News

The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) remains extremely disturbed by continued reports of arrests of filmmakers in Iran and demands an end to a growing environment of fear and insecurity in which filmmakers live and work, the organization writes, following the 6-month travel ban imposed on the two filmmakers.

In his film selected for Cannes Special Screenings, it is incredibly moving to see veteran filmmaker Patricio Guzmán return to a changed Chile where his old political dreams, crushed when the Pinochet coup killed Allende and democracy, are being revived by a new generation.

Edited from countless home movies, Marusya Syroechkovskaya’s How to Save a Dead Friend not only shows her best friend Kimi’s descent into drug-induced depression and death, but indirectly portrays a whole generation growing up – but often not growing old – in Putin’s Russia.

It seems shrewdly appropriate that director Julie Bertuccelli’s documentary Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman should have its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Classics section. Not only does it highlight the importance the festival has played in her illustrious career, but it also reinforces the challenges women still have in terms of making films in an industry historically dominated by men.

A chilling and heart-wrenching portrait of wartime life in Ukraine, Mariupolis 2, added at the last minute to the Cannes programme as a Special Screening, is a posthumous but living monument to its director, who was killed in Ukraine by invading Russian forces.

Dutch director Shamira Raphaëla is chair of the New Dawn fund, launching May 22 in Cannes, that aims to address inequities across the current international funding systems. The nine-member fund will support films from previously unheard voices in order to help create more diverse, and hence more representational, production output in the future. Raphaëla explains the fund’s rationale and modus operandi.

A charming and often melancholic documentary that follows the efforts of two avian- and environmentally-minded brothers, Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes tells the story of Saud and Nadeem as they rescue and care for thousands of New Delhi’s black kite birds. A winner in Sundance World Documentary Competition earlier this year, the film gets a Special Screening at Cannes.

The Institute of Documentary Film has put out a final all for submission of films produced in 2021 and 2022, as well as rough cuts, to the East Silver Market 2022. Supporting producers and distributors from Central and Eastern Europe, each year approximately 150 films are included in the event, the 19th edition of which will take place at the 26th Ji.hlava IDFF on October 25-30 2022.

In solidarity with Ukraine, Sheffield DocFest unveils ‘Password: Palianytsia,’ a collaborative doc programme with Docudays UA which will launch the British Council and Ukrainian Institute’s UK/Ukraine Season of Culture with the world premiere of One Day in Ukraine by media activist and filmmaking collective Babylon 13. The co-created film focusses on a single day during the war in Ukraine: March 14 2022.

Cannes Docs chief Pierre-Alexis Chevit guides Business Doc Europe through this year’s series of bespoke events, talks, debates and presentations dedicated to all things documentary. He underlines a core purpose of the event; “philosophically speaking, to advocate for documentary cinema and to work at strengthening its integration within the global film industry.”