Festivals in the time of corona
On 26 April leading festival personnel, including Vision du Réel’s Emilie Bujès and IDFA’s Orwa Nyrabia, gathered to talk online about how festivals may/should/could respond to the new reality under COVID-19.
Sheffield Doc/Fest announces its Official Selection for 2020
115 films of all lengths spanning 50 countries representing 49 spoken languages. 22 UK productions. 31 World Premieres, 15 International Premieres, 5 European Premieres and 40 UK Premieres.
Sheffield review: Sisters with Transistors by Lisa Rovner
Narrated by avant-pop pioneer Laurie Anderson, Rovner’s film presents the women who embraced electronic music and machines, and transformed the way we produce and listen to music today.
Sweet Spot to Lightdox
Swiss-based doc sales agency announces both the company rebrand and the recent pick-up of Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed’s Purple Sea.
EFA Honours ‘Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema’
New EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling goes to director Mark Cousins, paying tribute to the ground-breaking 14-hour documentary odyssey produced by Hopscotch Films
Ji.hlava IDFF: Silver Eye Award to A New Shift
The Silver Eye Award 2020 for the best feature length film in the East Silver Market, given by the Institute of Documentary Film, was awarded Jindřich Andrš’ story of a former miner who is forced to retrain in a new profession.
IDFA 2020: And then there was Lightdox
Adventurous new Swiss doc sales outfit Lightdox has added a new football hooligan title to a slate that already includes 5 IDFA titles and one in Docs for Sale. IDFA titles include Arica, which world prems in Frontlight, and Lina Soualem’s Their Algeria (in Best of Fests).
Docs for Sale: ‘Ask No Questions’, VGTV Norway decides
Toronto-based Lofty Sky Entertainment announces the sale of Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s investigative doc Ask No Questions to VGTV Norway for January 2021 broadcast. The film previously sold to Alhurra for the Middle East.
Dutch Film Fund announces doc support package
Lock Doc Development looks to offer support for the documentary slates of up to ten production companies, both for existing documentary film plans affected by Covid and for new feature doc film plans. Overall spend on the package amounts to €600,000. Deadline of 23 March.
Hot Docs Conference to “re-imagine a more representative and equitable doc ecosystem.”
“After enduring the extraordinary difficulties of this past year, the upcoming conference seeks to embrace the opportunities that lie within and inspire the community to re-imagine documentary’s role in our quickly evolving world, based on principles of social justice and equity,” say event organisers.
