Cannes Docs/Marché 2020

The ‘fest’ has been taken out of the festival and all the hard work isn’t bringing the expected dividends. “Our real merchandise are emotions, and these are best shared,” First Hand Films boss Esther van Messel tells BDE.

Marc Isaacs’ new feature The Filmmakers’ House is labelled as “documentary.” Some doc purists, though, may be startled by the director’s freewheeling approach toward a project which was indeed shot in his own house.

Eight festivals/organizations to showcase docs-in-progress selections; co-pro speed meetings 23-25 June; Dieudo Damadi special guest of Doc Day; Cannes Docs reveals seven festival partners

Thomas Imbach’s latest feature doc Nemesis, like his previous film Day Is Done which premiered at 2011 Berlinale, observes a changing world from his Zurich studio. He talks to Business Doc Europe.

Leading Russian outfit Metrafilms is getting back into the documentary groove with an espionage thriller as embroiled and complex as anything found in dramatised spy movies.

Marc Bauder’s Who We Were, which is presented June 24 and 26 at the German Producers Present forum, is a philosophical essay on the dire need for engagement with the world in which we live.

Monaco-based International Emerging Film Talent Association also sponsors the €10,000 Prize for Documentary Works-In-Progress for second year.

In the summer in which George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Bernard Attal’s new feature documentary Restless is a film with an obvious, added topical resonance, dealing with an unexplained act of police brutality.

Leading Berlin-based doc sales specialist Rise and Shine presents a slate of recent festival successes, as well as Scars, the new film by Agnieszka Zwiefka, featuring in German Films Previews.

As the documentary community struggles with the financial challenges posed by the COVID-19 lockdown, London and New York based non-profit Doc Society is reporting a huge number of applications to its new Documentary Impact Producer Relief Fund.