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At the First Look event (March 16-20) designed to “introduce New York audiences to formally inventive works that seek to redefine the art form while engaging in a wide range of subjects and styles,” Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa returns with both Babi Yar. Context (Cannes Golden Eye winner) and Mr. Landsbergis (IDFA Best Film). The fest also features Polish docmaker Pawel Lozinski and Dutch Guido Hendrikx.

As doors closed March 13 on the 23rd Glasgow Film Festival (GFF), Scottish director Lizzie MacKenzie was awarded the Audience prize for her feature doc The Hermit Of Treig. The film concerns the reclusive Ken Smith who has lived for the past forty years in a cabin by Loch Treig in the Scottish highlands, with neither electricity nor running water. Smith made a surprise appearance at the film’s world premiere in Glasgow.

Winners across nine competition categories at the 23rd Tempo Documentary Festival were announced March 12. The top Swedish Award (Tempo Documentary Award) was handed to The Scars of Ali Boulala by Max Eriksson. The prize for the Best International Documentary was won by Aliaksei Paluyan for Courage. All winners follow.

Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson’s documentary, about the so-called ‘Black Woodstock’ that was held in Harlem in 1969, heads off strong opposition in the form of Becoming Cousteau by Liz Garbus; Cow by Andrea Arnold; Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee and The Rescue by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.

With senior science correspondent Jon Cohen on hand to praise, provoke or even hector, David France’s Thessaloniki opener is an absorbing, thoughtful and challenging film that benefits from unparalleled access to the most prominent figures in the fight for a vaccine - from bench scientists to giant pharmaceutical companies, from government agencies to front-line workers.

Historically a festival with its focus trained mainly on the South-East region of Europe, Sarajevo FF has extended its geographical remit to include Ukrainian films and filmmakers, which allows for future selections within feature, doc, short and student film competitions, the In Focus programme and CineLink Film Industry Days, as well as the Talents Sarajevo programme which promotes the new generation of film hopefuls.

Twenty-seven projects by 32 filmmakers, produced across 29 countries, will participate in the VdR-Pitching, VdR-Work In Progress and VdR-Rough Cut Lab programmes. 15 directors are female, 17 are men. 13 projects are directed and produced by filmmakers from countries of the global South or global East. VdR Industry activities will take place from April 10-14.

Clin d’Oeil Films (Belgium) and Hard Working Movies (US) announced March 10 that Martin Scorsese has boarded Belgian directors Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier’s documentary Dreaming Walls, which world-premiered at Berlin, as exec producer. “Dreaming Walls is a multi-dimensional cinematic requiem for the Hotel Chelsea as it once was - the epicenter of a Bohemian New York that now exists only in memory,” says Scorsese.

Both a gentle portrait of city life as viewed from an upstairs window and a charming study of the relationship between a father and his young and playful daughter, Malintzin 17 is an absorbing gem of a film…short, sweet and given additional poignancy when the provenance of the footage from which it is edited is finally revealed.

Driven by the force of nature that is Natalya Sindeyeva, the charismatic proprietor of Russian TV station Dozhd TV, F@ck This Job offers a fascinating, and highly sobering, insight into the media landscape under Putin, and the challenges of delivering independent and ethical journalism there.