Sunny Side '21

After 10 years, pioneering film executive and equal rights campaigner Anna Serner will be stepping down from her position as CEO of the Swedish Film Institute later this autumn. On the eve of Sunny Side Of The Docs, which will include her contribution to the June 21 Diversity panel, Serner looks back at a decade in which there has been huge change within the global film industry.

“Our mission is to use the power of storytelling to galvanise environmental justice and regeneration,” Jill Tidman, Executive-Director of the San Francisco-based Redford Center, tells BDE during Sunny Side, of the non-profit set up in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son James Redford, which has become a powerful force in the doc world.

Loose talk in a Warsaw restaurant brought down the Polish government, but the transcripts of those conversations, it seems, may have been made on the orders of the Kremlin. Konrad Szołajski’s investigative doc seeks to get to the heart of the matter.

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.

Isa Willinger’s new doc project stems from the assertion made by the late Ukrainian director Kira Muratova that “women are slaves, so they make vengeful films. They tell it like it is.” Willinger will set out to test this claim through discussion with some of contemporary cinema’s most fervent and articulate female voices. Producer Alex Tondowski talks to BDE.

Leading pitch forum revealed May 18 the official selection for its 32nd edition, plus the XR experiences shortlisted for the 5th PiXii Festival. “It’s sending out a strong message by shining the spotlight on diversity, independent voices and creativity at the international marketplace for documentary and narrative experiences!” say organisers.

After yesterday’s unveiling of Polish projects at Sunny Side’s Producers Meet Producers, today sees a presentation of Poland’s offer to the international doc community as a potential co-production partner. Polish Docs' Barbara Orlicz‐Szczypuła and Katarzyna Wilk explain more to Business Doc Europe.

Together with Central and Eastern Europe partners, IDF will present the region’s doc industries at Sunny Side plus a catalogue of 40+ projects. Additionally, it will publish results of a survey of CEE representation at key doc events, and will showcase new projects in development and production. Sunny Side also hosts the Ex Oriente workshop.

The Chilean offer at Sunny Side of the Doc includes the Chile-Canada miniseries Extreme of the Americas, about climate change, which is selected for the market’s Wildlife & Conservation pitch section, as well as four other new doc projects to be presented June 21 during the market’s Chilean presentation.

Jayson McNamara’s new doc tells the story of Nora Cortiñas, Argentina’s “godmother of democracy,” who was transformed from conservative “housewife” into trailblazing activist after the kidnap and disappearance of her son Gustavo in 1977, presumed murdered by the dictatorship. Nora’s inspirational activism has continued undiminished, McNamara tells BDE.