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Al Jazeera Documentary and AJB DOC Film Festival are inviting projects for the first ‘Al Jazeera Documentary Industry Days @ AJB DOC’ pitch event that will run in Sarajevo 9-13 September 2022. The event intends to support the expansion of documentaries worldwide, including international co-productions, and introduce exciting and valuable projects to key decision-makers. The submission deadline is June 30.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry tweeted April 2 that Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius was killed trying to leave the besieged city of Mariupol, where he had been documenting Russian war atrocities. The director of the documentary Mariupolis (2016), that focussed on the city between 2014-15 as it came under attack from Russian-backed separatists, left a wife and two children.

The iconic luminous yellow sleeveless jackets sported by French protestors helped define the country’s recent grass roots uprising. With elections looming this summer, and France (along with the rest of the world) assailed by financial hardship, this examination of a modern protest movement as seen from the inside makes for timely viewing as it exposes the methods, aims and inner contradictions of the Gilets Jaunes.

A warm-hearted and delightfully moving mother-and-son story, All That Remains To Be Seen (Mod de blindes verden) manages to be both informative and gently uplifting as it details the story of a blind mother and her seven year-old son whose own vision slowly starts to fade, a new and challenging life opening up before him.

There is a striking unworldly quality to They Made Us the Night which trades on folk myths and supernatural visions despite its core story being about the challenges faced by the inhabitants of a small Mexican town which, according to the maps, does not even exist. Playful, elusive and engrossing the film allows its protagonists to tell their own story even if that means heading into the realm of magical realism at times.

The main Dox:Award goes to The Eclipse by Nataša Urban (Norway). The F:act Award is won by Black Mambas by Lena Karbe (Germany/France) and the Nordic:Dox Award goes to the The Last Human by Ivalo Frank (Denmark/Greenland). Politiken:DOX Award: is won by A House Made of Splinters by Simon Lereng Wilmont (Denmark). All awards plus citations…

The East Doc Platform Award went to the Polish project The World is not (a) Mine by Natalia Koniarz about inhabitants working in inhuman conditions mining metals on the Cerro Rico mountain. The Ukrainian project Up in the Air by Oksana Syhareva, following a young Ukrainian aerial gymnast with ambitions to open his own modern circus studio, won three awards including HBO Max Award. All awards follow.

The ninth Eurimages Co-Production Development Award for best pitch, valued at €20,000, was handed March 30 to Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić for their co-production The Last Nomads, a co-production between Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Belgium and France.

From April 7-15 April, the Movies that Matter Festival will host its inaugural Industry Days, presenting a line-up of talks, panels and masterclasses addressing urgent and relevant issues from around the world. “Our main focus will be on creating impact as Movies that Matter believes that film and stories have the power to bring about change,” says Industry Producer Emma Romeijn.

CPH:DOX guests from Georgia issued a statement March 31 in response to the March 14 dismissal of Gaga Chkeidze, director of the Georgian National Film Center (GNFC), and the suspension of funding for the country’s major international film festivals. “Chkeidze’s sacking coincided with his open letter demanding the suspension of the process of bringing back restored Georgian cinema classics from Russian state archives - due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the statement reads.