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The 21st edition of the DOK Co-Pro Market of DOK Leipzig welcomes 35 documentary projects from 34 countries, all of which are seeking new international financing and co-production partners. Women (co)-directors hold a prominent presence in the line-up, comprising 60 percent of the selection, the festival underlines. This year sees a rise in the number of entries, totaling 391 projects. The DOK Co-Pro Market 2025 will take place 27 October and 28 October, with complementary online meetings on 4-5 November.

The Portuguese docfest will open October 16 with the documentary With Hasan in Gaza, by Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari, described as “a road movie that transports us to a territory in resistance.” The festival will close October 26 with Eugène Green’s The Tree of Knowledge, labelled “a fable about a teenager, an ogre, and a dark pact.” The complete programme for the 23rd Doclisboa will be announced September 25.

The acclaimed Portuguese documentary filmmaker is announced as the Guest of Honour at the 38th IDFA, which will take place from November 13 to 23. The festival also announced September 9 the second instalment of its curated program Dead Angle, which focuses this year on 'Institutions'. IDFA further underlined the 'Off the Internet' theme of this year's IDFA DocLab, the festival’s new media section.

For International Pitch, organisers are looking for doc projects in production or post-production around which an impact campaign is being developed. For Swiss Focus Pitch the festival seeks projects whose campaign will be implemented - either in part or entirely - in Switzerland. FIFDH also invites completed films - with a current or ready-to-launch impact campaign - for further assessment, refinement and introduction to partners outsider the doc sector. Submission deadline: September 19.

The 29th edition of Baltic Sea Docs concluded in the Latvian capital of Riga on 7 September, after a week of workshops, seminars, pitching sessions, and screenings. The co-production pitching forum featured 26 documentary projects from the Baltic Sea region, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus, and once again served as “a vital platform for creative documentary filmmakers to refine their projects and present them to leading industry professionals,” organisers write.

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.