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Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s portrait of war-torn Ukraine, focusing on President Zelenskyy, is a personal exploration of the conflict in the simplest terms, aimed at reaching an American audience that knows little about the country. As such, it works, and if it manages to reach and inform its target audience, inspiring them to support Ukraine, then Superpower, in its chosen genre, should be deemed a good film.

The Bulgarian journalist features in the Bafta/Oscar nominated Navalny. Grozev is lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat, and is credited with helping to expose the alleged plot to kill Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok. “I understand the need to keep the public safe,” Grozev tweeted Feb 17 of his alleged Bafta exclusion. “But moments like this show the growing dangers to independent journalists around the world.”

February 17 saw the launch at EFM of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) to give voice to independent artists from Belarus working in the film industry. Co-founder Volia Chajkouskaya explained that the need to found BIFA was clear following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, and how “a period of unprecedented mass repression” and “rigged elections” in Belarus convinced the country’s independent filmmakers to “reunite” and “to oppose any form of state collaboration.”

Greek documentaries are set to take centre stage at the 25th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, which will be held from 2-12 March 2023 both in in-person and online. A total of 61 full-length and short docs from Greece will be screened at the three competition sections; International Competition, Newcomers and >>Film Forward, as well as in the Open Horizons, NextGen, Platform and From screen to Screen sections.

Investment of £6 million of National Lottery funding over 3 years. Doc Society named again as delegate partner to fund features and shorts and to invest in talent development via the BFI Doc Society Fund. “Independent UK documentary filmmaking is vital to our cultural landscape. To maximise the impact of our funding we are working with a partner to bring genre-specific knowledge, expertise and an international network to help support, grow and nurture this sector,” says Mia Bays, Director of the BFI Film Fund.

The 3-module training programme is designed for 10 women-identifying documentary directors and producers each year. CIRCLE 2023 features tailor made sessions (June and September 2023, January 2024), and in 3 different countries, with each session focusing on a different key aspect of project development. The submission deadline is February 24, 2023.

Thirteen films have been selected for this year’s competition. For the first time in the history of the festival, all of them are world premieres. “This year’s selection is full of films deeply rooted in reality, but always with original perspectives, creative ideas and a courage to challenge the status quo of documentary cinema as well as the world at large,” says Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm. CPH:DOX takes place March 15-26 2023.

The Copenhagen docfest unveils the nine new projects in development to be presented in 2023, each created via immersive technologies such as VR, AR, video/audio installations and cross-media. CPH:DOX also reveals the theme of this year’s INTER:ACTIVE Symposium, that of the Metaverse, who owns it, who will be represented within it and what is its future shape. Danish Futurist Sofie Hvitved to give keynote.

AJB DOC Film Festival (Sarajevo, 8 - 12 September) is organized by the TV broadcaster Al Jazeera Balkans in co-operation with Al Jazeera Documentary Channel and Al Jazeera Media Institute in Doha, “with the objective to promote authors and films dealing with social phenomena, films about human destinies and stories that are universal to all of us.” The submissions deadline is May 26.

The 2023 Agora has unveiled a program of events “grabbing the pulse of the documentary genre in all its versions and forms.” These include fourteen new projects selected for Forum, while 15 documentaries that went through past Agora developmental programs are in this year’s Festival lineup. More than 200 guests from 40 countries will attend the hybrid edition of Agora and the TiDF25.