Visions du Réel 24

New Industry Head Alice Burgin fills in Business Doc Europe on the 2024 professional programme running April 14-17. “A luxury of VdR Industry is that we have such a niche cinema that we are nurturing,” she says. “To actually be able to use your market as a platform to find these projects, but also to tailor buyers or financiers to that content, I think that is one fundamental thing we can do.”

If you go to Niscemi in Sicily, you’ll find both picturesque woodland and, very incongruously, a US base housing a Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite ground station. Right in front of it lives Valentina, a woman in her 20s, together with her parents. “In the beginning, it [the film] started as a story about the base. But then, as I was discovering that the fight was gone and there was no hope anymore, I met the family. I found their resistance [to the base] very interesting,” director Francesca Scalisi tells BDE.

A leading figure in independent Chinese cinema, and contemporary cinema more broadly, Jia Zhang-Ke will present a masterclass while the festival will screen a retrospective of his films. “The 55th Visions du Réel (12-21 April) will be my first trip to Europe after these four years. I feel like embracing the world again, as excited as a child about to go on a long trip for the first time. I am heading to Nyon, for cinema that reveals the world as it really is."

For lonely and troubled Canadian teenager Billy Poulin the video camera became the friend he never had when Lawrence Côté-Collins put him in the frame, inadvertently recording his worries, outbursts of anger and deep-rooted confusion and sadness. Years later, after he has been jailed for murder, the footage she [Lawrence] shot offers a striking insight into the inner turmoils of a young man whose life had taken the darkest of turns.

In Maria Stoianova’s feature doc debut she revisits the Ukraine of her childhood, as well as the world beyond, courtesy of the films that her father, a champion ice skater, shot on his video camera between 1986 and 1994. “I was selecting material for the film, hoping to understand our path from point A to point B. After 2022, it became clear that we were all already at point C, and this, of course, also influenced some of my choices,” she says of her film that world premieres April 13.

In Limbo (W zawieszeniu) is an intimate and insightful look at the war in Ukraine as seen from the viewpoint of a very particular family, and presented in very personal form. Set against other films from Ukraine which focus on frontline battles, the film is a welcome and moving glimpse into the lives of an ordinary family unit at the onset of the conflict.

Visions du Réel announced Feb 13 that American filmmaker John Wilson will be Special Guest for the festival’s 55th edition running 12-21 April. Wilson is largely recognised for his 2022 Primetime Emmy Award-nominated documentary series 'How To with John Wilson'. To accompany a selection of episodes from his series and earlier works, Wilson will take part in a public discussion, as well as curate a carte blanche.

Over CHF 100,000 of prizes were distributed to sixteen winning projects during the 2024 Visions du Réel Industry Awards Ceremony. The project The Last Days of the Hospital won the Eurimages Co-production Development Award (€20,000) while the Special Eurimages Co-production Development Award (€20,000) was handed to the Ukrainian project Fixing the War. The visions sud est award went to Hanz Rippe Gabriel, for their project The Shadow of Yolüja. All awards...

Mother Vera, which world-premieres in Nyon, follows the eponymous protagonist, a charismatic former heroic addict who had lived in an Orthodox monastery in Belarus for 20 years. “I felt very drawn to her quest,” co-director Embleton reflects on her subject. “She wants to experience all of life, and yet she was in this monastery.”

Swiss Films’ Doc topper Charlotte Ducos discusses the six projects nearing completion that have been selected for the SWISS FILMS Previews showcase of April 17. Most of the projects are just about ready to be launched onto the festival circuit. “I think we have a great diversity of storytelling and of background and among the six projects we have three women directors and three women producers. That's important for us,” Ducos underlines to Business Doc Europe.