News

There was big news in advance of today’s Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) and Screen Scotland Docs-in-Progress showcase in the Cannes Marché. Oscar winner Emma Thompson was announced as exec producer of one of the projects being presented, Felipe Bustos Sierra’s new doc Everybody To Kenmure Street. Celebrating direct action, the rousing film tells the story of how neighbours and activists came together to surround an immigration van holding two residents from one of Scotland’s most diverse communities.

Impact is at the core of Aline Juárez and Juan Francisco Donoso’s All We Have Is Us, which follows socio-environmental movements defending the Atacama Desert (Chile) and the Jadar Valley (Serbia) against increasingly pervasive lithium mining. "[This] is more than a documentary: this film will be a masterclass, a resource to foster dialogue, inspire action, and connect struggles across continents," says Juárez.

Capitán (Colombia/Spain) by Laura Otárola took home the DocsBarcelona Award for Best Project during the event’s May 15 awards ceremony. Gaza Sunbirds (Spain/Belg/UK) by Flavia Cappellini won the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Co-production Award. The awards ceremony marked the conclusion of DocsBarcelona Industry. This year’s edition brought together more than 750 accredited professionals from around the world for four days of pitching sessions, networking events, and many industry-oriented activities.

The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) is back at the Marché with a dedicated showcase of four documentaries to be presented at Cannes Docs May 19. “Our art and culture - and in particular, our cinema - have always played a fundamental role in protecting our narrative and reflecting our struggles as Palestinians over the past 77 years to merely exist,” says PFI Co-Founder, Legal Board and Programming Consultant Mohanad Yaqubi.

Docs Ireland will honour the late Irish cinematographer Ross McDonnell with the inaugural Ross McDonnell Cinematography Award. First events from the Industry Programme include a panel of leading industry cinematographers to include Kate McCullough and Magda Kowalczyk; a Spotlight on Poland, and the return of the Northern Ireland Screen Pitch and Docs Ireland Marketplace.

Finnish producer Pasi Hakkio (Wacky Tie) and director Joel Karppanen pitched the feature debut Labour Day, about the lives of food couriers operating within many of the world’s capitals. “We’re often told not to bite the hand that feeds us. But in the era of tech oligarchy, we feed the hand! Withdrawing from platforms isn’t an act of defiance against a benevolent provider — it’s reclaiming what was always ours,” says the director.

“This film is stitched to my heart and soul. There is blood in it – family - and roots that go back decades, tangled with the lives of the communities who welcomed us not as filmmakers, but as kin,” director Alejandro Valbuena (Curare Films, Canada/Columbia) tells BDE ahead of his rough-cut presentation of The Wind’s Thirst at DocsBarcelona Industry.

Homesick explores the personal journey of a Korean adoptee raised in a troubled Danish household. Tanja Inwol deploys visuals, imagination and considering writing skills to revisit her memories and peel back the intricate layers of transnational adoption. “Tanja and I have worked closely together since the beginning of her career, and our long-standing creative collaboration is one of the project’s key strengths,” producer Rikke Tambo Andersen tells BDE.

“Perhaps it was a final journey. A desire to remember the bond and love between a father and a son, just as despair was beginning to take hold,” producer Carlo Alpeggiani suggests the motivation behind Giacomo Boeri’s new film, about his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s. That said, it is his father’s quirky approach to life that helps the director tell the story of Alzheimer’s from both sides, Alpeggiani adds to BDE.

If documentaries at Cannes sail on a sea of fiction, then Pierre-Alexis Chevit’s Cannes Docs sidebar represents something of a safe harbour for all doccers, be they filmmakers, producers, sellers or docfests. Cannes Docs is furthermore a place with a clear and proud identity, Chevit tells BDE. “It is a strategic place of community gathering for all of us doc-believers, to stand our ground in Cannes and affirm, loud and clear, that docs are cinema. Period.”