News

Swiss composer Mirjam Skal was announced March 18 as the winner of the German Documentary Film Music Award 2025 for her music for the film VRACHT, directed by Max Carlo Kohal. The award is donated by the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung and is endowed with 5,000 euros. The winning film will be shown at the 40th DOK.fest Munich (7-18 May 2025).

Running April 3 to 13 in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the festival will showcase 85 productions from 30 countries. Ritas by Oswaldo Santana, will open the festival April 2 in São Paulo while the Rio de Janeiro opening will feature Viva Marília, by Zelito Viana, on April 3. The festival will also present retrospectives of Vladimir Carvalho and Humphrey Jennings.

The board of Apordoc has appointed Hélder Beja as the new Director of Doclisboa as part of a renewed structure that now includes Boris Nelepo as Co-Head of Programming, with Cíntia Gil continuing in the role of Associate Programmer. Beja is an arts journalist, editor, and screenwriter who co-founded and directed the Macau Literary Festival for seven editions (2012–2018), and has been one of the organisers of the biennial Asia Pacific Writers & Translators conference since 2019.

The Thessaloniki award makes the film eligible for the documentary category of the 2026 Academy Awards. The Silver Alexander in International Competition went to Free Leonard Peltier directed by Short Bull and David France, while Weronika Mliczewska’s Child of Dust, which follows a Vietnamese man search for his father - a former U.S. soldier - received a Special Mention. The Golden Alexander in Newcomers Competition was awarded to How to Build a Library, directed by Maia Lekow and Christopher King. All awards…

Swiss Focus was a new Impact Days initiative launched for this year’s edition - a space for connection and dialogue between Swiss impact stakeholders of all language regions, international Impact Days guests and Swiss filmmakers. The Impact campaigns of four projects were pitched, with the inaugural Swiss Focus Award (CHF 2,500, approx. €2,600) going to the project Nathalie by Tamara Milosevic. Report follows…

The 23rd edition of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) has wrapped “with resounding success,” selling out the majority of its screenings and drawing more than 31,000 attendees. Twelve films were awarded at the end of the 10-day event during which numerous experts gathered “to dissect current affairs, move beyond shock, and celebrate collective action.”

World-premiering in CPH:DOX HUMAN:RIGHTS Competition, The Lions by the River Tigris demonstrates how cultural heritage is the invisible casualty of any war. ISIS left the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in ruins after liberation. Today, a fisherman, a musician and a collector struggle to preserve what remains of the city's soul. The film is produced by Thorvald Nilsen of Indie Film Bergen (Norway).

The initiative was announced March 12 during the Agora of the 27th Thessaloniki Doc Fest. "Doc Together" aims to explore how displaced or exiled professionals can access funding, resources and industry support in their current locations or in their countries of origin if they are excluded from national funding opportunities or unable to receive support.

The Agora of the 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival handed out its Docs-in-Progress and Pitching Forum awards March 12. The main awards in Docs-in-Progress went to Magma (France, Algeria), Home Court (Greece, Netherlands, France, Bulgaria) and Tower, Sun and the Seven of Wands (Georgia), while the Hungarian Highways of Hope won the main IEFTA Award (€10,000) for Best Documentary in Development. All awards…

The Board of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) has appointed Karla Puttemans as its new managing director. A long-time staffer at VAF, she previously led the Dutch-language division of the authors’ association SACD/SCAM, which later evolved into De Auteurs, and headed the audiovisual department at the authors’ rights organization SABAM. Puttemans takes over from current director Koen Van Bockstal, who is stepping down earlier than expected due to health reasons, VAF wrote in a statement released March 11.