Visions du Réel '23

Visions du Réel Industry kicks off April 23 ahead of 5 days of intense but ‘relaxed’ activity, Industry head Sophie Bourdon tells BDE. Professionals will gather to do business, but they can also “step back a bit” from the renewed freneticism that inevitably followed the lifting of Covid restrictions. In 2023, 31 project teams from 32 countries will discuss their new and upcoming projects within the event’s core pitch and laboratory programmes.

Emilie Bujès, head of the Swiss doc fest Visions du Réel, outlines the appeal of an event that does more than most to extend the boundaries of documentary. The festival presents 163 films in 2023, and special guests include international luminaries Lucrecia Martel and Alice Rohrwacher, and Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron. “It’s more ‘visions’ than ‘réel’ in terms of what we are interested in,” Bujès tells BDE. “It’s more people looking at something, rather than the something itself.”

New York-based artist and filmmaker James N. Kienitz Wilkins has been collecting physical publicity slides from movies for a number of years. These stills are used in ingenious fashion in his new project Still Film (an international premiere at Visions). As the images, some of them very familiar, are projected on screen, a voice is heard on the soundtrack talking about memory, technology and cinema. The director talks to BDE.

It’s a horrible kind of limbo. You’ve lived your entire life in a country; you’ve studied there, paid taxes and maybe even bought a house and started a family. All the time, though, you know you can be deported. This is the plight that faces the “dreamers,” the estimated 2.5 million undocumented immigrants brought to the US as kids. Filmmakers Stéphanie Barbey & Luc Peter explain their new film. to BDE.

In total 33 prizes will be handed out for films and projects during the Festival and Industry Awards ceremonies held 26 and 28 April respectively. The headline International Feature Film Competition jury comprises Florence Almozini, David Epiney and Kleber Mendonça Filho who will deliberate over 14 films before handing out the Grand Jury Prize (CHF 20,000) and the Special Jury (CHF 10,000). All juries…

Portuguese Catarina Mourão’s new doc, world premiering at Visions du Réel, looks at an extraordinary, long concealed chapter in the life of its protagonist, Martim Santa Rita Masasri. Now in his late 50s, Martim was 15 he went to live and study in the Soviet Union, in Astrakan where he discovered sex and alcohol and fell deeply in love. When he returned to Portugal he bore deep psychological scars. The director explains more to BDE.

Produced by Hanne Phlypo of Clin d’oeil Films, the 6-part Flemish series about female cartoonists from global hot spots is directed by seven female directors. The first of the series, Behind The Lines (Alisar Hassan & Alaa Amer) from Syria, world-premiered at Canneséries in Documentary Competition. The feature version of Behind The Lines world premieres at Vision du Rèel 2023.

The winners of the professional section of VdR-Industry were unveiled during the award ceremony Wednesday 26 April. Hosted for the first time by Sophie Bourdon, VdR-Industry welcomed 1,600 professionals representing nearly 80 countries, a similar number to the record 2022 edition. More than 500 individual meetings were held over three days. All award winners follow…

It’s clear that Flemish filmmaker Pieter Van Eecke sees traces of himself as a youngster in the 13-year-old Bo, the effervescent main character of his new feature documentary Planet B, a world premiere in Grand Angle at Visions du Réel. She is a teenage climate activist who, together with her friend Luca, throws herself into protests. The director explains more to Business Doc Europe.

Scottish filmmaker Jane McAllister’s film chronicles a seismic moment in recent Scottish history, the ultimately doomed campaign for independence. The central character in the film is her dad Fraser, a Scottish National Party councilor. As soon as the director attended one of her father’s meetings, she was obsessed. “It felt like history was happening. I felt like I was in a position to document it. So I carried on from there,” she tells BDE.