Business Doc Europe

German Jens Schanze’s new documentary places the spotlight squarely on western governments and the rush to extract lithium, vital for everything from cellphones to the car industry, from the Bolivian Andes. “Conditions under which work is done in those mines is not far from conditions a couple of hundred years ago,” Schanze points out. Risks of accidents are very high. The exploitation of the workers is one aspect of “colonial history that you can see in the present.”

When she returns to her family home in Valparaíso (Chile), Gabriela Pena discovers more and more about what happened to her family during the Pinochet era. Meanwhile, her relationship with her mother, who is back in Spain, remains very strained. “We started to understand that travelling to this house and to this city was a way of wanting to connect with my mother,” Gabriela reflects. “From the beginning, we knew we had to combine the present with the past. That was the most difficult thing to do in the film.”

In Swiss filmmaker Ian Purnell’s feature documentary, selected for Main Competition at CPH:DOX, a cable-laying vessel traverses the high seas en route to one of the remote Aleutian Islands that separate the Bering Sea from the Pacific Ocean. The crew’s mission is to delivery fibre optic connectivity to the Arctic islanders, hitherto denied to them because of their sheer remoteness. Purnell connects with Business Doc Europe.

Revered Faroese actress Birita Mohr hasn’t performed for 12 years and some fans in the Faroe Islands may even have forgotten her, but her son, theatre director, actor and jazz musician Búi Dam, certainly isn’t one of them. To him, she is a legend. In his feature documentary Birita (a world premiere in CPH:DOX) he puts her back on stage to jog the public’s memory. “One of the goals with the film, and also the play, was to take care of her legacy both for the public and for the family - for my children to know who their grandmother was,” Dam tells BDE.

Premiering in the main competition at CPH:DOX 2026, Little Sinner is a profoundly intimate documentary built from more than two decades of personal recordings. Helmed by Daro Hansen and Thomas Papapetros, the film traces Hansen’s journey from Damascus to Denmark while confronting the emotional aftermath of forced marriage, displacement and generational trauma. “The stories within it are incredibly important,” Hansen tells BDE. “So we wanted to balance things carefully. The film is only 90 minutes—how many stories can you tell in that time?”

Business Doc Europe talks to Mandy Chang, who this month was appointed first CEO of the UK advocacy body, Documentary Film Council. “I think if you are privileged enough to work in this industry, you have to give something back - and I feel we are at a critical time in documentary where some of that space that documentaries once took up in the broadcasting schedules has been eroded away by formats and by other kinds of filmmaking,” Chang tells BDE.

The awards of the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival were handed out March 15 2026. The Int’l Comp Golden Alexander was handed to Closure by Michał Marczak, while the Silver Alexander went to Birds of War by Janay Boulos & Abd Alkader Habak. The Newcomers Competition Golden Alexander “Dimitri Eipides” was won by At No Cost by Mary Bouli, while the Newcomers Silver Alexander went to Replica by Chouwa Liang. All awards…

Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin won the Oscar® for Best Documentary Feature at the 98th Academy Awards, held March 15 in LA. “In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now,” the film's protagonist and co-director Talankin said in Russian from the stage via a translator. The Oscar® for Best Doc Short went to All the Empty Rooms by Joshua Seftel.

The 24th FIFDH attracted more than 32,000 festivalgoers who not only watched 50+ films (incl 35 docs) but attended discussions featuring more than 200 guests from the worlds of art, science, politics and activism. Thirteen films received awards at the prize ceremony, held on March 14. “These films shed light on realities too often overlooked, and open up powerful new perspectives. We are proud to celebrate works that inspire courage and give voice to those too often unheard,” said Laila Alonso Huarte and Laura Longobardi, Editorial Co-Directors, FIFDH. All doc winners, plus further Longobardi comment.

Organised by the Institute of Documentary Film in cooperation with the One World Festival, the 15th edition of East Doc Platform once again opens part of its programme to the public through talks, screenings, and discussions exploring contemporary documentary filmmaking. “This year’s programme focuses on questions shaping the field today – from audience engagement and distribution to creative practice and changing industry structures,” write organisers.

Four new Swiss documentary projects, ripe for outreach treatment, were presented this week during FIFDH Impact Days in Geneva, with To the Moon and Back by Elisa Gómez Alvarez picking up the Swiss Impact Award, valued at CHF 2500. Business Doc Europe reports on the winning project, and the three other presentations: A Search for Love by Carlotta Piccinini, Imagine Peace by Fabian Chiquet and One Step Closer by French director Mehran Tamadon.

Visions du Réel unveiled March 12 the projects selected to participate in the 24th edition of VdR–Industry, the festival’s four-day programme dedicated to industry professionals, and which features an “exciting slate with bold artistic ambition,” alongside returning talents and new faces to Nyon. The opening of Industry Days will feature a conversation with Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras. Under the direction of new Head, Sabine Fayoux Cantillo, the 2026 VdR–Industry Days will take place April 19-22.