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The Seret International Film Festival, an Israeli film event hosted in cities across the globe, has criticized its longtime UK partners Picturehouse and Curzon Cinemas for backing out of this year’s event over what organizers described as “safety concerns.”

The Seret Film Festival was launched in 2012 by Odelia Haroush, who accused Picturehouse and Curzon in a Times of London interview of enabling “cancel culture.”

“Their role should be to show films and culture and not cancel culture,” Haroush told the paper. “Especially now; don’t cancel Palestinian culture, Russian culture, Ukrainian culture, or Israeli culture.”

The Times reports that Picturehouse and Curzon pulled out of hosting due to “safety fears.” We reached out to both boutique chains for comment. Neither were available to discuss the matter. Haroush also told the paper that the festival had to cancel screenings in Cambridge due to the “political atmosphere with the university and students there.

28 projects selected from over 150 submissions.

New features from Mexican director Amat Escalante and Mexican-San Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo are among the 28 feature projects selected for the fifth edition of European Work in Progress Cologne (Ewip), the industry pitching event held from October 17-19 in the run-up to Film Festival Cologne.

Escalante will pitch Lost In The Night, about a man searching for those responsible for his mother’s disappearance, who encounters an incompetent justice system.

The Mexico-Germany-Netherlands-Denmark co-production is produced by Nicolas Celis and Fernanda de la Peza for Tres Tunas Cine. Escalante has previously directed four features including Venice and Toronto 2016 horror The Untamed.

The Oscar-qualifying festival will run in cinemas from July 1-10.

Israeli documentary festival Docaviv will run as a hybrid event from July 1-10, with screenings both in Tel Aviv’s cinemas and online.

It will play over 100 Israeli and international documentaries in both on-site and online screenings. All on-site screenings will run in compliance with local regulations at the time.

Scroll down for a list of the Israeli titles in the festival

Cinemas in Israel are currently allowed to open with a maximum capacity of 75%, or 300 people per room. Cinemagoers are required to present a ‘green pass’ showing they have...

To appreciate the roving, sometimes gauche nature of Viral, a new documentary following seven YouTube vloggers in 2020, one must consider its experimental form. Premiering at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, the film, directed by Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein, is entirely composed of YouTube videos. This means it is at the mercy of its source material, which privileges authenticity, skews confessional and doesn’t lend itself to an orderly narrative.

Nir and Bornstein specialize in this kind of experimentation. For their previous documentary, #Uploading_Holocaust, the duo scoured the web for videos of Israeli teens who documented their school trips to ...

To appreciate the roving, sometimes gauche nature of Viral, a new documentary following seven YouTube vloggers in 2020, one must consider its experimental form. Premiering at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, the film, directed by Udi Nir and Sagi Bornstein, is entirely composed of YouTube videos. This means it is at the mercy of its source material, which privileges authenticity, skews confessional and doesn’t lend itself to an orderly narrative.

Nir and Bornstein specialize in this kind of experimentation. For their previous documentary, #Uploading_Holocaust, the duo scoured the web for videos of Israeli teens who documented their school trips to ...

The new entries include In The Same Breath, from One Child Nation director Nanfu Wang.

Hot Docs has revealed an additional 13 documentary features set to screen in the Special Presentations section of this year’s festival.

Among films that will get their international premieres in the section are In the Same Breath, director Nanfu Wang’s investigation (which had its world premiere at Sundance) into Covid-19 and the global health crisis it sparked; Homeroom, director and cinematographer Peter Nicks’ look at the anxieties and stress of a senior high school class; Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, about the creators,...

The UK-based company has acquired North American rights for the documentary feature/series comprising personal footage shot by eight popular YouTubers throughout the year of the pandemic. As the American Film Market opens, UK-based international sales company Dogwoof has announced the North American sales acquisition of Viral: My 2020, a documentary feature and series by Israeli directing duo Sagi Bornstein and Udi Nir (Golda Meir - Prime Minister), co-produced by Germany's Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion and Israel's udiVsagi. The rights for the rest of the world are co-represented by Dogwoof and Gebrueder Beetz. Composed of personal footage from eight YouTubers, some with over a million subscribers, the film begins on New Year’s 2020, with optimism and resolutions for the coming year. Filming themselves as they get ready to face 2020, all eight YouTubers are filled with exuberance and hope, but as news of a deadly new virus emerges and world leaders take...

London-based factual specialist Dogwoof has taken North American sales on Viral: My 2020 a feature/series project that tells the story of eight YouTubers from across the world as they face the most defining year of their lives.

Now in production, it follows YouTubers including U.S.-based Nathaniel Drew (1.2 million subscribers) throughout 2020, beginning on New Year’s Day. Like the rest of the world, they find their plans for the year heavily disrupted by the pandemic, rising unrest around the world and a spiky U.S. election, with the film chronicling their resilience and creativity in the face of such unprecedented times.

Israeli director duo Sagi Bornstein and Udi Nir are helming. Their last film Golda Meir – Prime Minister is nominated at Israel’s Ophir Awards this year and they previously made #uploading_holocaust which was comprised of 100% user-generated material.

This is their third cooperation with Christian Beetz at production house Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion,...

The Dok Industry prize-winners were announced last week.

Congolese filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi’s Downstream To Kinshasa won this year’s Golden Dove in Dok Leipzig’s (Oct 26-Nov 1) international competition for long documentary and animated film.

The co-production between the Democratic Republic of Congo, France and Belgium centres on a group of disabled civilians setting off on a long journey to Kinshasa to demand compensation for the injuries suffered during the so-called Six Day War between Ugandan and Rwandan troops in 2000.

The film, selected for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and given a special mention by the Amplify Voices...

German project development event will showcase 28 projects from 34 countries.

The third edition of the European Work in Progress Cologne (Ewip) will unfold as a physical event in spite of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, its organisers have announced.

Running October 5 to 7 within the framework of the 30th Cologne Film Festival, the meeting will showcase 28 projects from 34 countries.

“The experiences in Cannes and other industry events in this corona year have shown that the direct exchange of people, despite numerous digital communication possibilities, cannot be replaced by anything,” commented Torsten Frehse, a board member of German independent distributors’ association Ag Verleih.