News

European Film Promotion has appointed international media executive and producer Irina Ignatiew-Lemke as its new Managing Director. She will take over the role from Sonja Heinen on 1 August 2026, who will step down after ten years in charge. “[Irina] understands both the creative and business side of today’s global film landscape and has a strong sensibility for the diverse realities, structures and needs of EFP’s member countries,” says EFP President Vítor Pinheiro.

To Hold a Mountain wins World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary while the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary goes to Nuisance Bear. Other prizes in World Documentary Competition are awarded to Birds of War (Special Jury Award for Journalistic Impact); Everybody To Kenmure Street (Special Jury Award for Journalistic Impact), and One In A Million (Directing Award). All doc awards…

Xuban Intxausti’s Live Till Death examines the experiences of Basque women as they confront cancer “through a collective, feminist, and transformative lens.” It follows members of the Iñurri association as they defy the stigma often attached to the disease. “It’s a little thing, you know, a little story in a little country, but somehow I think that it's something amazing, because they are facing the illness in a new way,” director Intxausti tells BDE.

Valley of the Heart (CZ) tells the story of Purna between the ages of 24 and 33. He is a young man who has grown up in a secluded valley deep within Nepal, but he longs for escape. When his father dies, he leaves the valley for the first time to settle in the Czech Republic. “The emotions of beginning anew, of estrangement and adaptation, are deeply familiar. I believe that whatever melancholy emerges from this dimension of the story will be balanced by the vitality of the courtship scenes and the cultural collisions that ensue,” producer Jiri Konečny tells BDE.

What if the Iran-Contra affair had turned out differently forty years ago? Would there be peace in the Middle East now? Tal Barda’s Israeli/German three-part series Strings of Power poses this question. With “incredible” access to some of those involved, director Barda unearths archive footage and documents, alongside new material that has come to light. The director talks to Business Doc Europe.

“What initially began as a portrait of loss and transformation is now evolving into something luminous, where life, resilience, and affection create space for hope,” says producer Estephania Bonnett (Playlab Films, Barcelona) of her latest project, Captain. Currently in production and pitching this week during FIPADOC Pro Industry days, the film records a farewell between a father suffering from Alzheimer’s and his daughter (director Laura Otálora).

Jane Ray, Artistic Director of The Whickers, presented January 28 findings of her organisation’s eighth Cost of Docs survey to the professional audience at FIPADOC in Biarritz. The report includes revelations and insights about the use of technology and AI within the doc industry, positive and negative experiences in co-production, and the ever-present concern around funding. Before her presentation, Ray spoke exclusively to BDE.

After the December 2025 announcement to cancel its 2026 edition, Sunny Side of the Doc will return to La Rochelle (France) from 22 to 24 June 2026 with a new format in partnership with Documentary Campus. “Together with Documentary Campus, we are reinforcing our role as a key marketplace while creating fresh opportunities for the professionals who firmly stood up for it," says Aurélie Reman, Sunny Side MD.

Directed by acclaimed Belgian filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue, Mariinka will celebrate its world premiere at the CPH:DOX 2026 opening gala in the concert hall of the Royal Danish Academy of Music on March 10 at 19:00, in the presence of the director and the film crew, including two of the main protagonists in the film. The 23rd edition of CPH:DOX will take place March 11–22 in Copenhagen.

Five films are nominated in the BAFTA Documentary category. Two of these (Mr Nobody Against Putin and The Perfect Neighbor) are also nominated within the 2026 Oscar Feature Doc category. Meanwhile, one documentary is nominated in the BAFTA Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer category. The winners will be announced during the 79th BAFTA film awards ceremony, set to take place Sunday, February 22, at London’s Royal Festival Hall.