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This century, Catalonia has emerged as a region with a rich filmmaking tradition, supported by public investment in local artists and production companies. This commitment to nurturing talent and fostering growth has led to significant developments in the region’s industry, culminating in a contemporary state of affairs that sees Catalonia involved in every part of the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, where Spain is the honorary EFM Country in Focus.

Four Catalan productions have been selected for the festival’s official program, highlighting the region’s creative prowess. Eva Libertad’s debut feature, “Deaf,” based on the director’s Goya-nominated short of the same name, will premiere in the Panorama section, while Lucía G. Romero’s “Close to September” will screen in the Berlinale Shorts section. Two Catalan films play in Generation Kplus: Robin Petré’s “Only On Earth” and Karen Joaquín and Uliane Tatit’s “Juanita.”

Catalonia’s presence similarly...

The Berlinale is just the start of a big 2025 for Catalan films, filmmakers and companies. Several high-profile Catalan buzz titles are currently shooting or in post-production and are slated to debut later in the year, while others are presently kicking off promising festival runs.

Former Berlin Golden Bear winner Carla Simon (“Alcarràs”) will debut “Romería,” currently in post, about a woman’s journey to meet her biological father’s family after he dies of AIDS. It’s a hugely personal project as the disease took both of Simon’s parents’ lives when she was just six years old.

In commercial terms, especially domestically, few films have more box office potential than Borja Cobeaga’s “Los Aitas,” an all-ages comedy about a group of middle-aged dads accompanying their daughters on an international gymnastics trip.

Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s brutally stylish 1970s-set dark comedy “The Birthday Party” stars Willem Dafoe alongside an ensemble of top Spanish talent.

Like water taking the shape of any container in which it’s kept, Catalan cinema tends to work its way into every corner of a festival or marketplace in which it is present. This year’s European Film Market is no exception. Here’s a look at 10 Catalan titles set to make an impression at this year’s festival and market.

The highest profile appearance will be Eva Libertad’s debut feature, “Deaf,” based on a short of the same name, which world premieres in the Panorama section. Sold by Latido Films and produced by Distinto Films, A Contracorriente Films and Nexus CreaFilms, it’s based on Libertad’s Goya-nominated short of the same name.

Lucía G. Romero’s “Close to September” will world premiere in Berlinale Shorts. Produced by Escándalo Films, Filmax, Escac Films and Escac Studio, it centers on an imbalanced youthful romance.

Generation Kplus showcases two Catalan productions this year,...

Autlook Filmsales has acquired “Cutting Through Rocks,” winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the World Cinema Documentary Competition section at Sundance Film Festival. Autlook will host a market screening of the film at Berlin’s European Film Market.

The film was directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, and produced by Gandom Films Production.

It follows Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman of her Iranian village, as she challenges entrenched patriarchal norms by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and combating child marriages. When her motives are questioned, Sara faces a profound personal crisis.

Variety critic Siddhant Adlakha wrote: “The film’s irascible but deeply principled subject — thirty-something divorcee Sara Shahverdi — gives the film its energy, though its lulls aren’t quite as purposeful. However, despite feeling drawn-out, the doc features occasional bursts of visual panache that help emphasize its underlying story.”

Executive producers include Meadow Fund, Rebecca Lichtenfeld for InMaat Foundation,...

Cph:forum, the financing and co-production arm of documentary festival Cph:dox, has unveiled its lineup of projects, including those by director Tamara Kotevska, Oscar nominated for “Honeyland,” and producers Monica Hellström, Oscar nominated for “Flee,” and Sigrid Dyekjær, Oscar nominated for “The Cave” and an Emmy winner with “The Territory.”

Other projects include those by directors such as Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan (“Nocturnes”), Jennie Livingston (“Paris Is Burning”), Peter Middleton (“Notes on Blindness”), Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson, Margreth Olin (“Songs of Earth”), Anabel Rodriguez (“Once Upon a Time in Venezuela”), Mark Cousins (“The Story of Film: An Odyssey”), Robin Petré (“Only on Earth”), and Agnieszka Zwiefka (“Silent Trees”), along with producers such as James Paul Dallas (“Invisible Beauty”) and John Archer (“Bogancloch”).

The event, which runs March 24-27 in Copenhagen, Denmark, will bring together 75 directors and producers representing 26 countries who will take the stage to present 30 new documentary...

Vienna-based sales agency Autlook has acquired Robin Petré’s timely feature documentary “Only on Earth,” ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. The film is an immersive journey across Southern Galicia, an area of outstanding natural beauty but also one of Europe’s most vulnerable wildfire zones.

The feature documentary will premiere in Berlin’s Generation strand, after receiving the top Iefta Docs-in-Progress Award in Cannes last year.

During the hottest summer on record, both humans and animals struggle to cope as inextinguishable fires draw closer. Wild horses have roamed the Galician mountains for centuries, playing a crucial role in fire prevention by curbing flammable undergrowth – but their numbers are dwindling as human development clashes with nature.

“Only on Earth” reflects on the delicate balance of our natural world and the relationship between humans and animals through the eyes of a young cowboy, a seasoned fire analyst,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced the full lineup for its 2025 Generation section, which highlights children and youth films.

The Generation 14plus 2025 competition will open with Christy, directed by Brendan Canty. The film portrays a teenage boy from Cork, Ireland, navigating the shadows of his family’s past while seeking a place in the world. In the Generation Kplus section, the opening film The Nature of Invisible Things explores a community’s support for two girls as they grapple with moments of farewell and new beginnings.

The competition lineup features Seaside Serendipity by Satoko Yokohama, an episodic film set on a nameless Japanese island, which blends magical realism with everyday life, questioning the intersection of art and life. Also highlighted is Wrong Husband by Zacharias Kunuk, which transports viewers to a mystical world in the Canadian Arctic, where human and spirit realms collide in a fairy tale about young love.

The Berlin Film Festival has confirmed that Bong Joon Ho’s Robert Pattinson movie “Mickey 17” will play at the festival, in the Berlinale Special section, alongside a new – and equally glitzy — addition, Justin Kurzel‘s series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” starring Jacob Elordi.

Variety first reported last week that “Mickey 17” would have its international premiere at Berlinale.

“The Narrow Road of the Deep North” will world premiere at the festival. Adapted from Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel, the highly anticipated series stars Elordi as a celebrated World War II hero who is haunted by his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and memories of an affair that took place just before the war.

Also joining the Berlinale Special roster is “The Thing with Feathers,” Dylan Southern’s film starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Richard Boxall. The movie, which will have its European premiere at the fest,...

Danish-Spanish co-production “Only On Earth,” by award-winning Danish filmmaker Robin Petré, has picked up the top Iefta Docs-in-Progress Award at Cannes Docs, the Cannes Film Market sidebar dedicated to documentary film.

The film forms part of the Five Nordics Showcase, one of eight showcases presenting a total of 34 docs-in-progress this year. The others include Chile, Scotland, Palestine Circle Women Accelerator, Docs By The Sea, the East Doc Platform, and newcomer Switzerland.

“Only On Earth” is described as a journey deep into southern Galicia in Spain, one of Europe’s most vulnerable wildfire zones, during the hottest summer ever measured, where humans and animals alike struggle to cope as inextinguishable fires draw closer.

Composed of Pov senior producer Opal H. Bennet, head of documentary at Ims in Copenhagen, Rasmus Steen, and Ridm artistic co-director Ana Alice de Morais, handing out the award the jury stated:

“The project stood out with its exceptional combination of craft,...

Catalan titles will be in no short supply at this year’s Cannes Festival and Marché du Film. Below, a near dozen titles that hope to impress at this year’s event.

“Blue Sun Palace,” (Constance Tsang)

Tsang’s debut feature, shot in New York, world premieres at this year’s Critics’ Week. Field Trip Media and Big Buddha Prods. produce this film about two migrants who work at a massage parlor in Queens. Co- produced by Catalonia’s Marta Cruañas (“Creature”).

Sales: Charades

“Daniela Forever,” (Nacho Vigalondo)

Vigalondo helms this English language romantic drama about loss and memory, reminiscent of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Producers include Mediacrest, Sayaka, XYZ Films, Wrong Men and Señor & Señora.

Sales: XYZ Films

“Misericordia,” (Alain Guiraudie)

French director Guiraudie, behind 2013 Queer Palm winner “Stranger by the Lake,” will bow his latest film in the Cannes Premiere section. This French-Catalan co-production received...

Iryna Tsilyk’s documentary offers a female perspective on the war in Ukraine.

Iryna Tsilyk’s Red Zone received a special €20,000 Eurimages development award at Cph:dox, as part of the Cph:Forum industry winners on March 23.

The first-time award was given in support of and solidarity with the Ukrainian film industry, to the best pitch by a Ukrainian film.

It was selected by jurors Emma Scott, head of distribution and short film production at Screen Ireland, plus producers Rikke Tambo Andersen of Tambo Film and Heino Deckert Makri of ma.je.de.

The jurors praised an “innovative look at the inner...

Three projects pitched at Cph:forum – the industry program of Cph:dox, the Copenhagen-based documentary festival – have been awarded cash prizes. They are Robin Petré’s “Only on Earth,” Iryna Tsilyk’s “Red Zone” and Yegor Troyanovsky’s “Cuba & Alaska.” The filmmakers were awarded at a ceremony in the Danish capital on Thursday.

Petré’s “Only on Earth” garnered the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award worth €20,000 for best pitch. The docu, produced by Signe Skov Thomsen, and Malene Flindt Pedersen, depicts a journey deep into one of Europe’s hottest fire zones, Galicia, where wild horses roam the mountains under the watch of local cowboys. These horses are excellent at fire prevention, but now they are vanishing in the clash between humans and nature.

Emma Scott, Rikke Tambo Andersen (producer at Tambo Film) and Heino Deckert Makri (producer at ma.ja.de.) made up the team of jurors for the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award.

Cph:dox also sets work-in-progress, Change co-production selections.

New feature documentaries from Honeyland director Ljubomir Stefanov and Ascension filmmaker Jessica Kingdon are among the 33 projects selected for Cph:Forum, the financing and co-production market of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.

Macedonian filmmaker Stefanov is presenting House of Earth, about a transgender sex worker who returns to her Roma community after 30 years on the run, only to be torn between her biological kin and her chosen queer family. The Macedonian-us co-production is produced by Maya E. Rudolph and Sarah D’hanens, and is looking for €405,000 funding to supplement its €45,000 in place from Louverture Films and private equity.

Eva Orner’s Burning is the winner of Sydney Film Festival’s inaugural Sustainable Future Award.

Selected from eight nominees, the $10,000 cash prize will be presented to the Amazon Australian Original for deepening the knowledge and awareness of the impact of the global climate emergency.

The award, which has been funded by climate activists, is philanthropically motivated.

Burning, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), looks

at the unprecedented and catastrophic Australian bushfires of 2019-2020 from the perspective of victims of the fires, activists and scientists.

Produced by Propagate Content, Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Amazon Studios, the film marks Amazon’s first feature-length Australian documentary commission. In addition to directing, Orner produces with Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, and Jonathan Schaerf.

Burning was selected as the winner by a jury of filmmakers and climate advocates: school student and Strike4Climate activist Natasha Abhayawickrama; documentary filmmaker Bettina Dalton...

Blerta Basholli’s ‘Hive’ and Ninja Thyberg’s ‘Pleasure’ are among the films screening.

Blerta Basholli’s Hive is one of 10 female-directed features chosen for the Sydney Film Festival and European Film Promotion’s sixth Europe! Voices of Women in Film initiative.

Screen is a media partner on the initative

The Sydney Film Festival is set to take place in-person from November 3-14, having been postponed twice – from June and August – due to concerns over rising Covid-19 cases in the. Australian city. Last year’s Europe! Voices Of Women in Film event took place virtually.

Basholli, who is from Kosovo,...

Sydney Film Festival today announced the 10 shorts to compete in the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films, including Jon Bell’s SXSW-winner The Moogai and Nash Edgerton’s follow-up to Bear and Spider – Shark, starring himself and Rose Byrne.

Also unveiled today are the films selected for the festival’s sixth annual Europe! Voices of Women strand, in partnership with European Film Promotion.

These are the first projects to be announced for Sff since it postponed its dates from August to November due to the Covid outbreak in Nsw, with 22 titles also publicised earlier this year.

The Dendy Awards are Australia’s longest running short film competition, now in its 52nd year.

Finalists compete for three prizes: The Dendy Live Action Short Award, The Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director and the Yoram Gross Animation Award, announced at the festival’s closing night. The jury will be announced closer to the festival.

Environmental feature is nominated for the Berlinale Documentary Award.

Copenhagen-based Dr Sales has sealed fresh deals for Berlinale-selected documentary From The Wild Sea.

The film has sold to Japan (Nhk), Australia and New Zealand (Madman), Sweden (Smogasbord Picturehouse), and Taiwan (Fubon Cultural and Education Foundation).

Robin Petré’s debut feature documentary was first seen in March at the online, industry-only Berlinale in the Generation 14plus strand. It will screen at the physical edition of the festival’s Summer Special, which takes place from June 9-20. It is also one of 16 nominees for the Berlinale Documentary Award, handpicked by artistic director Carlo Chatrian.

Climate protection, the growing threats to ocean life, the FBI’s smear campaign against Martin Luther King Jr. and the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi death squad are just some of the wide-ranging topics examined at this year’s Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:Dox), which kicks off Wednesday.

Since its establishment in 2003, the fest has straddled the sectors of film, politics, art and science like few others.

Among this year’s highlights are Phie Ambo’s opening film “70/30,” an up-close look at the combined efforts to pass Denmark’s landmark climate law, and fellow Danish filmmaker Robin Petré’s “From the Wild Sea,” which follows a team of volunteers in northern Europe struggling to save animals suffering from human-made catastrophes, from oil-covered swans and stranded whales to starving seals with stomachs full of plastic.

Also screening is Bryan Fogel’s acclaimed work on Khashoggi’s barbaric assassination,...

Copenhagen-based Dr Sales has picked up world rights to the Faroe Islands-set coming-of-age documentary “Skál,” produced by established production outfit Made in Copenhagen. Variety has been given exclusive access to the international trailer.

Co-helmed by Danish-born Cecilie Debell (“My Mother Is Pink”) and Faroese debutant Marie Tórgarð, “Skál” marks the first time ever a documentary about the picturesque Faroe Islands, in the middle of the North Atlantic, has been given a main competition ticket at an A festival – Copenhagen’s Cph:Dox (April 21-May 12).

The film captures the search for identity and hunger for change among the younger generation of Faroese people, who feel suppressed by social norms and control, in a tight community of 53,000 souls where religion plays a major role.

For one and a half year, the co-directors have followed 21 year old Dania, brought up in a Christian community as she falls for hip hop artist and poet Trygvi,...

If one is curious about the best in documentary filmmaking, there’s no better place to experience it each year than the True/False Film Fest, based in Columbia, Missouri. After last year’s edition was one of the final in-person festivals before the pandemic hit in full force, they are now returning a bit later this year, specifically from May 5-9, with a hybrid edition.

This year, there will be outdoor screenings in Columbia with four outdoor amphitheaters well as at a drive-in. Seven of the features will also screen virtually with a “Teleported” option, as noted with the Ttf designations below. Featuring work by Theo Anthony, Jessica Beshir, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, and more, Check out the feature lineup below with a hat tip to Filmmaker Magazine, and see the shorts selections here.

All Light, Everywhere | Dir. Theo Anthony; 2021; 106 min (United States)

T/F alum Anthony continues his quest to destabilize the essay film,...

One of the first scenes from Robin Petré's From The Wild Sea shows the act of releasing rescued and cured seals into the wild. A group of volunteers and specialists regularly scout the inaccessible windy English coasts, trying to save the animal remnants of wild nature, struggling with man and his waste. After the cages are opened, the seals sluggishly crawl out onto the cold sand, reluctantly and slowly heading back to the sea. As if they know that in a moment they would need help again, as if they did not want to return to their home: less wild and more covered with plastic everyday.

This scene involuntarily evokes associations with the famous sequence from Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End Of The World from 2007, which observes the walk of a lonely penguin that, with hopeless determination, goes in the opposite direction then the flock, striding to meet the unknown.