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The new prize was awarded September 6 during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. The jury said, “Remake evokes exquisitely the pain of loss, and letting down those we love the most - but it also brings us to a deeper understanding of how grief expands and teaches us. It shows the power of candid storytelling on the healing process, and offers a new lens on how art can help us confront truth, and find solace.”

Crimea-born filmmaker Vladlena Sandu shares the award with Cyril Aris, director of the fiction feature A Sad and Beautiful World. Both films polled 77.4% within the audience vote. Memory, part of a series of films that Sandu has made about her own and her country’s past, depicts her harrowing childhood experiences in war-torn Chechnya.

The 24 selected project teams will pitch to 60+ international funders from Europe and beyond. Traditionally, decision makers from France TV, ARTE, RTBF, RTS, SVT, Al Jazeera, ZDF and many other broadcasters have attended, together with distributors, sales agents, festival programmers and film funds. The International Pitches take place on January 28-29, 2026 in Biarritz. The deadline for submissions is October 3.

The 69th BFI London Film Festival (8 – 19 October) announced September 3 the full programme line-up, presented in cinemas and online across the UK. Two documentaries are selected for Official Competition: Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story by Yemi Bamiro, and Lucrecia Martel’s Landmarks (Nuestra Terra). Meanwhile, 8 films are selected for Doc Competition. Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard’s Broken English is selected as a Special Presentation. All doc selections…

CPH:DOX’s international financing and co-production event CPH:FORUM is now open for submissions, accepting projects until November 5, 2025. This includes the second edition of CPH:RoughCut, which will present 5 projects at rough cut stage looking for distributors (including theatrical), sales agents, buyers, high profile festival premieres and other forms of exhibition.

Cinéma du réel competition comprises up to twenty international documentary films of any length looking to kickstart their French career at Cinéma du réel, and up to twenty French docs which will world-premiere at the festival. “Such a carefully curated selection of international and French documentary films within the production of an entire year commits us, and we thank all the professionals who entrust us with their films and trust us to defend them,” says Catherine Bizern, Artistic Director.

Following its world premiere at the 2025 Docaviv Film Festival, where it picked up the Special Jury Award, Shooting will begin its international festival journey at the Telluride Film Festival. Through three gripping true stories the film exposes how cinema is weaponized in Israeli society, reads the synopsis. “Fearless, unflinching, and impossible to ignore, Shooting demands to be reckoned with,” say Cinephil’s Shoshi Korman and Suzanne Nodale.

57 short and documentary films from the Nordic region are selected to compete at this year’s Nordisk Panorama Film Festival (18 - 23 September). Additionally, industry programme activities range from Forum and Market to “thought-provoking” Conference sessions and the first Immersive Media Day, “where we are opening new spaces for exchange, innovation, and inspiration,” write organisers. “For us, Nordisk Panorama is more than a festival – it’s a community.”

“The project selections this year were really tough, simply because there were so many strong candidates with compelling perspectives and bold stories. In fact, our Fiction in Development and Documentary open calls both received almost twice as many projects compared to last year, which goes to show the desirability and necessity for an industry event such as ours,” comments Head of Industry Lydia Taylerson. The FFA Showcase Day will take place September 25 in Helsinki.

The third edition of the Scottish environmental film festival (12–14 September) will open with the Scottish premiere of Lost For Words, a poetic journey across Britain’s landscapes and seasons, and close with the Scottish premiere of Yanuni, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, which follows Brazilian Indigenous chief Juma Xipaia as she fights to protect the Amazon and the future of her unborn child.