News

Birds’ Eye View has announced the appointment of Melanie Iredale as the new Director of Birds’ Eye View Film. In this role Melanie will lead the team, continuing to advocate for gender equality and diversity in all film spaces and lead on the #ReclaimTheFrame project to bring ever greater audiences to films by women.

The Board of Copenhagen Film Festivals (CFF) has appointed Birgitte Fredsby as Managing Director of the organization behind the three biggest Danish film festivals: CPH:DOX, CPH PIX and BUSTER. She will work in close co-operation with Niklas Engstrøm who was appointed as Artistic Director in May 2021.

Leading Iberian docfest Doclisboa (October 21-31) will honour the life and work of Cecilia Mangini, one of the prominent figures in post-War Italy documentary cinema, who died earlier this year. The festival also announces first titles in its Heartbeat and From the Earth to the Moon sections.

The 7th edition of Rome’s MIA market will run October 13-17 with an expanded doc section set to address “all the new languages of the audiovisual sector that have to do with reality - its storytelling and interpretation.” Titled MIA UNSCRIPTED, confirmed events will include the international Doc Pitching Forum and Italians Doc It Better, which will showcase the best of local doc output.

The hybrid docfest announces the full programme for its 11th edition, running 8-14 September in London and 13-23 September online. World prems of Icarus (after Amelia) by Margaret Salmon and Inner Outer Space by Laida Lertxundi will open the festival while TEN SKIES by James Benning is selected as closing film.

Of the 16 films selected for the Doc Competition Programme of the 27th Sarajevo FF, 8 films are world prems, one is a European, six are regional and one is a Bosnian-Herzegovina premiere. “We have a lot of cinematic originality and freshness within the selection, new ideas, as well as new views of the world around us,” says Sarajevo’s Rada Šešić.

Swiss sales agency Lightdox has acquired worldwide rights to Claire Doyon’s feature documentary Pénélope, My Love, winner of Georges de Beauregard National Prize and Renaud Victor Prize at FID Marseille 2021, where it had its World Premiere earlier this month.

Grand Prix of the International Competition to Japanese filmmaker Kyoshi Sugita for Haruhara San’s Recorder. The Georges de Beauregard International prize awarded to Declan Clarke (Ireland) for his Saturn and Beyond. The Grand Prix of the French Competition went to Jacques Meilleurat for Appuyé au mur (Lean on the Wall).

The BBC tops the shortlist with 47 entries overall. Netflix has 21 films in the running; ITV has eight; Sky, nine and Channel 4 has 10 in the mix. Apple TV+ has six listed films. This year there are also two new award categories – Best Music and Best Sport Documentary.

The infectious cinephile enthusiasm of Mark Cousins and the gentle, modest cinematic passion/knowledge of producer Jeremy Thomas merge perfectly as the pair take a road trip to the Cannes Film Festival and use the opportunity to rightly shine a light on the latter’s maverick and independently-minded work over the past 40 years.