Cannes 23

On May 23, the Plage du CNC hosted the Cannes Docs talk ‘Cinema and the Pleasures of the Impossible.’ The event, moderated by writer-director and producer Guetty Felin, saw the participation of director and DOP Kirsten Johnson, President of the 2023 OEil d’or Jury. BDE reports.

Sales doyenne Salma Abdalla talks to Business Doc Europe ahead of the May 24 world premiere of Asmae el Moudir’s new documentary in Un Certain Regard. “We’ve seen a lot of very strong documentaries from the Arab world,” she tells Business Doc Europe. “The Mother Of All Lies is pushing the boundaries of documentary filmmaking.”

Sixteen 16 documentaries (8 features, 8 shorts) are submitted as nominees for the 16th Doc Alliance Awards which will be presented at this year’s guest festival DokuFest in Prizren (4 – 12 August). The Doc Alliance Awards are valued at with €5,000 (Best Feature) and €3,000 (Best Short) for the filmmakers to spend on their next projects.

Originally founded by Greg Rubidge in 2009, Toronto-based Syndicado is an increasingly prominent player in the documentary sales world. Aleksandar Govedarica co-founded the company’s world sales arm, which he runs out of Europe, in 2016. “I really love cinema, that is why I am in the business,” Govedarica tells BDE. “When people ask me how do we acquire films, I think it really comes down to instinct.”

Mirjam Wiekenkamp of Amsterdam-based Noise Film and TV talked to the Cannes Docs professional audience May 22 about the business of repping European docs, as well as the complex work performed by publicists across both old and new media.

The CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator training program for women-identifying documentary filmmakers announced May 22 its official selection for 2023. The sixth edition of the Accelerator features ten carefully curated documentary projects, with authors from Europe and the rest of the world. The announcement came after CIRCLE's showcase presentation at Cannes Docs.

Cannes Docs hosted a panel May 21 titled ‘The (market) value of creative documentaries.’ The talk was moderated by Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) co-director Brigid O’Shea, and saw the participation of Visions du Réel’s artistic director Emilie Bujès, the Museum Of The Moving Image’s Associate Curator of Film Edo Choi, and Grasshopper Film’s founder Ryan Krivoshey.

German-Italian Anita Pallenberg was a model, movie star and muse to The Rolling Stones, and a seminal figure in 60’s counterculture. “She was doing what very few women did, casting off her family, casting off everyone and just saying I am going to be a self-made woman. I am going to make my own money. I am going to travel the world,” Bloom tells BDE of the subject of her new co-directed doc, narrated by Scarlett Johansson.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s Palm-worthy Competition title Four Daughters masterfully uses the intricate complexities of self-conscious re-enactment to intimately explore the lives of a mother and her four daughters – two of whom have disappeared and are therefore portrayed by actors. In so doing, Ben Hania’s film joins the ranks of masterpieces, such as Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet.

As in many of his films, Chinese director Wang Bing ignores the three-act, two-hour running time format and instead builds up his world slowly and deliberately, following the beats and rhythms of his subjects’ lives. The effect is at times mesmerising, achieving an exceptional and lasting sense of ‘presence.’