Visions du Réel 2022

In International Competition the Grand Jury Prize went to L’Îlot, by Tizian Büchi; Special Jury Award to Bitterbrush by Emelie Mahdavian. In Burning Lights Comp the Jury Prize was won by A Long Journey Home while the Special Jury Award went to Herbaria, by Leandro Listorti. In National Comp the Jury Prize was handed to Fuku Nashi by Julie Sando. The Special Jury Award went to Le Film de mon père, by Jules Guarneri. The Audience Award was won by Fire of Love by Sara Dosa.

Twenty-seven projects by 32 filmmakers, produced across 29 countries, will participate in the VdR-Pitching, VdR-Work In Progress and VdR-Rough Cut Lab programmes. 15 directors are female, 17 are men. 13 projects are directed and produced by filmmakers from countries of the global South or global East. VdR Industry activities will take place from April 10-14.

Jean Genet, Notre-Père-des-Fleurs was the last documentary made by Moroccan filmmaker Dalila Ennadre, who died two years ago following a long illness. The film had its international premiere this week in the Medium-length and Short film competition at Visions du Réel. Ennadre called critic and curator Nadia Meflah to help complete the film six months before her death. Meflah talks to Business Doc Europe.

In his feature doc No Place for You in Our Town (screening in Visions du Réel Latitudes and presenting at Movies That Matter, following its world premiere at CPH:DOX), Bulgarian director Nikolay Stefanov returns to his home town of Pernik to look at the lives of some of football club FC Minyor’s most die-hard supporters, who are part of a once-prospering, now struggling, mining community.

Pulitzer Prize nominated US novelist Marianne Wiggins is the subject of the new doc world-premiering this week in the International Medium/Short competition in Nyon. This, though, isn’t the typical biographical portrait of an important writer. It’s more of a story about creativity in the face of illness; an intimate study of an artist trying to recover her full faculties after a devastating personal setback. Co-director Ressler talks to BDE.

Edited from countless home movies, Marusya Syroechkovskaya’s How to Save a Dead Friend not only shows her best friend Kimi’s descent into drug-induced depression and death, but indirectly portrays a whole generation growing up – but often not growing old – in Putin’s Russia.

The VdR-Industry Awards 2022 were announced April 13. With more than 2100 accredited professionals from over 80 countries, the Festival says it has broken the Industry attendance record of last year's hybrid edition (+27%). “With its numerous prizes and grants, VdR-Industry and its partners reaffirm their determination to support independent documentary filmmaking in all its diversity,” say organisers. Festival Awards will be presented on Saturday April 16.

The short film Aralkum by Munich-based filmmakers Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko looks to reverse, at least cinematically, the desertification of the Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Commissioned by the Tashkent International Film Festival, who provided the pair with a full crew, the film is lyrical, tragic and inventive in equal measure. The filmmakers talk to Business Doc Europe.

More than anything Inner Lines, selected for International Competition, sends out a message of displacement and of disorientation - both geographically and mentally. It is an important and artful film, but dealing with the Yazidi genocide it is far from an easy watch.