Visions du Réel 2022

Visions du Réel Industry kicks off April 10 with a wide programme of new project presentations, lab sessions, networking opportunities, a film market and showcase of VdR films, industry talks and an exploration of co-production opportunities with Sweden, Denmark and Norway. “We feel strengthened by the lessons we have learned from the digital and hybrid editions of the last two years,” says Head of Industry Madeline Robert.

Director Beckermann advertised a casting call for a film based on a notorious Viennese pornographic novel from 1906. Her subsequent doc sees 75 men confronted with excerpts from the book. “I made the film also as a kind of test. How will people - the public and society - react to it? Where do we stand today? Is it possible today to show such a film, or will there be wokeness against it?” she asks BDE.

If you haven’t heard of Czech composer Jan Kapr, that’s not a surprise. Kapr (1914-1988) was once one of the most prominent musical figures in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia but he fell spectacularly from grace after speaking out against the Russians in the wake of the 1968 Prague Spring. Czech filmmaker Lucie Králová explains her Burning Lights Competition documentary to BDE.

Elizabeth: A Portrait In Parts, a Special Screening at Visions Du Réel, may seem an uncharacteristic project for the late Roger Michell, director of the romcom Notting Hill. It’s an entirely archive-based documentary looking at the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II. However, as its producer Kevin Loader points out to BDE, it has many of the same qualities as his feature films.

When director Peter Entell’s father was 75, he sent his son a letter suggesting he should make a film about old people. “It’s fun to be old,” was one possible title his father suggested. Entell took his father at his word. The documentary he made, premiering in the Burning Lights competition at Visions Du Reel, doesn’t portray old age in quite the way the father first anticipated. The director explains more 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.

In 2022 Visions du Réel promises to explore the “wide spectrum” of documentary and non-fiction, Artistic Director Emilie Bujès tells BDE on the eve of the festival’s live 53rd edition. “We have a mission to pull strings in all directions as far as possible.” Of the 124 films in official selection, 84 are world premieres and 15 are international premieres. Films will compete in International Feature, Burning Lights, Swiss and International Medium/Short-length competitions.

When she was preparing her documentary Fire Of Love (an international premiere in DOX:AWARD and Visions du Réel opening film), Sara Dosa took inspiration from François Truffaut’s New Wave classic Jules et Jim, she tells BDE. Her film is also about a love triangle, the passion French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft felt for each other - and their romantic obsession with volcanoes themselves.

The new director of the Sarajevo Film Festival Jovan Marjanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the winner of last year's Grand Prix Jessica Beshir (Faya Dayi) and Beatrice Fiorentino, General Delegate of Venice Critics’ Week, will deliberate over the 16 International Feature Comp selections before handing over the Grand Jury Prize and Special Jury Award, worth CHF 20,000 and CHF 10,000 respectively. Read on for all section juries and prizes.

The leading Swiss doc fest will present 160 films from 58 countries. The official selection includes 124 films, including 84 world premieres and 15 international premieres and 26 Swiss (co)productions. 43% of the filmmakers are women, while 57% are men. Out of the 65 feature-length films, 35 are debuts. The opening film is Sara Dosa’s epic tale of volcanology, Fire of Love, which opens the festival April 7.