Cannes 21

Biljana Tutorov, Program Director of CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator, explains to Business Doc Europe the association’s raison d’etre, its Showcase offer of four docs-in-progress during Cannes Docs 2021 and why specifically it is called a ‘Circle’.

Filmmaker Mark Cousins updates his expansive 15-part series The Story of Film: An Odyssey some 10 years on, examining the impacts, themes and innovations in cinema that have helped define the highly eventful period between 2010 and 2021.

International Film Initiative of Bangladesh presents four docs-in-Progress during the South Asia Showcase at Cannes Docs 2021. Elsewhere, 2021 marks the first time a Bangladeshi film is selected to compete in Cannes (Rehana Maruim by Abdullah Mohammad Saad, Un Certain Regard), and Bangladeshi producer Arifur Rahman will present his project Solo (Eka) at La Fabrique.

Ahead of the Chiledoc presentation of new docs-in-progress at Cannes Docs, the association’s director Paula Ossandón Cabrera explains to Business Doc Europe the success of her country’s documentary sector over the past decade, the power of collaboration and how geographical diversity equates to an equally rich diversity of output.

With 27 feature docs selected across most festival sections in 2021 (the previous highest was 18 in 2019), Cannes Docs chief Pierre-Alexis Chevit is in naturally buoyant mood on the eve of the festival, especially when combined with the re-opening of the market which will allow face to face interaction once more. Chevit gets down to business with BDE.

The Switzerland-based company announces early sales on its Cannes 2021 market slate, plus details of additional projects in the works to be pitched online to the international doc community over the coming week. Their Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege is selected for Cannes ACID.

What do you get when you cross a leading trade editor, a very well-connected former festival director/critic, arguably Cannes’ top snapper over the years and a UK producer with an archive of Croisette coverage going back over a quarter century? Answer: potentially the most definitive documentary history of the Cannes FF, currently in production ahead of delivery for next year’s 75th edition.

Cannes will mark the first event in over a year at which Salma Abdalla, CEO of doc sales outfit Autlook, will come face to face with theatrical distributors, with titles that include Loving Highsmith, just acquired, and the sports doc Running For The Revolution, about legendary Cuban runner Alberto Juantorena. Abdalla gets on her marks with Business Doc Europe.

Philippa Kowarsky’s sales outfit Cinephil will hit the Cannes market this week with several new docs on its slate, among them the multi-director A Jewish Life, described as a companion piece to the company’s award-winning A German Life (2016), and Adi Arbel’s Grossman, a TV doc about the revered Israeli writer David Grossman.

Jonathan Demme, the director of The Silence Of The Lambs as well as a host of award-winning documentaries, died over four years ago, in April 2017. Nonetheless, the last film he was working on, Right To Return is still being finished, and is one of many represented in the Cannes market this week by Reservoir Docs’ Anais Clanet, who talks to Business Doc Europe.