News

For the 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony, the International Documentary Association returned to a live event held December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The show was also livestreamed on IDA’s YouTube channel. (The nominees and winners are here.)

The ceremony, this year hosted by Adam Conover, has long served as an annual celebration for the documentary community.

The IDA received more than 700 entries from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. IDA Documentary Awards entries were reviewed by jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from more than 40 countries. IDA members had access to stream nominees and winners in the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories until December 31, 2024.

At this year’s ceremony, American documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter received the Career Achievement Award; Shiori Ito (“Black Box Diaries”) received the Emerging Filmmaker Award; and the four...

It’s been an extraordinary week for No Other Land, the timely documentary directed by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.

The film set in the occupied West Bank won Best Feature Documentary at the 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday and it also won the Best Director prize for the work of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham. The quartet of filmmakers also received the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, a previously announced honor recognizing the difficult and dangerous conditions in which the film was made.

No Other Land swept most of the awards announced this week: on Monday, it won Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards, and on Tuesday, the New York Film Critics Circle named it the best documentary of the year. It won the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award on Wednesday, although Sugarcane won the...

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards took place Dec. 5, 2024 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Adam Conover, and celebrated the best nonfiction films and programs of the year. See the full list of 2024 IDA Awards winners below.

Heading into the evening, “Sugarcane” led all nominees with five, including Best Feature Documentary, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four. The ceremony takes place from 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Pt and we will continue to update winners throughout the night. You can live stream the ceremony on documentary.org and on the IDA’s YouTube channel.

The ceremony started with presenting “No Other Land” with two special honors: The Pare Lorentz Award and the Courage Under Fire Award. The Emerging Filmmaker Award went to “Black Box Diaries” director Shiori Itô. The ABC News Video Source Award went to “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

The Academy has unveiled the list of feature films that are eligible for consideration in the animated feature, documentary feature Film, and international feature at the 2025 Oscars.

In animation, 31 films will vie for one of the five spots, including “The Wild Robot,” “Inside Out 2,” “Memoir of a Snail,” “Flow,” and “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”

In documentary feature, 169 films are eligible. Among them are “No Other Land,” “Daughters,” “Martha,” “I Am: Celine Dion,” and “Dahomey,” which is Senegal’s submission for international feature.

In international feature, there are 85 hopefuls, including frontrunner “Emilia Pérez” (France), “I’m Still Here” (Brazil), “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Germany), “Kneecap” (Ireland), and “Flight 404” (Egypt).

The shortlists of 15 films for documentary and international features will be released on Tuesday, Dec. 17.

Oscar nominations will be announced on Friday, Jan. 17. The 97th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will be held on Sunday, March 2 at 7 p.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has pulled back the curtain on the films eligible for consideration in the Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature categories for the 97th Academy Awards next year.

The list includes 31 toon features, 169 docs and international pics from 85 countries. Preliminary voting for the 97th Oscars runs December 9-13, and all three shortlists will be revealed December 17. The Oscars will be handed out Sunday, March 2, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.

Here are the animated, documentary and international features eligible for the 2024 Oscars:

Best Animated Feature

Art College 1994

Captain Avispa

Chicken for Linda!

The Colors Within

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

Despicable Me 4

Flow

The Garfield Movie

Ghost Cat Anzu

The Glassworker

The Imaginary

Inside Out 2

Kensuke’s Kingdom

Kung Fu Panda 4

Living Large

Look Back

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

Mars Express

Memoir of a Snail...

The Academy has unveiled its list of eligible films for the 97th Oscars in the animated, documentary, and international feature categories, spotlighting various blockbusters and critically lauded works. Submissions span major studios and independent filmmakers alike, and the competition promises to be one of the most competitive as films seek nominations.

A total of 31 animated feature films are in contention this year, including DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot,” IFC Films’ “Memoir of a Snail,” and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” which recently became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. While this year’s number is slightly down from 33 submissions in 2023, it marks an increase from the 27 entries in 2022, reflecting a robust year for animation. Among the list also is Janus Film and Sideshow’s “Flow,” which will also compete in the international feature race for Latvia.

Nominees in the Animated Feature category are determined by the Academy’s Animation Branch members,...

There are 31 animated films, 85 international films and 169 documentaries competing in the 2024 Oscar races for Best Animated Feature, Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature, the Academy announced on Thursday.

In the animated feature category, contenders include “Flow,” “Inside Out 2,” “Memoir of a Snail,” “Piece by Piece,” “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rorhirrim,” “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” and “The Wild Robot.”

In the international category, the list includes “Emilia Perez,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and “I’m Still Here.” The list of eligible films was reported exclusively by TheWrap in October.

In documentaries, the field includes “Sugarcane,” “Dahomey,” “No Other Land,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” “Black Box Diaries” and “Daughters,” among many others.

In all three categories, Academy members are given lists of films that are required viewing, but are eligible to view and vote for films outside their lists as...

A total of 31 animated features, 169 documentary features and 85 international features are eligible for Oscar nominations this season, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed on Thursday.

In the animated feature category, high-profile studio films like Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and Universal/DreamWorks’s The Wild Robot and acclaimed indies like Memoir of a Snail are joined in the running by longer shots like The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, a film jettisoned by Warner Bros. that wound up with the distributor Ketchup Entertainment.

The documentary feature race, meanwhile, includes titles that have dominated at the doc community’s precursor awards, including Nat Geo’s Sugarcane, Netflix’s Daughters and MTV’s Black Box Diaries; two that count Malala Yousafzai as an executive producer, Apple’s Bread & Roses and The Last of the Sea Women, and two that count Jennifer Lawrence as an EP,...

“Sugarcane” earned a leading five nominations, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four for the 40th annual International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. These Oscar precursors will be celebrated in a ceremony on Dec. 5 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. See the full list of nominees below.

Among this year’s IDA nominees for Best Feature, only “Sugarcane” was also nominated for the top prize by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Nominees in Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories have been selected from the shortlists previously announced. IDA members will have access to view each of the nominated films and can begin voting on November 19, 2024.

IDA has been an inconsistent, but important precursor for the Oscars. Last year, only one of the IDA top 10 went on to contend for Best Documentary Feature: “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” lost that Oscar race to “20 Days in Mariupol.

“Sugarcane,” the documentary about the mistreatment of Indigenous children in Canada, has received the most nominations at yet another awards show for nonfiction features, picking up five noms to lead the field at the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards.

In nominations announced on Tuesday, the film by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie was nominated in the Best Feature Documentary category, as well as for its directing, cinematography, editing and musical score. It had previously led in nominations at the Cinema Eye Honors and Critics Choice Documentary Awards as well.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” received four nominations, while “Black Box Diaries” and “Queendom” each received three.

In the Best Feature Documentary category, those four films were nominated alongside “Agent of Happiness,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.”

Additional nominations were made in the episodic series,...

Sugarcane earned a leading five nominations as the IDA Documentary Awards announced its nominees today, followed closely by Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat with four.

Black Box Diaries, My Sweet Land, and Queendom earned three nominations apiece. Also earning multiple nominations were Agent of Happiness, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon, and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin – each with two nominations.

Sugarcane’s nods came for Best Documentary Feature and Best Director, recognizing the work of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, as well as nominations for cinematography, editing, and score. The National Geographic documentary investigates the systematic abuse of Indigenous children who attended a so-called “Indian Residential School” in British Columbia.

‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’s recognition came in the Best Documentary Feature category, as well as Best Director for Johan Grimonprez, Best Editing, and Best Writing. The film from Kino Lorber looks at how the U.

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards has officially unveiled its list of nominees, including this year’s most beloved and buzziest documentary features. The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the nominations in 14 categories for the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be streamed live on documentary.org and on the IDA YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. The awards show will be hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Adam Conover.

This year, IDA received more than 700 entries in all categories from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. All IDA Documentary Awards entries were selected by jurors from over 40 countries; the shortlists for the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories were previously announced on October 24.

The IDA will honor prolific documentarian Dawn Porter with the Career Achievement Award.

Sugarcane leads the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards nominees.

The film about the abusive legacy of Catholic-run Native American missionary schools racked up five nods, including for best feature.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat scored four nods and three titles — Queendom, Black Box Diaries and My Sweet Land — landed three nominations apiece.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom and Black Box Diaries are up for best feature alongside Dahomey and double nominees Agent of Happiness, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.

And the directors of Sugarcane, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom, Black Box Diaries and No Other Land are all up for best director.

This year’s IDA Documentary Awards nominees were selected from more than 700 entries from 77 countries, both up from last year, and, in the feature and shortlist categories, were chosen from shortlists announced on Oct.

This year’s Dharamshala International Film Festival is showcasing the talents of female directors from across Asia and around the world. Twenty-four of the 45 feature films being presented at the November event in India will be directed by women. Festival director Ritu Sarin says she is “proud” of the strong female representation in the diverse selection of films.

The opening night film on November 7th will be “All We Imagine as Light” by Indian director Payal Kapadia. Her film secured the prestigious Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. India has not had a Palme d’Or competition entry in 30 years. The closing night honors on November 10th go to “Pooja, Sir” by Nepali director Deepak Rauniyar, which recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Notable international films include “Separated” by acclaimed American documentarian Errol Morris and Golden Lion winner “The Room Next Door” from Spanish master Pedro Almodóvar.

India’s Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff) has unveiled its lineup for its 13th edition, with female filmmakers helming more than half of the feature selections. The festival, running Nov. 7-10, will screen over 80 films from 28 countries.

Opening the festival is Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” which nabbed the Grand Prix at Cannes and marked India’s first Palme d’Or competition entry in three decades. Deepak Rauniyar’s “Pooja, Sir,” fresh from its Venice premiere, will serve as the closing night feature.

The international slate includes Venice titles “Separated” from Errol Morris and Pedro Almodóvar’s Golden Lion winner “The Room Next Door.” The festival secured Busan New Currents Award recipient “Ma – Cry of Silence” by The Maw Naing and “Agent of Happiness” by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, which topped Biografilm 2024.

Notable Indian selections feature Sundance Audience Award winner “Girls Will Be Girls” by Shuchi Talati,...

Sundance Institute and Gold House have named the 10 recipients of the One House Filmmakers Fund.

The fund is designed to provide unrestricted financing, educational support and amplification for filmmakers from historically underrepresented communities.

The 10 filmmakers are Pierre Coleman (“Ricky”), Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan (“Hum”), Colette Ghunim (“Traces of Home”), Julia Kennelly (“Clare”) Sofian Khan (“Karachi Sky”), Naomi Ko (“Marry Korean”), April Maxey (“Work”), John Sutter (“Planet A”), Angela Tucker (“The Inquisitor”) and Jing Wang (“Ride With Delivery Workers”).

The news was announced at the One House Filmmakers Fund Soiree, hosted by Sundance Institute, Gold House and East West Bank Foundation on Saturday, Oct. 26. The event also featured a special pitch session, where the 10 filmmakers were given an exclusive opportunity to pitch their projects to financiers and distributors.

Dominic Ng, chairman and CEO of East West Bank, said, “We are proud to partner with Gold House and Sundance Institute to support the One House Filmmakers Fund.

For generations, people have come to Hot Springs, Arkansas to enjoy its thermal springs and elegant bathhouses. But around this time of year, they’re drawn to the historic spa town for another attraction – the longest running documentary film festival in North America.

The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival wraps up its 33rd edition this weekend with a screening of Luther: Never Too Much, Dawn Porter’s film about the late singer-songwriter Luther Vandross.

Over the course of nine days, Hsdff, a program of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, has screened world premieres, works in progress, Oscar-contending films, and more – a slate from as far away as Bhutan and Ethiopia, and as close as Arkansas itself.

The International Documentary Association today released its shortlist of contenders for Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary, a possible harbinger of Oscar success.

Among the features making the list is No Other Land, a documentary by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that has yet to secure U.S. distribution. It has won awards at festivals from Berlin and Busan to Belfast and beyond.

Queendom, a film about the extraordinary Russian drag performance artist Jenna Marvin continues its surge, making the IDA shortlist after securing a place on the Doc NYC shortlist of the year’s best documentaries.

National Geographic’s Sugarcane, about atrocities at a so-called Indian residential school in Canada, continued its strong pre-Oscar awards run by making the IDA list of contenders. Netflix made the list with The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a strong Oscar contender. And MTV Documentary Films earned a spot with Black Box Diaries,...

“Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane” are among the 20 nonfiction films that have made the shortlist for the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards, the IDA announced on Thursday morning.

The shortlisted features come from 21 different countries and include works by Mati Diop (“Dahomey”), Raoul Peck (“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”). The IDA’s feature shortlist is typically idiosyncratic in that it doesn’t include several of the most acclaimed and highest-profile nonfiction films of the year, including “Will & Harper,” “Daughters,” “Piece by Piece,” “Mountain Queen” and “Union.”

Of the 20 films on the IDA shortlist, eight also appeared on the Doc NYC list of likely awards titles: “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” Queendom,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane.”

The IDA’s shortlist...

The International Documentary Association (IDA) has revealed which 20 feature-length and 20 short documentaries have made it onto the shortlists for the 40th IDA Documentary Awards.

Among the films that have a shot at becoming a nominee at the upcoming awards ceremony set to take place on December 5, 2024 at The Orpheum Theater in Downtown Los Angeles are major Best Documentary Feature contenders like “Sugarcane” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” as well as titles that have been harder to come by, like “Brisa” and “Kamay.”

As part of the announcement, Dominic Asmall Willsdon, IDA’s Executive Director, said via statement, “The 40th IDA Documentary Awards continues the tradition of celebrating the best of international nonfiction media of the year. We are grateful to all filmmakers who shared their work for consideration this year, representing a record amount of countries in the award’s history. The impressive shortlist for Best Features and Best...

Amit Dutta’s hand-drawn animation “Rhythm of a Flower” (Phool Ka Chand) has won the Mami Mumbai Film Festival’s Golden Gateway Award, the event’s top accolade.

The film is a biopic chronicling the twilight years of Indian classical singer Kumar Gandharva. Dutta is an auteur whose works have been frequently shown at the Venice, Rotterdam, Berlin and Jeonju film festivals.

Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta’s documentary on Himalayan moths, “Nocturnes,” won the festival’s Silver Gateway Award. The film previously won awards at Sundance and Thessaloniki.

Raam Reddy’s “The Fable,” starring Manoj Bajpayee, which chronicles the unravelling of a family after a series of mysterious fires, won the festival’s Special Jury Prize. The film debuted at the Berlinale and is on a global festival run that also includes Valladolid’s Seminci.

Another Sundance winner, Shuchi Talati’s coming-of-age drama “Girls Will Be Girls,” headlined by Kani Kusruti,...

Mumbai Film Festival has announced the 11 titles selected for its South Asia competition, the main competitive section of the festival, which includes the UK’s Oscars submission, Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, making its South Asian premiere.

The line-up also includes Nepal’s Oscars submission, Min Bahadur Bham’s Shambhala, along with one other Nepali title – Deepak Rauniyar’s Pooja, Sir – and Bhutanese title Agent Of Happiness, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbo.

Indian titles in the competition include Rima Das’ Village Rockstars 2, which recently won a Jiseok award at Busan International Film Festival; multiple award-winner Girls Will Be Girls, by Shuchi Talati; Raam Reddy’s The Fable and Midhun Murali’s Kiss Wagon (see full line-up below).

The non competitive Focus South Asia section is screening ten features and 13 shorts, including a title from Afghanistan – Roya Sadat’s The Sharp Edge Of Peace – and a short film from Myanmar,...

by Quoc Tran

Following their debut documentary, The Next Guardian” (2017), which explored the generational struggles of a Bhutanese family, filmmakers Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó return with their second film, Agent of Happiness, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Agent of Happiness is screening at Hawai’i International Film Festival

In this documentary, the directing duo invite audiences on a visual and emotional journey through Bhutan, the country renowned for prioritizing Gross National Happiness (Gnh) over Gross Domestic Product (Gdp). Through the eyes of Amber Gurung, 40-year-old government worker responsible for the happiness survey, the documentary goes beyond its surface premise, weaving stories of joy, sorrow, and the complexity of human well-being. It serves as both a meditative exploration of happiness and a critique of reducing it to mere numbers.

At its core, “Agent of Happiness” centers on Amber, one of the 100-or-so “happiness agents” tasked with going door-to-door...

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “All We Imagine as Light” will kick off the Mami Mumbai Film Festival’s 2024 edition, while Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or recipient “Anora” will close the festival.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio is no longer the title sponsor and, consequently, this year’s edition is a shortened version running from Oct. 19-24. The festival is led this year by renowned archivist and filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.

The festival issued an open letter stating: “This year marks a period of transition for us, where Mami has no title sponsor. While we have had to adjust to the challenges that come with such a shift, we are proud to announce that we’ve put together an exciting edition of the festival.”

“Now more than ever, we need the goodwill and encouragement of our audience. We ask for your patience and understanding as we bring...

A premiere in the World Cinema Documentary section at Sundance earlier this year, Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Agent of Happiness is quite an intriguing premise, following Bhutan’s official “Happiness Agents” as they quantify the true measure of happiness across the land. Picked up by Film Movement for a release at Quad Cinema in NYC beginning on November 1 and the Laemmle Monica 4 in LA on November 15, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “How is happiness measured? Can satisfaction with one’s life be rated on a scale from one to ten? The Kingdom of Bhutan’s famous – and highly exoticized – government policy measuring its nation’s Gross National Happiness operates on the idea that the basic tenets of fulfillment can and should be quantified when calculating their nation’s development. Happiness Agent Amber Gurung embarks throughout the Himalayan mountains to survey...

The International South Asian Film Festival of Canada (iSAFF) just completed its fourteenth edition and hosted the North American premiere of Usman Riaz’s “The Glassworker.” Riaz’s film is the first hand-drawn animated feature from Pakistan and the country’s official Academy Award entry for 2025.

The festival honors filmmaking in various categories; short films (international and North America), documentary filmmaking, feature filmmaking, and the annual Sher Vancouver Award for Best LGBTQ+ Film. Jurors across categories were filmmakers, content creators, performers, and more, including “Ms. Marvel” star Iman Vellani and Shahani Goswami, star of the U.K.’s official Oscar entry, “Santosh.”

This year also introduced the Rbc Film Fund in partnership with Royal Bank of Canada, which will provide five thousand Canadian dollars to each of five different iSAFF films. A year from now, iSAFF plans to celebrate the first batch of recipients from this fund and the work they’ve achieved.

Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s documentary Agent of Happiness takes viewers deep into the lush valleys and soaring peaks of Bhutan, home to an unusual pursuit. Instead of solely chasing economic growth, this tiny Himalayan kingdom measures national well-being through its Gross National Happiness index. We meet 40-year-old Amber Kumar Gurung, one of over 100 government agents tasked with crunching the numbers.

Door to door, Amber and his colleague record Bhutanese citizens’ answers to 148 questions aiming to quantify happiness. Subjects reply to unusual prompts about goats, television ownership, and the intangibles of trust, work-life balance, and karma.

Through Amber’s work and private struggles, the film explores both the challenges and complexities of assigning a statistic to human contentment. His interviews cover rich and poor, rural and urban, capturing a diversity of experiences that don’t always fit neatly into surveys. We also learn Amber’s own happiness is hindered by statelessness,...

Sony/Eleventh Hour Signs Deal With Hill 5.14

Sony Pictures Television (Spt) and its UK subsidiary, Eleventh Hour Films, have struck a first-look deal with Hill 5.14, a Black female-led scripted TV label led by Tobi Olujinmi. Eleventh Hour will get a first-look option to co-develop and co-produce TV projects from the Hill 5.14 slate, with Spt acting as distributor. Olujinmi launched Hill 5.14 in late 2022, having previously worked as Eleventh Hour, and has gone on to work with writers such as Phoebe Okeowo (The Power), Bella Heesom (Sex Education), Victoria Asare-Archer (Missing You) and Thara Poopla (Sex Education) and on-screen talent such as Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You), Adelayo Adebayo (The Responder) and Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton). “I am beyond thrilled to be working with Sony Pictures and Ehf for the next phase of Hill 5.14’s journey,” said Olujinmi. “It’s the dream team. Their joint expertise, experience and track record of delivering...

Indie distributor Film Movement has snapped up North American rights to Swiss director Ramon Zürcher’s “The Sparrow in the Chimney” following its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.

Described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as a “darkly engrossing psychodrama of pent-up domestic tensions,” the film explores the tumultuous relationship between two sisters, Karen and Jule, whose reunion at a family gathering reignites old conflicts and deep-seated emotional turmoil.

Zürcher, thrilled by its pending North American release, explained: “This film is an exploration of the invisible forces that shape us, particularly within the family structure.”

Sold worldwide by Cercamon, the family drama “should be an arthouse breakthrough” per Variety‘s review.

“This film offers a beautifully crafted, intimate story that will resonate with audiences who appreciate cinema that is both emotionally authentic and visually captivating,” said Sebastien Chesneau of Cercamon, who negotiated the deal with Film Movement.

“What drew...

The 44th running of the Hawaii International Film Festival presented by Halekulani will open with “Tinā,” an uplifting drama film that marks the feature directorial debut of Miki Magasiva, and close with Sori Fumihiko’s “Hakkenden: Fiction and Reality.”

In between, the festival will pack in 92 features and 114 short films, major awards for guests including Jimmy O Yang, Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and documentary filmmaking star Stanley Nelson.

“This year, we have the largest selection of Hawai`i films in competition in the festival’s history, are presenting multiple films that explore Indigenous perspectives, narrative sovereignty, and the nurturing of cultural identity, and additionally, we are launching a new spotlight showcasing the best in television,” said Beckie Stochetti, Hiff executive director.

Hailing from New Zealand, with dialog in English and Samoan, “Tinā” sees Anapela Polata’ivao (“Our Flag Means Death”) portray a well-respected and gifted vocal coach endure family tragedy...

Exclusive: The prestigious Camden International Film Festival has announced a surprise addition to its 2024 lineup: The Shepherd and The Bear, a documentary described as a “modern folk tale.”

The film directed by Max Keegan and produced by Keegan, Elizabeth Woodward, and Emmy winners Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, will serve as the closing night film for Ciff’s 20th edition. The festival, a program of the Points North Institute, unfolds in the picturesque Central Maine coast towns of Camden and Rockland. [Scroll for the full list of Ciff documentaries].

“Set high in the majestic French Pyrenees, The Shepherd and The Bear explores a conflict provoked by the reintroduction of brown bears in the midst of a traditional shepherding community,” according to a release from Ciff. “The film follows an aging shepherd who struggles to find a successor as bears prey on his flock, and a teenage boy who becomes obsessed with tracking the bears. Through its breathtaking cinematography and immersive storytelling,...

Film Movement has acquired North American rights from Charades to Hiroshi Okuyama’s upcoming TIFF Centrepiece selection My Sunshine.

‘My Sunshine’: Cannes Review

The film premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and receives its North American premiere on Tuesday (September 10), with a press and industry scheduled for Monday.

It follows two promising young ice skaters who form a bond while training as a pair for an upcoming competition. Keitatsu Koshiyama, Kiara Nakanishi, and Sōsuke Ikematsu star.

Film Movement will distribute My Sunshine theatrically in 2025 followed by a roll-out on digital platforms and the home entertainment market.

The drama from...

Film Movement has acquired North American rights from Charades to Hiroshi Okuyama’s upcoming TIFF Centrepiece selection My Sunshine.

‘My Sunshine’: Cannes Review

The film premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and receives its North American premiere on Tuesday (September 10), with a press and industry scheduled for Monday.

It follows two promising young ice skaters who form a bond while training as a pair for an upcoming competition. Keitatsu Koshiyama, Kiara Nakanishi, and Sōsuke Ikematsu star.

Film Movement will distribute My Sunshine theatrically in 2025 followed by a roll-out on digital platforms and the home entertainment market.

The drama from...

Exclusive: A diverse group of documentary filmmakers and major industry professionals will converge on the Maine coast next month for the 20th Camden International Film Festival (Ciff), one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the year for the nonfiction film community.

The Points North Institute, which produces the festival, today announced an unprecedented number of filmmakers and projects have been selected to take part in this year’s Artist Programs, which run in tandem with Ciff. The institute also unveiled its Points North Forum program, which features artist talks and field-building conversations during the festival. Scroll for complete information.

“Eight years after Ciff launched the Points North Institute to provide more robust, year-round support to documentary filmmakers, the organization is supporting more projects-in-development and filmmaking teams than ever across 6 different fellowship programs and multiple partnerships with mission-aligned nonprofits,” the institute said in a release. “Each program is designed to connect filmmakers with mentors,...

The 20th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival, kicking off Sept. 12, features a lineup full of political, hot button documentaries fresh off showings at Toronto, Venice and Telluride. The Maine-based film festival will unfold in a hybrid format, with both in-person events over a four-day period concluding Sept. 15, and online screenings available from Sept. 16 to Sept. 30 for audiences across the U.S.

This year’s Ciff highlights include: Steve Pink’s “The Last Republican,” about former U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger during his last year in office when he attempted to hold his own party accountable through his work on the Jan. 6 Committee. The docu will have its world premiere at TIFF. Also screening is Michael Premo’s “Homegrown,” which follows a group of right-wing activists from the 2020 campaign trail all the way to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The film will debut in the Venice Film...

Animated blockbuster Despicable Me 4 will be aiming to set records across its UK-Ireland run, as it opens in 688 cinemas this weekend through Universal.

Produced by Universal-owned animation stalwarts Illumination Entertainment, the Despicable Me franchise is among the most profitable of recent decades. The first film opened to £3.9m on its way to a £20.2m total in 2010; before the sequel started with £10m and ended on £47.5m in 2013; and was in turn surpassed by Despicable Me 3, which opened to £11.2m and closed on £47.9m.

The two Minions spin-off films landed in a similar territory as the two sequels. Minions...

The co-directors of the engrossing and funny new film Agent of Happiness discuss the pressures of documentary making, living with parents and why they can’t work alone

How often do you get angry? Are you prone to envy? Are you rich in goats? These are the questions Amber Kumar Gurung is employed to ask the citizens of Bhutan. Along with his colleague, fellow “happiness surveyor” Guna Raj Kuikel, he then calculates each subject’s general wellbeing, assigns them a score out of 10 and feeds it into the country’s gross national happiness index.

This singular man and his peculiar profession are now the subject of an eye-opening and frequently very funny new documentary, Agent of Happiness, by directors Arun Bhattarai who is from Bhutan, and Dorottya Zurbó from Hungary.

Amber and Sarita in Agent Of Happiness. Bhattarai on Amber: 'He was genuinely searching for somebody' Photo: Dogwoof

Agent Of Happiness charts the work of Amber, a Bhutanese government employee, who travels up and down the country surveying people’s happiness. His results all go to help generate Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index, which has been running since the Seventies is based on everything from a person’s sense of wellbeing and outlook to how many donkeys and cows they own. As the film accompanies Amber it considers the multi-faceted nature of what we call “happiness” and how we quantify it, not just from his interviewees’ responses but his own.

Chatting with directors Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó as the film screened at Sheffield DocFest, ahead of its release in UK cinemas on July 12, it only seemed fair to start by asking them how happy they both were, out of 10, that day.

Disney blockbuster “Inside Out 2” led the U.K. and Ireland box office for the fourth consecutive weekend with £5.1 million ($6.5 million). It now has a running total of £40 million, taking it past Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” to become the year’s highest-grossing film in the region. It also surpassed the lifetime box office of 2015’s “Inside Out.”

Paramount’s “A Quiet Place: Day One” held onto second place in its sophomore frame, earning £1.6 million and bringing its cumulative total to £6.1 million. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” from Sony rounded out the top three in its fifth week, adding £446,578 to reach a total of £11 million.

Universal’s horror entry “MaXXXine” debuted at No. 4 with £388,043, while the studio’s “The Bikeriders” dropped to fifth place in its third week, collecting £374,066 for a total of £3.1 million.

Indian sci-fi epic “Kalki 2898 Ad” from Dreamz Entertainment landed at sixth with £187,610 in its second week,...

Five documentary filmmaking teams haven been selected to participate in the Catapult Film Fund and True/False Film Fest’s ninth annual Rough Cut Retreat.

The immersive mentorship is designed for documentary feature filmmakers who lack strong feedback networks. This year’s retreat will take place at the Whispertree retreat in Boonville, Calif., over four days beginning on July 21.

The 2024 Rcr selected doc projects and the attending film teams are: “The Inventory” (director ilana coleman and producer Ivonne Villalón), “The Last Nomads” (directors Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić), “Natchez” (director Suzannah Herbert and editor Pablo Proenza), “The Nile Splits” (director Zuff Shoya and sound designer Khaleel Lee), and “Seeds” (director Brittany Shyne and editor Malika Zouhali-Worrall).

“This year, the selected projects represent some of the boldest new voices in nonfiction cinema,” says True/False artistic director Chloé Trayner. “Each of the films has a distinct approach to storytelling, taking risks...

"Happiness should come from the heart." Dogwoof has revealed the first official trailer for a documentary film called Agent of Happiness, which originally premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It also just played at the Sheffield DocFest 2024, and will open in UK cinemas this July. Though it still has no US date confirmed yet. "How can you measure happiness?" The country of Bhutan...

Raoul Peck’s winner of the Cannes documentary prize Ernest Cole: Lost And Found is to be released in the UK and Ireland by Dogwoof.

The documentary distribution and sales specialist is eyeing a theatrical release towards the end of the year, ahead of the 2025 awards season. France’s mk2 Films represents international sales.

Ernest Cole: Lost And Found premiered in special screenings at Cannes and won the L’OEil d’Or prize jointly with Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s The Brink Of Dreams. It charts the life of Ernest Cole, a South African photographer who was the...

“No Other Land,” a documentary about the resistance of Palestinian activists against forced displacement and settler expansion in the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, won the Millennium Docs Against Gravity grand prize in the main competition. The jury, comprised of the writer of this article Variety critic Murtada Elfadl, Anna Hints, director of “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” and Lauren Greenfield, director of “The Queen of Versailles,” cited its “power in crystallizing grave injustice into a story of friendship and how hope can thrive only when everyone has freedom.”

The filmmakers – the Palestinian and Israeli collective of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – could not attend the closing ceremony because of the political situation and the award was accepted on their behalf by the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in Poland. The jury awarded two special mentions, citing the strength of the 12 films in competition. The first to “Sugarcane,...

The Mammoth Lakes Film Festival revealed its lineup for this year’s festival, taking place from May 22 – 26 at venues across Mammoth Lakes.

The festival will open with the California premiere of director Lucy Lawless’ “Never Look Away,” which follows a CNN combat camerawoman who gets injured and must find the strength to carry on. The closing night features “Black Box Diaries,” directed by Shiori Ito, who investigates her own sexual assault through the film.

A Short Films Program will also be featured at the festival, consisting of 38 narrative shorts, 20 documentary shorts, 10 animation shorts and a program of music videos and a screenplay competition.

The Mlff film lineup is as follows:

North American Narrative Features:

All I’ve Got and Then Some

Tehben Dean and Rasheed Stephens | United States

Atikamekw Suns

Chloé Leriche | Canada

Psykhodrame

Miles Blim | United States

The Last Night in the Life of Death

Isaiah Brody | United States...

Exclusive: The Human Rights Watch Film Festival recently announced it’s closing down, and the future of Hot Docs remains uncertain at best. But there’s some hopeful news for the troubled film festival space: the return of the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York.

The longest running nonfiction film festival in the U.S. reemerges May 9, after being dark since the pandemic. The four-day event will showcase documentary films from across the globe, as well as animation, panel discussions, and live performances, all from its home base at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. [Scroll for the full program]

Margaret Mead Film Festival

“Mead 2024 gives platform to new voices that inspire fresh conversations about our shared humanity,” noted Jacqueline Handy, director of public programs at the American Museum of Natural History, adding the festival has been “a vibrant part of the Museum landscape since 1977.”

The festival kicks off on Thursday,...

Cinephil has sold Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s feature documentary “Agent of Happiness” to a wide range of key international territories ahead of the film’s Hot Docs debut this weekend.

Deals are confirmed in the U.K. and Ireland (Dogwoof), Germany and Austria (Filmwelt), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Italy (Wanted), Spain and Portugal (Filmin), Poland (Against Gravity), Switzerland (Trigon), Belgium (Vrt), Israel (Lev), the Western Balkans (Beldocs), Hong Kong and Macao (Now TV Hong Kong), and Taiwan (Sky Digi), with North American distribution set to be announced shortly. Hungarian distributor Mozinet will release the film on May 2.

“Agent of Happiness” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews, and went on to several festivals including True/False, Cph:dox, San Francisco, Full Frame and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Co-directed by Bhattarai and Zurbó following their IDFA-selected “The Next Guardian,” “Agent of Happiness” follows Amber, one of the...

Oscar winner John Ridley has some choice words for Nelson Peltz, the activist investor who’s trying to land two seats on the board of the Walt Disney Co.

In the new episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, pod co-host Ridley excoriates Peltz for remarks the Trian Fund titan made about Disney’s superhero movies, specifically The Marvels and Black Panther. In reference to The Marvels, which starred Brie Larson, Peltz told the Financial Times, “Why do I have to have a Marvel [film] that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?”

Apparently in reference to the Black Panther movies, which have made more than $2 billion worldwide, Peltz added, “Why do I need an all-Black cast?”

Ridley rips into Peltz, saying the billionaire has no business near the Disney board room.

And that’s just the capper to a...

What does it take to be happy? Filmmakers Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó ravel to the Bhutan, the so-called “happiest country in the world,” to find out. Bhattarai and Zurbó's entry to Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema – Documentary Competition, they tag along Amber Kumar Gurung, one of the government-employed “happiness agents,” on his quest to measure the Gross National Happiness level. Amber and his colleague, Gunaraj Kuikel, interview a wide variety of civilians: married and unmarried, young and old, rural and urban – asking them a smattering of questions from the 148 on the survey.

Early on, we learn that the survey is not as clear-cut as we might imagine. While Amber and Gunaraj may ask about how many cows, goats, or tractors one has on-hand, more discussion is required to draw out individual stories. As people answer – some out of obligation, some to show off, and some vulnerably confessing to issues...

As the tradition calls, Sarah Shahat from IndieWire has published the camera survey regarding the Sundance 2024 Film Festival, focusing on documentaries. As usual, we ingested the data into a chart (cameras and manufacturers) to conclude that Sony’s cameras were the most popular among indie-documentaries filmmakers, even more than Canon’s. However, the most dominant camera is the Canon’s Super 35 beast, which is the acclaimed C300 Mark II.

Sundance 2024’s documentaries: Camera Manufacturers Chart Sundance 2024’s documentaries: Cameras and lenses

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is taking place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Sundance 2024 presents a few high-potential films, crafted by top-tier independent filmmakers. This time, we focus on the selected documentaries (as opposed to narratives). Every year, IndieWire reaches out to the cinematographers behind the films premiering at the festival and asks which cameras, lenses, and formats they used — and...

By reputation, the Kingdom of Bhutan is the happiest country on Earth, but the “Agent of Happiness” seeks to explore that assertion. The documentary by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó follows the routine of 40-year-old Amber, one of 75 government workers hired to survey people’s happiness on a mathematical scale, and it details not only the lives of his interviewees, but also that of the agent himself. It remains, for most part, a withheld, no-frills investigation, whose commentary is light and self-evident. With no “talking heads,” the film plays out more like dramatized docufiction, but eventually, its patchwork of subjects is woven together to create something melodic and meaningful.

Lush shots of the rural mountainside lure us into Bhutan, and into the life of Amber, as he gently clips his mother’s nails before donning his government robes. As he drives through numerous villages with his partner, fellow agent Guna,...