Sunny Side 2025 will again be poignant for Paris/London/Barcelona-based sales outfit Java Films as they present the second Roch Bozino Engagement Award in honour of the company founder, who passed away in 2023. The €3,000 prize will be awarded to a project in the SSD Current Affairs & Investigation or New Voices categories.
“Naturally, when we first established this prize in Roch’s memory, our motivation was driven by strong emotions,” says Donatien Pierda, Distributor and Co-Director of Operations, Sales & Acquisitions at Java Films. “At the time, its purpose was still taking shape. Roch was a truly committed person who knew how to unite people around him and inspire them to take action. Watching the pitches last year and hearing the jury’s thoughtful discussion made it clear to us that this prize was ultimately about one thing: hope.”
“With this prize, we want to honour a project that inspires us — one that seeks to bring about change and gives us optimism for the world of tomorrow,” Pierda adds. “In the spirit of Roch, we want this project to be driven by a committed, inspiring, and determined team. We’re proud to be returning for 2025 and are looking forward to seeing what this year’s pitches will bring.”
SSD 2025 highlights
Highlights of Java’s SSD slate include Zelensky (directed by renowned French documentary filmmaker Yves Jeuland, respected French journalist Ariane Chemin, and historian and researcher Lisa Vapné) which had a Special Screening at Cannes 2025; Scandinavia: The New Cold War by Lauriane David, about how the Nordic countries are preparing for the threat of war from the East; Forbidden Call by Marie Mandy, about the rising clamour for the ordination of women into the priesthood; and The Social Trap: 5 Women vs The Big 5, about five women who have chosen to turn their daily lives upside down to fight back against the tech giants of Meta, Tiktok, Snapchat, X and Discord.
DOCROOM
Meanwhile, Java’s Digital Manager Polly Haythornthwaite filled in Business Doc Europe on the company’s new DocRoom initiative, located on YouTube, which was launched in May 2025 as a digital space for outstanding feature and impact documentaries.
DocRoom is “an experimental departure from the typical digital distribution model,” she explained in May. “Rather than pursuing a typical algorithmic strategy, in which posting a high volume of content is rewarded, instead we will be taking time to curate an individual, multi-platform digital marketing strategy for each release. Sharing external educational and impact materials with our audience will also come to be a key component of the channel’s framework.”
The key aims of the initiative are to bring exposure to the important issues covered in the company’s documentaries, to reach new audiences who weren’t targeted during the initial round of distribution and to prompt meaningful engagement with their films.
Talking to BDE on the eve of Sunny Side 2025 Haythornthwaite revealed that Lie To Me, the first film released on the platform (May 14), has had over 80,000 views to date across some 70 countries, in the process reaching some of the territories worst affected by the issues raised in the film (the OneCoin scam).
“Following on from the success of the film we hosted a live Q&A on Wednesday 11th June – hosted by Jamie Bartlett, tech journalist and host of the hit BBC podcast The Missing Crypotqueen. The event was an opportunity for the filmmakers (Bår Tyrmi and Dag Mykland) and some of the film’s most important characters to discuss the process of making the film as well as delving deeper into the heart of the scandal. We are beyond thrilled with the success of the film on DocRoom,” adds Haythornthwaite.
Java’s next release on DocRoom will be Shadow Game, which tells the story of every day teenagers who have fled their war-torn countries try to cross Europe’s borders in search of protection and a better life.
“The film perfectly embodies the DocRoom ethos, as an award-winning documentary with a strong impact focus,” Haythornthwaite underlines. “[It] was screened in the European Parliament following its release in 2021, and together with the boys from the film, the filmmakers presented the manifesto ‘Protect Children on the Move’ to the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Member States.”
