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Among the latest projects granted production support by the Nordisk Film & TV Fond are two documentaries, Fredrik Gertten’s Breaking Social, produced by WG Film (Sweden), and Gunnar Hal Jensen’s Portrait of a Confused Father (UpNorth Film, Norway). The films have received NOK 700,000 (€67,200) and NOK 550,000 (€52,800) respectively.

In 2022, Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius went back to Mariupol, Ukraine, during the heart of the war, to be with the people he had met and filmed in 2015. The subsequent film is a chilling and heart-wrenching portrait of life during wartime, and a posthumous but living monument to the director who was killed in late March by the invading Russian forces.

The DOK.fest Munich co-production market (May 2023) has put out a call for “strong projects for the German-speaking countries.” Non-fiction formats at any stage of development are welcome. The submission deadline is February 1 2023. The same deadline also applies to entries for DOK.digital – Award for New Narrative Formats (€2500) and the VFF Documentary Film Production Award (€7500).

Dutch journalist and documentary filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak – long associated with Dutch broadcaster VPRO as a programme maker, editor of the Tegenlicht programme and its overall editor-in-chief – has been appointed as new Eye Filmmuseum director by the organisation’s supervisory board. She will succeed the current director Sandra den Hamer on 1 April 2023.

The 2023 World Cinema Documentary Competition comprises 12 documentary features that include two films from Ukraine (Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days In Mariupol, Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies), the latest film from Chilean Maite Alberdi (The Eternal Memory), the Swedish/Danish Fantastic Machine; and Jakub Piątek’s Pianoforte, in which young pianists take part in the legendary International Chopin Piano Competition.

“The European Film Academy’s Documentary Film Selection is as powerful and as diverse as ever,” says EFA Chair and President of the LUX Prize of the European Parliament, Mike Downey. “The feature-length documentary films that have been recommended for nomination for the European Film Awards 2022 (December 10) are the crème de la crème of European cinema.”

The selected international projects will attend the co-production forum in Galicia (Spain, 8-9 March 2023) where they will compete for an award of €10,000 and several prizes in services. The initiative has its sights set on transforming Galicia into a creative hub for international, independent projects with a strong artistic vision.  

Agora invites docmakers to submit creative and TV documentaries, doc series and documentaries for children within the Agora Doc Market, Docs in Progress and Thessaloniki Pitching Forum sections. At the same time, Agora presents the renewed Agora Lab, a three-day consulting and educational workshop for emerging filmmakers from Greece.

The renowned eight-month long international workshop will accommodate eight doc projects “with ambitions to enter the international market, focusing on editing, distribution and marketing strategy development,” say organisers. Three one-week residential workshops cover stages of Rough Cut, Fine Cut and Near Picture Lock. Applications open on December 6. Final deadline: January 26, 2023.

The Swiss sales agency has acquired the international rights to the feature doc directed by Arnaud Robert and Paolo Woods, which world premiered as the opening film of the 63rd Festival dei Popoli. The film is produced by Luc Peter and Katia Monla of Intermezzo Films (Switzerland), in co-production with RTS Unité des films documentaires, SSR-SRG, and ARTE G.E.I.E.