News

Six films are nominated for the Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary competition section, including IDFA Winner Radiograph of a Family (pictured). Five further documentaries selected for Voyage and Social Distance sections.

The Dutch feature documentary They Call Me Babu by Sandra Beerends has been submitted for consideration in the Best Documentary Feature category of the 93rd Academy Awards. The film is produced by Amsterdam-based Pieter van Huystee Film and Netherlands broadcaster NTR.

Leading Danish doc fest will run April 21 to May 2 2021. Industry component scheduled for April 26-30. Decision made “to better allow for physical events and screenings in movie theatres,” a festival statement reads.

Northern Focus is a new Sheffield Doc/Fest strand with a focus on films made by filmmakers and artists based in the North of England. Festival also stresses imminent deadline of Jan 15 for Film and Arts programmes.

Shot over a century ago using the unique large-format 68mm Mutograph camera, the compilation is funded by EC’s ‘European Tribute to Film Heritage’ programme and offers viewers a dazzling tour of Europe at the turn of the century.

Finns end 2020 with €570k of investment in five majority and two minority feature docs. Total production investment of just under €3.7m also includes four fiction features, four shorts and two series (17 productions in total).

“Dimitri Eipides taught us how to watch documentaries, how to discover filmmakers. Cinema was his life,” say organisers of Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which Eipides formerly led. He also founded the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

East Doc Platform, the co-pro, funding and distribution market for Central/Eastern European doc filmmakers, organized by the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF), will run online March 6-17, 2021. Selected projects also announced.

Six European docs to world-prem in Sundance World Cinema Doc Comp. Other Euro highlights include Edgar Wright’s ‘The Sparks Brothers’ and Kevin Macdonald’s ‘Life In A Day 2020’ (UK/USA), as well as ‘Seeds Of Deceit’ (Miriam Guttmann, Netherlands) in Indie Series.

Portuguese docmaker wins the €5000 award with Ghosts: Long Way Home. Film nominated by Doclisboa. Doc Alliance is an international network of seven European doc film festivals, each of which nominated a film for the prize.