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This warm-hearted doc feels at times more like a classic tear-jerker with the seemingly mismatched pairing of an elderly Barcelona drag-queen and a wide-eyed young girl learning to appreciate each other. But in this film truth is more engaging than fiction as nonagenarian Gilda Love dramatically changes when he is asked to take care of an abandoned three-year-old.

When two Brazilian filmmakers in separate continents - one in Sao Paulo, the other in LA - decide to eschew messaging and social media, instead creating a manifesto of video-letter correspondence, the resulting film is an engaging delve into the lives of two intelligent and creative women as they reflect on art, politics, emotions and friendship.

It is a tough call to make a gripping documentary centred around economics, but it is to Chilean Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano’s credit that their central characters are intriguingly complex, presented against a backdrop of the country’s popular revolts of 2019. The film world premieres in Rebellion Strand.

Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti, often described as the ‘Palestinian Nelson Mandela’, is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison following what was seen by many as his unlawful arrest and imprisonment. Sophia Scott and Georgia Scott’s film may well be straightforward in tone and structure, but this takes nothing from the strength of this provocative and compassionate story.

Very much the perfect fit for public audiences at the Sheffield DocFest, the engagingly enthusiastic Studio Electrophonique tells the strange and rather wonderful story of an amateur music engineer who built a sound studio in his own modest house, ending up working with a series of now-iconic local bands during the 1980s and 90s and helping them onto the road to success.

A deeply prescient and gently revealing documentary, One Day in Ukraine delivers just as the title states…a snapshot of one day in a country under siege as ordinary people (and sometimes extraordinary ones) go about their lives, whether it be preparing food or walking devastated streets, heavily armed and ready to fight.

Producers of documentary, fiction film and drama series looking for finance or a co-production deal are invited to submit their projects intended for theatrical distribution, television broadcast and digital streaming. The deadline for submission is July 4 2022.

As doors closed on 33rd Sunny Side of the Doc, organisers revealed that 2000 industry professionals from 67 countries (including almost 400 decision-makers) and 1100 accredited companies took part in the online event. This year, 48 projects from 22 countries were presented across 8 pitching sessions split into three major categories.

The first session of the 20th Ex Oriente Film training programme is currently taking place in La Rochelle (June 17-22) in co-operation with Sunny Side of the Doc. The 3-part programme (which travels to Ji.hlava IDFF in October before concluding in Prague in March 2023) is focused on the development and funding of creative documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe.

Sheffield DocFest announced June 16 the Focus: Filmmaker Talent initiative, devised by Guest Curator Asif Kapadia who has invited six filmmakers to make a short documentary, in and around Sheffield, during the festival. All filming is to be undertaken in a single day and the final work will be screened on the last day of Sheffield DocFest. The initiative is supported by Amazon Studios, Canon and The Kurious.