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The Polish filmmaker/producer team of Elwira Niewiera and Maciej Kubicki made a powerful impact pitch March 10 for their feature doc project Women and War, which explores the psychological toll of war through the personal journeys of four women – Julia, Lena, Iryna, and Olena – who have survived the horrors of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “What I have learned from them is that the war doesn't end when the war is over,” she told the professional audience in Geneva. “It stays in their minds, in their bodies, and in their everyday lives.”

An elementary school in northern Italy where all the pupils are children of migrants lies at the heart of The Last Class, a new creative documentary by Italian filmmaker Michele Fornasero (SmoKings) currently in late production. The project, pitched at this year’s Thessaloniki Pitching Forum, is produced by Epica Film and Indyca and is seeking co-production partners, financiers, broadcasters and sales agents as it moves towards completion. BDE reports.

Gaza Sunbirds follows Ala’a, a young Gazan cycling champion whose life changes forever after he’s shot by an Israeli sniper. Determined to rebuild, he sets his sights on the Paralympics, inspiring others to join him. Director Flavia Cappellini has followed Ala’a and his team for more than 8 years. “What makes the film important is precisely this long perspective,” Flemish producer Kristian Van der Heyden tells BDE. “We see Gaza before the war, the escalation towards October 7, and the consequences that continue to shape the lives of our protagonists today.”

French producer Tanguy Babin of PaladiOra Films outlines to Business Doc Europe the qualities of Hnin Thet Hmu Khin and Olivier Petrie’s story of Hnin’s secret return to Myanmar from Thailand (after having played a significant role in the 2021 anti-junta protests) where she encounters a new generation who are looking to rebuild the country without taking up arms. “The film aims to move beyond a strictly geopolitical reading of the conflict, and instead reveal human stories that are intimate and universal,” Babin underlines.

In Rachel Lauren Mueller’s new feature doc, when a pagan white supremacist group arrives in a Minnesotan farming town, it sparks an intense struggle over who has the right to belong, offering a disturbing warning about the normalization of extremism. “Our aim with our film’s impact campaign is to repair the ruptures of communal polarization through the simple practice of bringing divided communities together to watch a film and share their perspectives,” producer Ariel Tilson tells Business Doc Europe.

Weaving together animation, observational cinema, and participatory filmmaking, Tetiana Khodakivska’s new feature doc, The Blue Sweater with a Yellow Hole, is a coming-of-age documentary that questions the impact of indoctrination and propaganda on children in the modern world. The subject of the film is three Ukrainian children who both process and draw memories from their six months in a Russian ‘re-education’ camp. Producer Elena Saulich talks to Business Doc Europe.

The UK’s Documentary Film Council (DFC) announced March 9 the appointment of Mandy Chang, as its first Chief Executive Officer. The appointment “marks a major step forward for the member-owned organisation, which was formed to represent the UK documentary sector at a critical moment for the industry,” the organisation writes. Chang recently served as Global Head of Documentaries at Fremantle, and previously as Commissioning Editor of the BBC’s prestigious Storyville strand from 2017 to 2021.

The call for documentary projects is now open for the 30th edition of Baltic Sea Docs, the region’s leading documentary co-production pitching forum, taking place in Riga, Latvia on 6–11 September 2026. In addition to projects participating for the first time, up to four projects previously pitched at Baltic Sea Docs and now in post-production will be presented in the Coming Soon session.

Ana Castañosa Bielsa talks to Business Doc Europe on the eve of Impact Days 2026, which again seeks to channel the power of documentary film as a tool for concrete social and policy change. Yes, impact remains a “niche” sector within the film industry, she points out, but Impact Days’ effectiveness in underlining its importance is undeniable. “Cinema can be political,” Castañosa Bielsa reminds BDE of the context within which she and her colleagues are operating.

Enjoying its International Premiere March 7 in Thessaloniki’s Open Horizons section, Craig Downing’s Dad Genes tells the story of Aaron Long, a former sperm donor, whose discovery that he has fathered dozens of children thrusts him into the global spotlight and transforms him from anonymous donor to unconventional family man. The film is produced by Matt Isaac of New York-based Signal Brigade. Trailer and exclusive clip.