News

Vienna-based sales agency Filmdelights presents two films in IDFA official selection - Dear Beautiful Beloved by Juri Rechinsky and Personale by Carmen Trocker - as well as acclaimed filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić’s new project Blum and Eva Kübar’s My Partners as part of their Docs for Sale slate. “To put it simply, our editorial policy comes down to films we find interesting and that resonate with us,” Christa Auderlitzky, Managing Director tells BDE.

Leading doc sales agent Esther van Messel, founder and CEO of Zurich-based First Hand Films, arrives in Amsterdam this year with an IDFA international competition title on her slate. Writing Hawa, from director Najiba Noori, is the story of an Afghan woman who refuses to abandon her dreams finally to learn how to read and start a business after the Taliban sweep back to power. Van Messel talks to BDE.

Eight projects that are “ready to premiere soon and start their festival lives” will be presented 15.30 at LAB 111. Over the past 13 years, 14 films developed at the dok.incubator rough cut workshop have been selected for Sundance, while two were nominated for Emmy Awards. This year three are selected for Best of Fests at IDFA 2024 (A Sisters’ Tale, Agent of Happiness and We Are Inside).

Chiledoc, responsible for the global promotion of Chilean documentary talent, films and series, arrives in Amsterdam with two projects in Forum, the world-prem of Ancestral Secret VR in DocLab, a world and European premiere in Short Film Comp and The Fabulous Gold Harvesting Machine in Best of Fests. “Europe is a significant territory for Chilean films because it has the most prominent partners for the kind of films we make and because European audiences are very committed to our stories,” says Head of Chiledoc Diego Pino Anguita.

The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) has expressed its “support and deep concern” for Uyghur filmmaker Ikram Nurmehmet, whom the Chinese authorities have sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison on politically motivated and unfounded claims of ‘actively participating in terrorist activities.’ “The ICFR strongly condemns the treatment and proceedings of the authorities, and calls on the Chinese government to release Ikram Nurmehmet immediately,” the organisation writes.

Norwegian Benjamin Ree’s The Remarkable Life of Ibelin won the Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary and The Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary at Sundance 2024. The film tells of gamer Mats who died of the degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25 - and the astonishing legacy he left behind in the online world. Ree discusses his film with double-Oscar© nominee Jonas Poher Rasmussen.

After a long and successful tenure as Artistic Director, Orwa Nyrabia will be stepping down from his role at IDFA at the end of his current term in the summer of 2025, the festival announced November 7. He announced his decision jointly with the organization in the run-up to the 2024 festival edition from November 14-24, making this upcoming edition the seventh and last under his leadership. Nyrabia will remain in place until July 1, 2025 to ensure a smooth transition, the festival writes.

Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias; Dahomey by Mati Diop; In Limbo by Alina Maksimenko; No Other Land by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra & Hamdan Ballal, and Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d‘Etat were unveiled November 5 as the 5 nominees in the European Documentary category of the 37th European Film Awards. All 5 are also nominated in the European Film category. The winners will be revealed in this year’s award ceremony on 7 December in Lucerne, Switzerland.

At Ji.hlava 2024, Business Doc Europe chatted with Michal Sikora, one of this year’s Emerging Producers. A Czech producer based in Prague, he established his company, Lonely Production, nine years ago during his studies at FAMU. During our conversation, Sikora discussed his new projects and the joys and pains of the producer’s job.

The festival welcomed a total of 55,000 filmgoers this year – more than ever before. Last year, the festival attracted 45,500 filmgoers. The previous record (48,000) was set in 2019, the year before the pandemic. This enabled “lively discussions in sold-out cinemas and memorable feedback for the numerous filmmakers who came here from all over the world,” comments Festival Director Christoph Terhechte. “This is a good sign for cinema screenings of documentaries and animated films.”