News

Head of Fipadoc Industry Bastien Gauclère and Head of Co-production Forum Ove Rishøj Jensen talk to BDE about their professional documentary event which kicks off the business year in Europe. “You really pitch into an industry with a lot of muscle,” says Rishøj Jensen of the 24-project International Pitch which is a core element of the programme. “If you come as a non-French producer…you pitch to a French documentary industry that has very good co-production opportunities.”

The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival will honour French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, “who dares to permeate the innermost depths of the human psyche,” and American director and photographer Lauren Greenfield, “who foregrounds the decay of the American nouveau-riche society,” during its 27th edition, running March 6-16.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced January 23 2025 the nominations in the documentary categories of the 97th Academy Awards®. Five films will now advance to each of the Documentary Feature Film and Documentary Short Film categories. One hundred sixty-nine films were originally eligible for consideration within the Doc Feature category, while 104 films qualified for consideration in the Short Doc category. In December 2024 the shortlists were whittled down to 15 films within each category.

The 20 international delegations include the Baghdad Film Institute and Basque Audiovisual. INTRO:DOX guest speakers to include Martijn te Pas, programmer and documentary consultant from e u R O P E doconsultancy; Kim Christiansen, Executive Producer of Documentaries and Co-productions at DR Sales, and Jane Mote, editorial consultant for The Whickers.

Visions du Réel announced January 23 that Brit filmmaker Asif Kapadia will be the opening speaker of the 23rd edition of VdR–Industry, the Festival’s four-day programme of activities designed for film professionals. The director, screenwriter and producer has won an Oscar (for Amy), a Grammy, a European Film Award and several BAFTAs. Kapadia will give a masterclass in Nyon on Sunday 6 April.

Leading documentary market Sunny Side of the Doc has revealed the 18 project selections for the SSD x LCM pitch sessions of the first LatAm Content Meeting, taking place from March 10–12 in Rio de Janeiro. The pitch sessions will be divided into three categories: Current Affairs & Investigation, Nature & Environment, and Factual Entertainment.

DocsBarcelona Industry, which will run May 12-16, has put out its final New Tech Pitch call for non-fiction projects using emerging technologies. The pitching session is organised in collaboration with the advanced arts festival Sónar+D. During the New Tech Pitch, up to six teams will have the opportunity to present their projects before an international panel of financiers and experts. Submission deadline: January 27.

GFF25 will close on 9 March with the world premiere of Scottish documentary filmmaker Martyn Robertson’s Make It To Munich, following remarkable Scots teenager Ethan Walker as he defies life-threatening injuries to cycle from Glasgow’s Hampden Park to Munich Football Arena for Scotland’s opening Euro24 match. Another world prem is Alex Holmes’s Hill about the relationship between F1 world champions (and father and son) Graham and Damon Hill.

As the awards mark their 10th anniversary, The Whickers celebrates a decade of supporting and nurturing emerging documentary filmmakers, with £1 million in prize money awarded to date. This year, Ibrahim Nash’at’s Whickers bursary winning film Hollywoodgate, is shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best International Documentary. “They made it happen,” Nash’at says of The Whickers.

In the Oscar short-listed feature documentary, when Will Ferrell finds out his close friend of 30 years is coming out as a trans woman, the two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship and transition. Director Josh Greenbaum discusses the film with Oscar-nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague, 2012).