News

The La Rochelle-based market, enjoying its 33rd edition, will take place 20-23 June, following two online editions. With a theme of New Voices, 48 projects from 22 countries will be presented across 8 pitch sessions. Over the four days, 2,200 industry delegates from 60 different countries are expected be in attendance.

A love story about two young disenfranchised Germans, whose romance is played out against the backdrop of Berlin’s streets, Heiko Aufermauer and Johannes Girke’s engaging and watchable film never passes judgment as this sometimes troubled couple kiss, embrace and also struggle to kickstart their young lives.

“What is a good picture?” is the fundamental and intriguing question at the heart of this warm and generous road trip documentary, as filmmaker Nahuel Lopez joins acclaimed German photographer Thomas Hoepker as he heads across America, training his lens on a changed world and also facing up to the challenges of his slowly advancing dementia.

Belgrade’s ‘boutique’ film festival focusing on non-fiction cinema runs May 11-18. The festival opens with the Serbian premiere of the Sundance Institute-supported Museum of the Revolution, directed by Srđan Keča, and will close with the regional premiere of the Ukrainian film Outside by Olha Zhurba, about the life of a Roma boy in Ukraine. Slovenian Karpo Godina and Serbian Želimir Žilnik will be honoured with retrospectives.

The films range from Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings to Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican to Patrick Keiller’s London. “This selection is personal to me, as someone who grew up in Hackney in the 1970s and 1980s. I didn’t come from an art or film background. It was quite profound to know that it was possible for someone to make films like these,” says Kapadia.

Hot Docs 2022 wrapped May 8, bringing 225 films from 63 countries to audiences in Toronto cinemas and across Canada online. The Best Canadian Feature Doc Award ($10,000 cash prize) was presented to Geographies of Solitude by Jacquelyn Mills. Best International Feature Doc Award went to Blue Island by Chan Tze. Audience Awards went to Eternal Spring (feature, CAN) by Jason Loftus, Sexual Healing (mid-length, NL) by Elsbeth Fraanje and Dad Can Dance (short, CAN) by Jamie Ross.

BAFTA and Academy award-winning director and acclaimed cineaste Martin Scorsese will narrate a brand new feature documentary on prolific and influential British filmmaking duo, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Directed by two-time BAFTA and Emmy winning David Hinton, Altitude will handle international sales and release the yet to be titled project in the UK & Ireland.

Hot Docs announced May 5 the pitch winners at this year’s Hot Docs Forum, the Festival’s international co-financing market event and flagship industry event. Prize money totalled $50,000 CDN, including $40,000 in first look Pitch Prizes and the $10,000 CMF-Hot Docs Forum Canadian Pitch Prize.

Fragile Memory by Igor Ivanko (UA / SK) celebrates its international premiere, two world premieres in the Shorts Competition. New Yad Vashem Award for Bianca Stigter’s Steve McQueen-produced Three Minutes: A Lengthening. This year’s guests of honour are directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West (RBG), who will attend the festival with three of their latest films, which center on larger-than-life women and non-binary people.

The 18th edition of the Docu Talents from the East, the presentation of top new doc projects from CEE, will take place August 15 during Cinelink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The deadline for submission is May 15. “We are looking forward to this year’s physical event, after holding two previous Docu Talents’ editions online only,” says Marek Hovorka, director of Ji.hlava IDFF which has curated the programme since 2005.