Visions du Réel 25

Timely, but disappointing, Visions du Réel’s opening film Blame by Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei portrays three scientists who got caught up in the geopolitical and anti-scientific blame game surrounding the 2019 Covid outbreak. But taking just one side – even if it’s the right one – on an issue as fraught as the Covid pandemic merely makes for meagre storytelling.

There is a common misconception among the non-cognoscenti that being an ultra football fan equates to being a thug. Far from it, argues Swedish Ragnhild Ekner, herself an avowed fan of IFK Göteborg. Being an ultra is simply about unflinching, communal and very vocal devotion to the team, whether it be in Sweden, Morocco, Argentina or Indonesia. “I wanted to create a love letter to this phenomenon, give it the energy that I feel in the stadium, give it a body or some kind of shape,” she tells BDE of her feature doc receiving its international premiere in Nyon.

On an epic trek across the Mongolian steppes, young herders of the Tsakhir Valley try to keep their herd of hundreds of horses safe. “You could romanticise this group and focus on the poetry and the initiation aspect of the story of these boys and their pathway to manhood,” says Australian director Kasimir Burgess. “But perhaps just as relevant and even universal is that they’re a family business, like farmers in a way, who are just trying to get by in an increasingly hostile environment which is becoming so hard to predict because of climate change.”

German filmmakers Johannes Büttner and Julian Vogel had been researching potential projects about “utopian ideas from the right.” When Büttner discovered that his old school pal David was now a libertarian online influencer and spiritual healer who advocated a raw food diet to his followers, he knew he had found his way into the subject. The filmmakers talk to Business Doc Europe.

Swiss teenager Noah may have been in and out of correctional establishments for most of his life, but there is nothing correctional about the friendship he forged with Parisian director Matias Carlier. “On my side, I was simply there, listening. I didn’t judge him, I didn’t respond to his doubts, I didn’t try to correct him, the director tells BDE. “Where many people around him would lecture him, I simply remained present.”

In addition to four new docs world-premiering in official selection at Visions du Réel, the Polish doc industry will be represented in Nyon by a delegation of producers presenting six projects to the international professionals in tow. Polish producers will also be active on a co-production round table with fellow producers from Canada, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland and France.

On the eve of VdR-Industry 2025, Section Head Alice Burgin underlines her rationale to Business Doc Europe. “Despite the market maybe contracting, I think there is a big desire of filmmakers to make creative documentaries - the type of documentaries that Visions supports. We have carved out a very specific niche with certain filmmakers,” she says. “What I am excited about is trying to help these types of films find other pathways to their audiences.”

Visions du Réel will be particularly busy this year for Charlotte Ducos, Documentary & Marketing Strategies Consultant and Deputy Head of Festivals & Markets at Swiss Films. 31 films from Switzerland are selected for the Nyon doc event, and 15 new projects will be pitched over the coming days, including the SWISS FILMS Previews presentation of six new documentary films nearing completion and soon to be launched onto the festival circuit. Ducos talks to Business Doc Europe.

With the madness of March behind us (at least in terms of the number of doc fests on offer), April seems altogether calmer and more introspective, a state of mind that is reflected in the Visions du Réel 2025 programme. “We are much more focusing on cinematic and artistic approaches that suggest, I guess, a different kind of ambition. Basically, we are looking for shapes and ideas, authors and personal approaches more than topics,” says Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director.

When scientists Zhengli Shi, Linfa Wang and Peter Daszak linked the 2003 SARS outbreak to a bat cave in China, they wanted to warn the world of the dangers of a new pandemic. Instead, when COVID-19 closed the world down in 2020, they somehow ended up being blamed. It was a classic “Cassandra story” in which the messengers caught all the flak. “In a media landscape built on simplification and soundbites, it’s so f****** difficult for science to answer,” Frei tells BDE.