MIA 2025

Filmmaker Antonio Palumbo and co-writer Mariangela Barbanente talk to BDE about their urgent new project which demands justice for a horrific murder committed over 40 years ago. “We do not want to merely recount a crime story,” the creative team tells BDE. “We want to honour Palmina’s life, showcasing her dreams and aspirations as a young girl against the backdrop of poverty in Puglia during the 1970s and 1980s.”

The theatrical distribution of documentaries in Europe has entered a phase of both unprecedented opportunity and increased complexity. At the MIA panel Getting Docs to Theatres: Strategies and Opportunities held on October 9, industry professionals shared insights on marketing, audience engagement, and innovative distribution models that are reshaping the sector. Business Doc Europe reports.

Presented this week at Rome’s MIA Market (6–10 October), The Eighth Day is a 75-minute feature documentary directed by Sabrina Varani and produced by Tv2000. Set during the Catholic Jubilee Year of 2025, the protagonists of this story are the homeless men and women living on the margins. “The relationship nurtured with the protagonists profoundly changed [Varani’s] perspective, allowing the director to see them not as figures on the margins, but as the center of a ceaseless galaxy of ordinary human activity,” comments Tv2000 exec Anna De Simone.

The upcoming edition of Rome’s MIA (6–10 October) is set to reinforce its role as a key meeting point for the non-fiction industry. Speaking to Business Doc Europe, MIA’s Head of Doc & Factual and Deputy Director, Marco Spagnoli, and Head of the Doc Co-Production Market, Ben Pace, outlined an event focused on coproduction and internationalisation, fostering connections that bring documentary and factual stories to global audiences.

The International Factual Forum is a pitch event dedicated to “celebrating and advancing talent and original international factual formats,” while Italians Doc It Better is dedicated to Italian documentaries in post-production, rough cut or completed, but not yet presented or screened at markets, festivals, showcases, cinemas, TV or platforms. Deadline for submission: August 10. The ninth edition of MIA will take place in Rome October 6 to 10.

The International Factual Forum is a premier event dedicated to “celebrating and advancing talent and original international factual formats,” while Italians Doc It Better is dedicated to Italian documentaries in post-production, rough cut or completed, but not yet presented or screened at markets, festivals, showcases, cinemas, TV or platforms. Deadline for submission: August 10. The ninth edition of MIA will take place in Rome October 6 to 10.

Presented at the Italians Doc It Better showcase, the new documentary by Elisa Motta and Matteo Ferrarini offers a sensorial and poetic journey through sound, while exploring the power of listening as a path to reconnection. “OTO is a film that inverts the traditional hierarchy between sound and image, disrupting the usual grammar of documentary,” the creative team tells Business Doc Europe.

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.

Doc winners are Edition 96 by Ahmad Naboulsi (Lebanon) which won the MIA Development Award for Outstanding Doc Project and POV-Point of View by Luca Murphy (Italy) which picked up the Paramount New Stories Award. The GEDI Visual Award for one of the titles selected for the Italians Doc It Better showcase went to Pestiferus Lupus by Ludovico Serra and Luca Jankovic, while a Special Mention was given to Fish Don't Close Their Eyes Audrey Gordon.

At a time when historical narratives are increasingly contested, the October 7 MIA panel “What’s the Future of History” gathered broadcasters and commissioning editors to reflect on the place of factual history programming in today’s fractured media landscape. Moderated by Krishan Arora, UK producer and consultant at Mixing Media, the session featured Laurent Filliung (ARTE GEIE), Elisabeth Hagstedt (Histoire TV), Caroline Haidacher (ORF), Sergiy Nadzelskyy (Suspilne, Ukraine), Proinsias Ní Ghrainne (TG4), and Mikael Österby (SVT International).