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The UK opening follows the film’s June 2023 Tribeca premiere and a preview Q&A tour which saw director Jeanie Finlay and subject Aubrey Gordon travel across the UK and Ireland to sold out screenings. Made over six years, the film charts the rise of writer and activist Aubrey Gordon from anonymous blogger to NYTimes best-selling author and podcaster. Her aim has been “to facilitate a paradigm shift in the way we see fat people and the fat on our own bodies.”

The 26th Thessaloniki International Doc Fest will showcase the internationally acclaimed artist, director, choreographer, visual artist and performer, and illustrate the “multifarious aspects of [this] artist through different forms of art and expression, redefining the boundaries of representation, the allegorical power of images and the communication between a work of art and the audience.” TIDF runs 7-17 March 2024.

Sunny Side of the Doc announced Feb 7 the project Replica as winner of the Global Pitch Award for Global Change. The pitch event took place online 6-7 February. Replica is directed by Chouwa Liang and produced by Axel Rise Films (Australia) and The Why Foundation (Denmark). The fourth edition of the event focused on doc projects dealing with issues linked to the sustainable development objectives as defined by the United Nations.

Berlinale published February 6 the entire programme of the 2024 festival running 15-25 February. Documentaries are selected across most festival sections, including two in Berlinale Competition (Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dahomey by Mati Diop) and dozens more across the Encounters, Forum, Panorama, Generation, Berlinale Special, Retrospective and Short programmes.

This year's Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary at the 47th Göteborg Film Festival was awarded February 3 to the Norwegian Ibelin by Benjamin Ree. The prize is valued at SEK 250,000 (€21,950) in services. Honorary mentions were given to Marius Dybwad Brandrud/Petra Bauer for Fifteen zero three nineteenth of january two thousand sixteen (Sweden), and to Anssi Kömi/Suvi West for Homecoming (Finland).

The 3-day programme Geneva-based event includes a pitch session during which 16 film teams explain their impact goals/strategies. Doc Society’s Sandra Whipham will make the Impact keynote; selected NGOs and international organisations will explain how they work with films and audiovisual content across all formats and platforms, and the impact campaigns for two urgent docs will be placed squarely in the frame. And much more besides. Industry accreditations now open.

DocsBarcelona will pay tribute to French filmmaking couple Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret during its upcoming edition, running May 2 to 12. The Honorary DocsBarcelona Award “highlights their honest and authentic approach to people and landscapes from a seemingly shy and distant perspective that, at the same time, can turn into art the tension between photography and the temporal dimension of cinema.”

The Danish documentary Life and Other Problems has been selected as the opening film at the 21st edition of CPH:DOX. The opening gala will be held on March 12 in Copenhagen at the Conservatory's Concert Hall, where director Max Kestner and a number of the film's participants will be present. The next edition of CPH:DOX runs March 13-24.

Mancini joins DocFest January 2024 to lead the festival’s industry strategy and activity including Marketplace, with oversight of the festival’s Industry programme and year-round activity. Other new appointments are Sophie Duncan as Marketplace & Talent Programmes Producer, Lisa Marie Russo as Marketplace Consultant, Vanessa Lobón Garcia as Talks and Sessions Senior Producer, and Lieven Heeremans (Podcast Programme Producer).

The 2024 Panorama programme comprises 31 titles, ten of which are documentaries (all world premieres). “Essentially, it’s about communicating experiences and realities of life, history, understanding and empathy,” says section head Michael Stütz. “The films in this year’s programme express their attitudes in many voices, building bridges between lived experiences and cinematic possibilities that inspire us to look to the future.”