Visions du Réel

Oscar-nominated Petra Costa delivered a highly entertaining and provocative masterclass at VdR during which she discussed her feature films and motivations, specifically the ‘black hole’ of personal trauma.

Prizes follow successful conclusion of Pitching du Réel, Docs in Progress and Rough Cut Lab programmes, presented online this year.

Two people from very different backgrounds, finding each other despite social, religious and societal obstacles - a universal message delivered in a personal and unique story.

Plastic surgeon/artist Dr Han is the personification of the self-improvement phenomenon - a fascinating figure in a compelling soap movie about vanity gone wild.

Shot over four decades, Anerca, Breath of Life (Markku Lehmuskallio, Johannes Lehmuskallio, Anastasia Lapsui) is an ethnographic odyssey through the indigenous cultures of northern Europe and North America.

A harrowing one-hour seven-minute documentary that went criminally underreported by film journalists when it premiered at the Berlinale, and whose images have every right to become iconic.

In this Argentinian musical doc project, pitching at online Visions du Réel, real inmates at the Ezeiza Prison in Buenos Aires reconstruct scenes from their past lives and imagine their future through singing, dancing and performing.

In My Own Landscapes Antoine Chapon has created a film about one man’s form of escapism, a virtual world he helped create to prepare soldiers for the horrors of war.

Selections include Pripyat Piano (Czech Republic, Medium/Short Comp) and Wolves at the Border (Czech Republic, Grand Angle)

On 26 April leading festival personnel, including Vision du Réel’s Emilie Bujès and IDFA’s Orwa Nyrabia, gathered to talk online about how festivals may/should/could respond to the new reality under COVID-19.