Sunny Side '21

Latvian director Dāvis Sīmanis discusses his cinematic quest to understand immortality with Business Doc Europe. “Whenever you are making a film about immortality, it means you are making a film about death,” he maintains.

When Armenian filmmaker Inna Sahakyan discovered the story of the extraordinary Aurora Mardiganian, a star of Hollywood’s silent era, when going through the Zoryan Institute archives, she finally found a way to tell her story of the Armenian genocide.

Kārlis Lesiņš gets aboard with Business Doc Europe to explain his latest doc project Nord Express, about the Rail Baltica project, the new (and increasingly complex) high speed rail line that is supposed to link the Baltic states with central and northern Europe.

Julia Fuhr Mann’s British Pathé Archive Award-winning project sets out to explore the utopian potential within the Olympic discipline of running, and sketches a world of sport beyond rigid gender images. Producer Melissa Byrne explains more to BDE.

1500 industry professionals from 58 countries (including 380 decision-makers) and 891 companies (68% of which were beyond French borders) took part in the 32nd Sunny Side of the Doc online. Meanwhile, the 5th edition of PiXii Festival was held across La Rochelle, while offering industry professionals a digital and physical programme. All winners.

Ahead of Sunny Side of the Doc’s June 21 kick-off, Director of Strategy and Development Mathieu Béjot emphasises his event’s core remit (“its DNA”) to forge co-production and co-financing opportunities and to underline how, more than ever, ‘storytelling matters.’