News

Lidia Damatto, who runs the international sales arm of O2 Play, part of Fernando Meirelles’ O2 Filmes, has been attending the online market in 2021. She talks to Business Doc Europe about the increasing importance of documentary within a company slate that includes Secrets from Putumayo, about the anti-establishment Roger Casement, the British Consul in Rio in 1910.

Gebrueder beetz filmproduction has commenced photography on a new high-end true-crime series about the “tumultuous history of Hamburg’s red-light-district in the 1980s.” With a working title of Reeperbahn Series, directors are Georg Tschurtschenthaler (showrunner), Carsten Gutschmidt and Ina Kessebohm. Release is planned for late 2022.

Six documentaries-in-progress were garlanded during the July 13 award ceremony of Cannes Docs 2021. The top prize of €10,000 was awarded to Cent’anni by Maja Doroteja Prelog. In total 32 projects from eight partner organisations competed for the prizes.

New data published by Ji.hlava IDFF in its East West Index 2021 reveals that last year saw a mammoth 22% drop in film selections at 14 key European festivals as a result of the pandemic. “Losing such a big space for filmmakers might affect the diversity of presented films and change the European film infrastructure,” warns Ji.hlava IDFF boss Marek Hovorka.

The awards were handed out during the Doc Day Lunch of the Marché du Film in Cannes. Rocco Di Mento won the Best Feature Award for The Blunder of Love, which comes with a €5000 cheque to be spent on his next project. The Best Short Award to Bless You! directed by Tatiana Chistova, with includes €3000 contribution towards her next project.

The Netherlands Film Fund and the Swedish Film Institute are drivers on a new international fund, named New Dawn, designed for projects with a director, producer and/or screenwriter from one of the groups that the United Nations Human Rights Act specifies as "a discriminated group." Six other European funds are currently "finalizing the criteria for the new fund," together with their Dutch and Swedish partners.

It was a disaster which shocked football fans everywhere and led to rigorous new safety measures within football stadiums. Now, the Heysel tragedy is to be revisited in Heysel, Bloc Z, an epic new six part docu-series announced in Cannes this week. The first episodes should be ready for broadcast late 2022, just before the World Cup in Qatar.

An absorbing and at times seductive film that will delight fans of the music and those intrigued by the super cool era in which they operated.

Bianca Stigter’s Dutch/UK co-pro is constructed out of a three-minute home movie shot in a Jewish town in Poland in 1938, using a 16mm camera. Produced by Floor Onrust of Family Affair Films (Amsterdam), the film’s associate producer is Steve McQueen (Shame, 12 Years a Slave). The narrator is Helena Bonham Carter.

New to the Berlin-based sales company slate is Roger Federer: the Reunion and Dragon Women, about top female operatives in the field of finance. Rise and Shine continue sales on the female wrestler doc Luchadoras, which picked up three awards at last week’s Thessaloniki Film Festival, as well as the avian-themed love affair The Storkman.