Cannes 25

On Wednesday, May 21, a sunlit stretch of the Plage du CNC transformed into a hub for cinematic memory and innovation. During this year’s Cannes Film Festival, an extraordinary presentation unveiled a ground-breaking educational initiative: a platform giving film students open access to 54 hours of rushes from Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse, 2000), offering them the rare opportunity to edit this material in alignment with their own directorial visions.

On 20 May, in front of a live audience gathered on the Main Stage of Cannes, filmmaker Viv Li described her experiences as a first-time documentary director. “I’m honoured to represent the voices of first-time filmmakers at Cannes,” she said, before launching into a keynote that felt less like a formal talk and more like an audacious one-woman performance — in equal parts confession, stand-up and manifesto.

French actress Romane Bohringer’s hybrid film is inspired by the book that French politician and MP Clémentine Autain wrote about her mother, the troubled French movie star Dominique Laffin. But the film began to take on a very personal dimension. At first, the director planned a conventional fictional adaptation. However, during the writing process, she kept on hearing her own story “knocking at the door,” she tells BDE.

In an industry saturated with submissions and shifting audience behaviours, selecting documentaries for 'non-doc specific' film festivals remains an intricate craft — a fact that emerged during the May 20 'Real Talk panel organised for this year’s Cannes Docs. The conversation featured insights from Pamela Biénzobas (Locarno Film Festival), Paul Grandsard (Festival de Cannes), Michael Stütz (Berlinale), and Ania Trzebiatowska (Sundance Film Festival), under the moderation of Eric Hynes, Director of Film Curation and Programming at the Jacob Burns.

This week, MIA (Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo) unveiled new partnerships and programmes for its 11th edition, to be held in Rome, October 6 to 10 2025. Core to proceedings was a discussion on Scenari Transalpini - an initiative of Institut Français Italia in partnership with MIA, Villa Medici and Cinecittà. Documentary and non-fiction at MIA revolve around the Doc Co-production Market & Pitching Forum (deadline for submissions June 19) and the Italians Doc It Better programme.

When Raoul Peck was offered access to “everything by George Orwell,” not only the novels but also the diaries and letters of the English author of 1984 and Animal Farm, he couldn’t say no. “But then it is my job to find what is my angle, what is my organic approach to the subject and come up with something different as well,’ he tells BDE of his scorching new feature documentary Orwell: 2+2=5 which launched in the Cannes Premiere section earlier this week.

At the close of Cannes Docs 2025, section chief Pierre-Alexis Chevit hosted the Docs-in-Progress Awards Ceremony during which this year’s winners were announced. Over the past days, eightshowcases of docs-in-progress from around the world were presented, forming a total of 32 new creative documentary projects. The IEFTA Award went to Asphalt by Hamza Hamideh [Palestine Showcase] while the Al Jazeera Documentary Award went to Everybody to Kenmure Street by Felipe Bustos Sierra [Scotland Showcase]. All awards…

The winners of the Doc Alliance Award 2025 were announced May 20 during the Doc Day Lunch, held at the Marché du Film in Cannes. The Doc Alliance Award for Best Feature Film (€5,000), was presented to The Shards (Georgia/Germany) by Masha Chernaya. The Doc Alliance Award for Best Short Film, valued at €3,000 went to We Had Fun Yesterday (Belgium) by Marion Guillard.

At the close of Cannes Docs 2025, section chief Pierre-Alexis Chevit hosted the Docs-in-Progress Awards Ceremony during which this year’s winners were announced. Over the past days, eightshowcases of docs-in-progress from around the world were presented, forming a total of 32 new creative documentary projects. The IEFTA Award went to Asphalt by Hamza Hamideh [Palestine Showcase] while the Al Jazeera Documentary Award went to Everybody to Kenmure Street by Felipe Bustos Sierra [Scotland Showcase]. All awards…

In his feature doc debut, the return of independently-minded Déni Oumar Pitsaev to his home in Chechnya causes a family feud. His relatives all want him to get married and to go by traditional Chechen codes of family and masculinity. This was not always easy to record on film. “Some things that were more rough, raw, emotional and private I did not include in the film because it was too personal and my father was too vulnerable,” the director tells BDE.