The Australian International Documentary Conference celebrated a record-breaking edition after holding its first expanded in-person event after two previous hybrid and virtual outings. Held at Melbourne’s Australia Centre for the Moving Image on March 5- 8, the lively four-day conference of industry panels, screenings and networking events was followed by…
Hot Docs
When CPH:DOX shifted from a fall festival to a spring-based fest in 2017, it got out of IDFA’s shadow and grew into one of the most influential documentary events of the year. “It made a big jump in prominence when it moved to March because it fit into the calendar…
Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, has unveiled the projects it has selected for the 24th edition of the Hot Docs Forum, the financing event aimed at securing co-productions and funds for feature length documentaries. The Forum returns in-person to Toronto’s Hart House on May 2 and 3 as…
Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, has revealed the first slate of films to screen as part of its Special Presentations program at the 30th edition of the festival, running April 27 to May 7 in Toronto. The Special Presentations program, which features high-profile subjects, award-winning films and filmmakers,…
U.K.-based MetFilm Sales has acquired worldwide sales rights, excluding the U.S., Germany and France, to Thomas von Steinaecker’s feature documentary “Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer” and is representing the project at Berlin’s European Film Market. With exclusive behind-the-scenes access into the legendary German film director’s everyday life, rare archive material and…
Armenia’s submission to the Oscars, animated feature “Aurora’s Sunrise,” took home the top Jury Award for best documentary at the MiradasDoc Festival, Spain’s foremost documentary film festival, which wrapped its 16th edition on Feb 4. The festival closed on a strong note, reaffirming its relevance where interest in and demand…
On Jan. 22, the sales agents of WME Independent braced themselves for an all-night negotiation at the Sundance Film Festival. Once a staple of major film festivals, where million-dollar price tags soar as high as the altitude in the Utah mountains, these kind of marathon bidding wars had gone digital…
Establishing herself as one of the world’s few Arctic Circle feature film producers, having set up shop in Norway’s Tromsø, former Mer Films production exec Elisa Fernanda Pirir is launching her own production company, Staer, which is backing productions by Morocco’s Nabil Ayouch and Colombia’s Juan Carlos Arango, among others,…
Paramount+ has set a Nov. 29 premiere date for a slate of new titles from MTV Documentary Films. The slate spans two feature documentaries and five documentary shorts, all of which are executive produced by Sheila Nevins, executive producer at MTV Documentary Films and the former boss of HBO Documentary…
The AFI Fest returns this year to its full glory as an in-person event, Nov. 2-6. “You know, we asked ourselves really early on — because the world is still weary from pandemics and politics and the rest — what is a film festival in 2022? And the answer was…
After two years of being forced online by the pandemic, the 11th edition of India’s Dharamshala Film Festival is back with a physical edition. Highlights include the India premieres of Cannes jury prize winner and Pakistan’s Oscar entry, Saim Sadiq’s “Joyland,” and Gianfranco Rosi’s Pope Francis documentary “In Viaggio.” Nestled…
Thailand Has ‘One for the Road’ Thailand has selected “One for the Road” as its contender for the best international feature film section of the Academy Awards. Directed by Nattawut ‘Baz’ Poonpiriya (“Bad Genius” and Netflix’ “Thai Cave Rescue”) and produced by Wong Kar-wai, the film premiered at the Sundance…