women it portrays - which is both its weakness and its strength. One thing to note: the film isn’t set in, nor is it about, Gaza.

The winners of the Docs-in-Progress Awards were unveiled during a ceremony at the end of this year's Doc Day (May 21). Top cash prizes went to Only on Earth by Robin Petré (IEFTA Doc-in-Progress Award, €10,000), to Aliyá, Yeridá by Rafael Guendelman (Al Jazeera Documentary Award, Co-pro deal with minimum €15,000 contribution), and to Chilean The Stationary Traveller (Rise and Shine Award, €3,000).

The Ukrainian filmmaker talks to See NL about his latest documentary which chronicles life during wartime, as Ukraine continues to repel the Russian invasion. “Life is always multi-faceted. As we know, there is always a place for lighter moments, humour [and] absurdity, even under these tragic circumstances,” Loznitsa stresses. “At the same time, even in these scenes in the film that are lighter and more cheerful, there is still the presence of tragedy.”

The Brazilian filmmakers immerse themselves within Yanomami culture for their Cannes film, inspired by a book of the same name written by shaman Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert. “Seeing, listening and dreaming” are at the heart of Yanomami culture and rituals. The Yanomami have a deep empathy with other animals. Unlike the whites, they don’t see themselves as being “at the top of creation” and they don’t “treat everything and everyone else as a resource,” co-director Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha reflects.

“I found her life interesting as a Hollywood story because she was really one of the first modern celebrities. She was probably comparable to Taylor Swift,” US director Nanette Burstein tells BDE of her documentary about the Hollywood icon. “It [Taylor’s life] is a very compelling Hollywood story. It’s a story about feminism. It is a story about agency and it is a story about philanthropy.”

According to the right-wing French press, inner-city Paris schools full of kids from immigrant families are hot beds of deprivation, noise, chaos and violence. Not so, says revered French-based doccer Claire Simon, whose new film is set in such an institution. All the children, wherever they come from, are being taught how to become good citizens, "how to learn and how to talk with the rest of the society,” Simon tells Business Doc Europe.

In 2024 Switzerland is the Country of Honour at the Cannes Marché, and celebrated at a series of events organised with Swiss Films in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR. At Cannes Docs May 19 Swiss Films will further present, together with Visions du Réel, four Docs-in-Progress to the Cannes professional audience. BDE spoke to the producers of the new works.

A glorious celebration of the power of cinema – and almost as importantly, of cinemas themselves – Arnaud Desplechin’s intimate and personal examination of what it means to go to the movies takes a meanderingly thoughtful journey through the history of film, delivering a warm, provocative and often thoughtfully enjoyable ‘cinematic hug’ for film lovers.

For two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, director Sergei Loznitsa filmed life across Ukraine. A companion piece to his remarkable 2014 documentary Maidan, about Ukraine’s civil uprising against political alignment with Russia, The Invasion shows the Ukrainian people to be just as stoic and resilient in times of war.