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Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel has unveiled the 23rd edition of its industry program, a four-day must-go event for industry professionals, showcasing 28 projects from 28 countries and a record-breaking number of female directors.

While 75% of the selected works are either led or co-led by women, VdR continues its support for voices from the Global South with 40% of the projects including directors and producers from low-capacity countries.

The projects will be presented in four categories: VdR-Pitching with 14 projects in development, VdR-Work in Progress featuring six projects in their final production stages, VdR-Rough Cut Lab where four projects receive expert feedback on their edits, and VdR-Development Lab supporting four projects in early creative and production planning from the Global South.

Backed by the Swiss Development Cooperation, the Lab supports emerging filmmakers from low-production capacity countries with a nine-month mentorship program, financial aid and creative guidance, to help them build global networks...

The programme for Doclisboa’23 is now known; the festival will take place between 19 and 29 October at the usual venues: Culturgest, Cinema São Jorge, Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema and Cinema Ideal. In all, the 21st edition of Doclisboa is showing 250 films from 42 countries, including 35 world premieres and 39 Portuguese films. The films reveal the pulse of the world and those who inhabit it.

Doclisboa travels to the inside of the human brain through the lens of Werner Herzog (Theater of Thought), and to the pressing issues of work in The Liberated Broom, Listen to the Story I Was Told, by Coline Grando; delves into memories of past wars and to the current war in Ukraine; film archives; music; and dance.

The press conference was held this morning at Culturgest and was hosted by Miguel Ribeiro (Director of Doclisboa), Mark Deputter (Chairman of the Board – Culturgest), Marco Guerra (Head of the Cultural...

Eight feature documentaries and eight short docs have been selected as finalists for the 16th Doc Alliance Awards, presented by the Doc Alliance – the association of European documentary festivals.

The announcement of nominees was made today during Doc Day at the Marché du Film in Cannes. Each member festival chooses one feature and one short as its nominees, selected from among the program of their most recent events. The winners will be revealed at DokuFest in Prizren, Kosovo in August, where all the nominated films will screen. A three-person jury will choose the winners: Anna Berthollet, journalist and programmer Arnaud Hée (La Cinémathèque du Documentaire) and festival programmer Jonathan Ali.

The winning feature will earn a €5,000 prize, while the winning short will receive €3,000. Members of the Doc Alliance include Cph:Dox; Docslisboa; Dok Leipzig; FIDMarseille; Ji.hlava Idff; Millennium Docs Against Gravity Ff, Visions du Réel, and this year’s guest festival, DokuFest in Prizren, Kosovo.

Full list of Best Feature nominees:

a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-jonestown, Czech Republic, director: Jan Bušta, nominated

by Ji.hlava Idff

Christina (Kristina), Serbia, director: Nikola Spasic, nominated by FIDMarseille

Death of a City (A Morte de uma Cidade), Portugal, director: João Rosas, nominated

by Doclisboa

Disturbed Earth, Bosnia and Herzegovina/ North Macedonia/ Spain, directors:

Kumjana Novakova and Guillermo Carreras-Candi, nominated by DokuFest

Nights Gone By (Antier noche), Switzerland/ Spain, director: Alberto Martín

Menacho, nominated by Visions du Réel

Polish Prayers, Poland/ Switzerland, director: Hanka Nobis, nominated by Millenium

Docs Against Gravity

Silent Sun of Russia (Vi er Rusland), Denmark, director: Sybilla Tuxen, nominated

by Cph:dox

Three Women (Drei Frauen), Germany, director: Maksym Melnyk, nominated by

Dok Leipzig

Full list of Best Short nominees:

07:15 – Blackbird, France, director: Judith Auffray, nominated by Ji.hlava Idff

Adjusting (Prilagodjeni), Serbia, director: Dejan Petrović, nominated by DokuFest

Darkroom, Turkey, director: Asli Baykal, nominated by Visions du Réel

May the Earth Become the Sky (Face-s-ar pământul cer), Belgium/ Hungary/

Portugal/ Romania, director: Ana Vîjdea, nominated by Doclisboa

Nothing Runs Like a Deere, Sweden, director: Max Göran, nominated by Cph:dox

The cervix pass (Le passage du col), France, director: Marie Bottois, nominated by

FIDMarseille

waking up in silence, Germany/ Ukraine, directors: Mila Zhluktenko and

Daniel Asadi Faezi, nominated by Millenium Docs Against Gravity

Why my mum loves Russel Crowe, Netherlands, director: Emma van den Berg,

nominated by Dok Leipzig...

Ukrainian director Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies examines the ramifications of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by Russian forces as it passed over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers on board. With an intricate nonfiction narrative laid out by Liubyi and Mila Zhluktenko, Iron Butterflies confronts the political aftermath of this atrocity. Liubyi and Zhluktenko discuss the process of cutting Iron Butterflies, as well as their involvement in the Babylon’13 film collective. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]

The post “Develop a Workflow to Effectively ‘Play Ping-pong'”: Editors Roman Liubyi and Mila Zhluktenko on Iron Butterflies first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Ukrainian director Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies examines the ramifications of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by Russian forces as it passed over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers on board. With an intricate nonfiction narrative laid out by Liubyi and Mila Zhluktenko, Iron Butterflies confronts the political aftermath of this atrocity. Liubyi and Zhluktenko discuss the process of cutting Iron Butterflies, as well as their involvement in the Babylon’13 film collective. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]

The post “Develop a Workflow to Effectively ‘Play Ping-pong'”: Editors Roman Liubyi and Mila Zhluktenko on Iron Butterflies first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Selected films include Tina Satter’s ‘Reality’ with Sydney Sweeney in Panorama.

The Berlinale has revealed the first films that will play in its 2023 edition, announcing 14 features for the Panorama strand and nine for the youth-focused Generation section; plus a full move to Potsdamer Platz for the European Film Market, returning as a physical event for the first time since 2020.

The 14 Panorama titles include Reality, the feature debut of US filmmaker Tina Satter, which depicts a young woman confronted at home by the FBI, which leads her life to unravel. The film stars Sydney Sweeney, known for her roles in TV hits Euphoria,...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the first tranche of titles for its Panorama and Generation strands.

The Panorama lineup includes films from Ukraine, Yemen and about Iran. Of the 14 films selected, 11 are world premieres. There are new films by Sepideh Farsi, Jennifer Reeder, Tina Satter, Sacha Polak, Malene Choi and Ira Sachs.

The films selected for the Generation Kplus and Generation 14plus competitions include nine shorts and nine features, including 11 world premieres.

Stars featured in titles across the strands include Willem Dafoe, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulous, Leon Dai and Sydney Sweeney.

The festival takes place Feb. 16-26, 2023.

Panorama Titles

“Al Murhaqoon” (“The Burdened”)

by Amr Gamal. With Khaled Hamdan, Abeer Mohammed, Samah Alamrani, Awsam Abdulrahman, Shahd Algonfedy

Yemen/Sudan/Saudi Arabia

“Au cimetière de la pellicule” (“The Cemetery of Cinema”)

by Thierno Souleymane Diallo

France/Senegal/Guinea/Saudi Arabia

“El castillo” (“The Castle”)

by Martín Benchimol. With Justina Olivo,...

Interfilm International Short Film Festival Berlin is back with its 38th edition, running from the 15th to the 20th of November 2022. This year the regional focus will be on the cinematography of the Philippines, while the thematic focus Ghosts of Europe looks towards the EU. Interfilm dedicates also a spotlight program to Belarusian filmmaking, which courageously takes on the current regime.

To use the organisers’ words: “The competitions present themselves as usual politically, combative and at the same time empathetic and full of confidence. Great stories meet abstract animation, essayistic forms meet concrete narration. (…) Interforum is the place to discuss and learn, and various special programs and events round off the week dedicated to short film.“

You can find the full programme on the official website here.

Here are all the Asian titles:

International Competition

Anxious Body by Yoriko Mizushiri // France – Japan 2021

A Guitar in the Bucket by Boyoung Kim...

“Like an Island” (“L’îlot”), a hybrid documentary fable tinged with magical realism by Swiss director Tizian Büchi, has won the Grand Jury Prize at international documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland.

The debut feature had its world premiere at the festival, bearing testimony to the event’s reputation as a launchpad for new talent and its tradition for hybrid fiction-reality films. A total of seven first features are among the winners. It is the first time since 2013 that a Swiss film has picked up the festival’s top prize.

“A small urban island becomes the metaphor of contemporary Europe and lends itself to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences and barriers. A brilliant observation, a surprising wondering, that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms,” said the jury, composed of filmmaker Jessica Beshir, the winner of last year’s Grand Prix,...