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The 85th Annual Peabody Awards offered a night where truth was the headliner, courage was the theme, and storytelling wasn’t just celebrated—it was revered.

Roy Wood Jr., host of the American adaptation of Have I Got News for You on CNN, emceed this year's award show, held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on June 1. "This is a little different from [hosting] the White House Correspondents' Dinner or the Writers Guild Awards,” Wood told Gold Derby before the show. “These people here tonight have told very serious stories about very serious things. I have a degree in journalism, so a night like this is just special to me on a lot of levels."

The Peabody Awards touched on everything from the personal trauma of transitioning (Will & Harper) to the institutional failures behind the Pulse nightclub shooting (Pulse: The Untold Story). From war zones in Gaza to privatized prison walls, the...

Exclusive: The inaugural Henry Awards for Public Interest Documentary has named its 15 semifinalists, with the winner set to receive $100,000.

The new prize, created by the Documentary Film in the Public Interest Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, recognizes “nonfiction films that advance public understanding of the critical issues of our time while demonstrating outstanding cinematic achievement,” according to a release. “Guided by the hallmarks of ethical practice, rigorous investigation, and courageous storytelling, the Henry Awards are intended to honor and encourage a documentary filmmaking practice grounded in its essential role to a thriving society and focused on the public good.”

‘Four Daughters’

Among the 15 semifinalists announced Tuesday are the Oscar nominated documentary Four Daughters, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and the Oscar-shortlisted documentaries Queendom, directed by Agniia Galdanova, and Hollywoodgate, directed by Ibrahim Nash’at. Scroll for the full list of semifinalists.

In January, the Siberian city of Magadan averages a high of 9 degrees F, its port on the Pacific kept accessible only with the aid of icebreakers. It’s a cold place measured by temperature and by history – in Soviet times, the town served as a transit point to the Gulag. Even today, more than a generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, stepping out of line, defying the pressure to conform, can invite hostility or outright violence.

Imagine, then, growing up in such a place as a gender nonconforming person, who dares to express herself through drag performance art. That is the reality for Jenna Marvin, the protagonist of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Queendom. Jenna embraces politically charged expression and flouts convention despite the risk of harassment, arrest or physical assault.

“Knowing where she’s coming from, she’s had such a difficult childhood, and what the person that she...

Black Box Diaries, Queendom and Instruments of a Beating Heart are among the films that got good news Tuesday, earning places on the coveted Oscar shortlists – Diaries and Queendom for Documentary Feature and Instruments for Documentary Short.

At the 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles a few days ago, those films also came up winners. Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast went live at the event at the historic Orpheum Theater, speaking with victorious filmmakers and executives right after they accepted their honors.

Black Box Diaries’ Shiori Ito tells us what she packs in her luggage to keep balanced during the insanely...

Drag is not — or at least need not be — political, let alone radical in its politics. But when such artistry is targeted by politicians and policies that aim to make it disappear from public view altogether (whether in the name of country or church or children or any combination thereof), drag artists are left with little recourse than to make their own bodies and bodies of work stand for something. In Agniia Galdanova’s fabulous, if sobering, documentary “Queendom,” audiences are called to witness the begrudging radicalization of Jenna Marvin. The young queer nonbinary drag artist would rather be designing and showcasing her work with little worry. Yet at every turn, the increasingly violent anti-lgbt policies of Putin’s Russia push her to find some way out and through.

A lithe young Russian with no hair on her head and no eyebrows to speak of has painted her entire head pearl white.

The Academy has unveiled the 10 shortlists for the 97th Academy Awards in March, with Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig and Walter Salles’sI’m Still Here among the international feature film category heavyweights.

Besides the French, German and Brazilian contenders, the list includes Mati Diop’s Dahomey for Senegal, Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap for Ireland, Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio for Italy, Sandhya Suri’s Santosh for the UK, and Matthew Rankin’sUniversal Language for Canada.

Europe accounts for 10 or two-thirds of the shortlist, Africa and Middle East two, and Americas two,...

For the 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony, the International Documentary Association returned to a live event held December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The show was also livestreamed on IDA’s YouTube channel. (The nominees and winners are here.)

The ceremony, this year hosted by Adam Conover, has long served as an annual celebration for the documentary community.

The IDA received more than 700 entries from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. IDA Documentary Awards entries were reviewed by jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from more than 40 countries. IDA members had access to stream nominees and winners in the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories until December 31, 2024.

At this year’s ceremony, American documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter received the Career Achievement Award; Shiori Ito (“Black Box Diaries”) received the Emerging Filmmaker Award; and the four...

It’s been an extraordinary week for No Other Land, the timely documentary directed by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.

The film set in the occupied West Bank won Best Feature Documentary at the 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday and it also won the Best Director prize for the work of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham. The quartet of filmmakers also received the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, a previously announced honor recognizing the difficult and dangerous conditions in which the film was made.

No Other Land swept most of the awards announced this week: on Monday, it won Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards, and on Tuesday, the New York Film Critics Circle named it the best documentary of the year. It won the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award on Wednesday, although Sugarcane won the...

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards took place Dec. 5, 2024 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Adam Conover, and celebrated the best nonfiction films and programs of the year. See the full list of 2024 IDA Awards winners below.

Heading into the evening, “Sugarcane” led all nominees with five, including Best Feature Documentary, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four. The ceremony takes place from 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Pt and we will continue to update winners throughout the night. You can live stream the ceremony on documentary.org and on the IDA’s YouTube channel.

The ceremony started with presenting “No Other Land” with two special honors: The Pare Lorentz Award and the Courage Under Fire Award. The Emerging Filmmaker Award went to “Black Box Diaries” director Shiori Itô. The ABC News Video Source Award went to “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

For three years, Netflix has gone without a Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination for one its originals, a surprising dry spell for a streamer used to dominating the category. But it looks like the drought is about to end.

The platform has fielded an exceptional slate of contenders in 2024, many with a strong shot at making the Oscar Documentary Feature shortlist — the first step toward an Academy Award nomination. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Daughters, Will & Harper, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, Power, The Greatest Night in Pop, Martha, Skywalkers: A Love Story, Yintah — they all present a solid opportunity for Netflix to compete for the top documentary prize.

“I feel very honored to be a part of this incredible slate of movies,” says Josh Greenbaum, director of Will & Harper, a kind of buddy comedy about the friendship between actor Will Ferrell and his pal Harper Steele,...

“Sugarcane” earned a leading five nominations, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four for the 40th annual International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. These Oscar precursors will be celebrated in a ceremony on Dec. 5 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. See the full list of nominees below.

Among this year’s IDA nominees for Best Feature, only “Sugarcane” was also nominated for the top prize by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Nominees in Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories have been selected from the shortlists previously announced. IDA members will have access to view each of the nominated films and can begin voting on November 19, 2024.

IDA has been an inconsistent, but important precursor for the Oscars. Last year, only one of the IDA top 10 went on to contend for Best Documentary Feature: “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” lost that Oscar race to “20 Days in Mariupol.

“Sugarcane,” the documentary about the mistreatment of Indigenous children in Canada, has received the most nominations at yet another awards show for nonfiction features, picking up five noms to lead the field at the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards.

In nominations announced on Tuesday, the film by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie was nominated in the Best Feature Documentary category, as well as for its directing, cinematography, editing and musical score. It had previously led in nominations at the Cinema Eye Honors and Critics Choice Documentary Awards as well.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” received four nominations, while “Black Box Diaries” and “Queendom” each received three.

In the Best Feature Documentary category, those four films were nominated alongside “Agent of Happiness,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.”

Additional nominations were made in the episodic series,...

Sugarcane earned a leading five nominations as the IDA Documentary Awards announced its nominees today, followed closely by Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat with four.

Black Box Diaries, My Sweet Land, and Queendom earned three nominations apiece. Also earning multiple nominations were Agent of Happiness, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon, and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin – each with two nominations.

Sugarcane’s nods came for Best Documentary Feature and Best Director, recognizing the work of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, as well as nominations for cinematography, editing, and score. The National Geographic documentary investigates the systematic abuse of Indigenous children who attended a so-called “Indian Residential School” in British Columbia.

‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’s recognition came in the Best Documentary Feature category, as well as Best Director for Johan Grimonprez, Best Editing, and Best Writing. The film from Kino Lorber looks at how the U.

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards has officially unveiled its list of nominees, including this year’s most beloved and buzziest documentary features. The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the nominations in 14 categories for the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be streamed live on documentary.org and on the IDA YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. The awards show will be hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Adam Conover.

This year, IDA received more than 700 entries in all categories from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. All IDA Documentary Awards entries were selected by jurors from over 40 countries; the shortlists for the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories were previously announced on October 24.

The IDA will honor prolific documentarian Dawn Porter with the Career Achievement Award.

Sugarcane leads the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards nominees.

The film about the abusive legacy of Catholic-run Native American missionary schools racked up five nods, including for best feature.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat scored four nods and three titles — Queendom, Black Box Diaries and My Sweet Land — landed three nominations apiece.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom and Black Box Diaries are up for best feature alongside Dahomey and double nominees Agent of Happiness, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.

And the directors of Sugarcane, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom, Black Box Diaries and No Other Land are all up for best director.

This year’s IDA Documentary Awards nominees were selected from more than 700 entries from 77 countries, both up from last year, and, in the feature and shortlist categories, were chosen from shortlists announced on Oct.

National Geographic’s “Sugarcane,” a film about abuse and missing children at an Indigenous boarding school in Canada, leads this year’s nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors awards with six. Cinema Eye recognizes excellence in the artistry and craft of nonfiction filmmaking. “Sugarcane” will face off against “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Daughters,” “Look Into My Eyes,” “No Other Land,” and “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” for Best Feature. See the full list of nominees below.

In 2023, four of the five eventual Academy Award nominated Documentary Feature films were nominated by Ceh earlier in the season, including the Oscar winner “20 Days in Mariupol.” Last year’s Ceh winner “32 Sounds” failed to earn a nomination from the Academy. The last two films to win the Oscar without first being recognized with a nomination by Ceh were “My Octopus Teacher” in 2020 and “Free Solo” in 2018.

Cinema Eye will return to...

Sugarcane, the Nat Geo documentary feature about abuse and forced separations in a Canadian Indigenous community, landed a field-leading six nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors, the organization, which celebrates nonfiction work made for big and small screens, announced on Thursday.

Among the noms for Sugarcane is one for best nonfiction feature, a category in which it will compete alongside Mubi’s Dahomey and the U.S.-distributor-less No Other Land, which both garnered five noms, and MTV Docs’ Black Box Diaries, Netflix’s Daughters, A24’s Look Into My Eyes and Kino Lorber’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

This is the first year in which the nominees for best nonfiction feature will include the entire creative team behind each doc — the directors, producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, sound designers, visual designers and significant on-screen participants.

The audience choice award, nominees for which were determined by more than 30,000 votes from nonfiction lovers around the world,...

The Cinema Eye Honors, an Oscar bellwether that often predicts the Best Documentary Feature race, has unveiled its 2025 nominations.

Leading the pack is “Sugarcane,” Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s documentary about abuse in an Indian residential school in Canada. The film earned rave reviews out of Sundance, and here earned six nominations. It’s followed by two hits from the 2024 Berlin Film Festival: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop’s exploration of the artifacts of colonial Africa, and Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor’s Israel-Palestine conflict documentary “No Other Land,” which each received five nominations. Two portraits of major 20th-century artists, Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida” and Gary Hustwit’s “Eno,” also received five nominations a piece.

The 18th annual Cinema Eye Honors will take place on Thursday, January 9 at the New York Academy of Medicine in East Harlem. Keep reading for a complete list of nominees.

Nonfiction...

“Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane” are among the 20 nonfiction films that have made the shortlist for the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards, the IDA announced on Thursday morning.

The shortlisted features come from 21 different countries and include works by Mati Diop (“Dahomey”), Raoul Peck (“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”). The IDA’s feature shortlist is typically idiosyncratic in that it doesn’t include several of the most acclaimed and highest-profile nonfiction films of the year, including “Will & Harper,” “Daughters,” “Piece by Piece,” “Mountain Queen” and “Union.”

Of the 20 films on the IDA shortlist, eight also appeared on the Doc NYC list of likely awards titles: “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” Queendom,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane.”

The IDA’s shortlist...

The International Documentary Association (IDA) has revealed which 20 feature-length and 20 short documentaries have made it onto the shortlists for the 40th IDA Documentary Awards.

Among the films that have a shot at becoming a nominee at the upcoming awards ceremony set to take place on December 5, 2024 at The Orpheum Theater in Downtown Los Angeles are major Best Documentary Feature contenders like “Sugarcane” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” as well as titles that have been harder to come by, like “Brisa” and “Kamay.”

As part of the announcement, Dominic Asmall Willsdon, IDA’s Executive Director, said via statement, “The 40th IDA Documentary Awards continues the tradition of celebrating the best of international nonfiction media of the year. We are grateful to all filmmakers who shared their work for consideration this year, representing a record amount of countries in the award’s history. The impressive shortlist for Best Features and Best...

The 15th annual Doc NYC festival unveiled the titles in its Short List sections, an early precursor lineup in advance of the Oscar nominations next January in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short.

America’s largest documentary festival, based in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of New York City, launches on Nov. 13 with the opening night premiere of “Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.”

The titles in the Short Lists include Benjamin Ree’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida,” Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and “No Other Land,” directed by a four-person collective of Israeli and Palestinian artists.

Additional films, nearly all screening with filmmakers in person for Q&As, include “Will and Harper,” about the friendship between Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, “The Last of the Sea Women,” produced by Nobel Peace Prize winner...

Queendom tells the gripping story of Gena Marvin, a 21-year-old queer performance artist living in present-day Russia. Directed by Agniia Galdanova, the film gives viewers a candid look into Gena’s world as she navigates hostility and danger. Against the backdrop of Russia’s repressive policies towards the LGBTQ community, Gena finds creative ways to express herself and protest through imaginative drag performances on the streets of Moscow.

With made-from-scratch costumes incorporating raw materials like tape and makeup, Gena manifests otherworldly figures that capture both curiosity and condemnation. Though frequently harassed by police and strangers alike, nothing can quell Gena’s brave spirit of rebellious self-expression.

Galdanova’s sensitive lens offers rare insight into Gena’s personal journey. After experiencing expulsion from her beauty school, Gena retreats to her grandparents’ home in the remote town of Magadan. But even here, Russia’s system proves threatening as political tensions escalate. Through interactions with family and onlookers,...

Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce debuts in 568 cinemas while André Rieu’s White Christmas is the widest opener.

Concert films and anniversary screenings dominate the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce opens in 568 cinemas for Trafalgar Releasing.

It is not quite as many locations as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which debuted in 651 venues back in October. Swift’s film opened on £5.7m and broke the record for the highest-grossing concert film in the UK, currently standing at around £12m.

Renaissance is directed and produced by Beyonce, through her company Parkwood Entertainment, and...

Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce debuts in 568 cinemas while André Rieu’s White Christmas is the widest opener.

Concert films and anniversary screenings dominate the UK and Ireland box office this weekend as Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce opens in 568 cinemas for Trafalgar Releasing.

It is not quite as many locations as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which debuted in 651 venues back in October. Swift’s film opened on £5.7m and broke the record for the highest-grossing concert film in the UK, currently standing at around £12m.

Renaissance is directed and produced by Beyonce, through her company Parkwood Entertainment, and...

Mstyslav Chernov’s unflinching account of the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine wins the public vote at the documentary festival

Mstyslav Chernov’s unflinching account of the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 20 Days In Mariupol, has won the Npo IDFA Audience Award at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).

The €5,000 prize was awarded at the Royal Theater Tuschinski in Amsterdam on Saturday night, (November 18) followed by a special screening of the film. The award is based on votes by festival visitors who rate the films directly following their screenings via a Qr code.

The Athens International Film Festival was the latest festival to fall for the charms of UK director Molly Manning Walker’s directorial debut How to Have Sex this week, presenting the drama with the €2,000 Golden Athena award for best film.

The coming-of-age film about a group of teenagers on holiday shot in Greece and was co-produced by George Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovrakis’ Heretic which also handles world sales. Local theatrical distributor and platform Cinobo picked up Greek rights.

How To Have Sex debuted at Cannes where it won the Un Certain Regard prize and nost recently won best film at Germany’s Filmfest Hamburg.

Each of the winners takes home festival’s Golden Eye trophy and a Chf 20,000 cash prize.

Turkish drama Hesitation Wound by Selman Nacar has won the Feature Film Competition prize at the 19th Zurich Film Festival.

Hesitiation Wound, which world premiered last month in Venice’s Horizons section, is the story of a female Turkish lawyer fighting both a murder case and her own personal issues.

The Swiss festival awarded the top prize in its Focus competition, which is for films from Switzerland, Germany and Austria, to the Afghanistan set documentary Hollywoodgate by Ibrahim Nash’at.

Hollywoodgate, which world premiered out...

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is beginning to fill out its lineup leading up to IDFA’s 36th edition next month. The largest all-documentary festival in the world today announced selections for the Competition for Short Documentary and the IDFA Competition for Youth Documentary, along with the films selected for the Best of Fests section and the “Signed” section, a new addition to the IDFA program.

One hundred films so far have now announced as part of the 2023 festival, which runs from Nov. 8-19 in the Dutch capital. “In addition, IDFA Forum, the festival’s iconic co-production and co-financing market has expanded to a total of 64 projects, including seven by Ukrainian filmmakers,” the festival announced. Full details on all the announced films are below.

The newly created “Signed” section is described as inviting audiences “to discover the new cinematic adventures of the most interesting contemporary filmmakers. The first selection...

Updated with juror names and winner of 2023 Points North Pitch.

Earlier: A first-time filmmaker has claimed the top prize at the 19th Annual Camden Film Festival in Maine, one of the country’s foremost all-documentary festivals.

Director Yousef Srouji earned the Harrell Award for Three Promises, a film set in the Occupied Territories. “At the start of the 2000s, the Israeli army retaliated against the second intifada in the West Bank,” notes a description of the documentary. “All the while, Suha, a mother of two young children, decides it’s time to start a film diary. Years later, her youngest son Yousef picks up the archive and discovers the difficult choices she faced then. The three promises, made and broken, evidence the strong love of a mother to her children, to her land, and to herself. The result is a reflexive act of love in a time capsule.”

‘Three Promises...

Updated with the addition of The Holly and American Symphony to the FallDocs lineup.

The Holly, Julian Rubinstein’s documentary about conflict over a gentrifying neighborhood near Denver, and Matthew Heineman’s film American Symphony, about Grammy-winning musician Jon Batiste, have been added to the IDA’s FallDocs screening series.

American Symphony will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles, followed by a live Q&a with Heineman.

The Holly will hold an in-person screening on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at the Culver Theater, followed by a live Q&a with Rubinstein, main participant Terrance Roberts, and Aqeela Sherrills, anti-violence activist and co-founder of Community Based Public Safety Collective.

Earlier: Exclusive: The International Documentary Association announced the lineup for its prestigious FallDocs 2023 program, featuring a slew of Oscar contending nonfiction films as well as more than two dozen films that haven’t yet nailed down distribution.

Titles include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.

The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which...

Nearly 150 documentaries set to screen at festival in South Korea.

South Korea’s Dmz International Documentary Film Festival (Dmz Docs) has overhauled its programme structure ahead of its 15th edition, which will open with Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory.

A total of 147 documentaries, comprising 83 features and 64 shorts, from 54 countries will be screened at the festival from September 14-21 at cinemas in and around Goyang city, near the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, in Gyeonggi Province.

The programme, which previously included the Global Vision and Dmz Open Cinema sections, have been reorganised into three competition strands: International, Frontier and Korean.

The Grand Jury winners of the 41st Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival, presented by Genesis Motor and Warner Bros. Discovery, have been announced, with “Something You Said Last Night” and “Anhell69” winning the top awards for North American Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature. Select award winners will be available on the Outfest Los Angeles’ virtual platform through Sunday, after which Audience Award winners will be announced.

The Paul D. Lerner and Stephen Reis Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature, now in Year 2 thanks to a generous donation from Lerner and Reis to the Outfest Empathy Fund, will see the awarded filmmaker, “Anhell69,” director Theo Montoya, receive a $5,000 prize.

The festival opened with Aitch Alberto’s “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” and closed with Sav Rodger’s “Chasing Chasing Amy.” For the first time in Outfest’s LGBTQ+ Summer Film Festival history, both the opening...

Updated from July 24 story with Audience Award winners: Outfest announced the winners of audience awards, as voted on by attendees of the Lgbtqia+ festival in Los Angeles. Big Boys, directed by Corey Sherman, won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, directed by Sharon Marie Roggio, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, and the Audience Award for Best Episodic Series went to Day Jobs, directed by Stevie Wain and Auri Jackson.

Earlier: Outfest announced its grand jury prize winners today, after the Lgbtqia+ film festival in Los Angeles wrapped its 41st edition.

Anhell69, directed by Theo Montoya, won the Paul D. Lerner and Stephen Reis Grand Jury Award for Documentary Feature, which comes with a $5,000 cash prize. The film set in Medellín, Colombia takes a hybrid doc-fictional approach to explore the country’s history of violence and the bleak prospects for many young people in Colombia.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s heartbreaking Tunisian documentary Four Daughters has taken the top prize of best international film at the 2023 Munich International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian mother whose two eldest daughters left the country to join the Islamic State in Libya, never to be seen again. In her exploration of Hamrouni’s story, Ben Hania hires two actors to play Olfa’s missing daughters. The docu-drama hybrid premiered in Cannes, where it won the Golden Eye for best documentary (shared with Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies).

Another hybrid feature from Cannes, The Buriti Flower, took Munich’s CineVision Award for best international emerging director for helmers João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora. The film, made in close collaboration with the Krahô people of Brazil, is a fusion of ethnography and poetic narrative, exploring the group’s tribal memories.

The festival runs June 23 - July 1.

Films by Jessica Hausner, Elegance Bratton and Sebastian Silva are among 36 titles selected for the Filmfest München’s three international competition strands, CineMasters, CineVision and CineRebels. The festival runs June 23-July 1.

CineMasters

Hausner’s Club Zero will be joined by another four Cannes competition titles - Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster - to screen in Munich’s CineMasters competition for the €50,000 Arri Award which is presented to the producers of the best international film.

The 12-title line-up also includes...

Mammoth Lakes Film Festival has announced the lineup of its ninth installment, held in-person from May 24-28 at venues throughout the California mountain town. Notably, the opening and closing films will feature stories from transgender individuals around the world.

“Two of the most compelling documentaries we came across this year happened to be transgender stories, highlighting characters living in circumstances that threaten their survival, and we are so thrilled to showcase ‘Queendom’ and ‘Kokomo City’ as our opening and closing spotlight films,” said Paul Sbrizzi, director of festival programming.

Opening film “Queendom,” by Agniia Galdanova, is a window into the life of Gena, a transgender Russian performance artist, and the radical acts that put her life in danger. The closing film “Kokomo City” by D. Smith explores the lives of four Black transgender sex workers as they consider what their existence means within the Black community. Koko Da Doll, who...

Motherland, a “dark and monumental” film about neo-nationalism in Belarus, earned the top prize tonight at the prestigious Cph:dox festival in Copenhagen.

Belorussian directors Alexander Mihalkovich and Hanna Badziaka accepted the Dox:Award honor at a ceremony at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in the Danish capital. Jurors praised Motherland as “a cinematic and meaningful film that took its time unfolding the complexity of living within an oppressive and unjust system. It poses questions about the idea of an individual choice within a cornered society. The title of the film is a way to give back the power to the women who are at the forefront of this fight.” [See the full list of Cph:dox winners below].

‘Motherland’

The world premiere of Motherland at Cph:dox comes at a particularly timely moment, just over a year after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine with key assistance from the Kremlin-allied Belorussian government. Russian forces trained in Belarus in advance of the war...

The top Dox:Award at Cph:dox, the Copenhagen documentary festival, has gone to “Motherland” by Ukrainian-Belarussian director Alexander Mihalkovich (“My Granny From Mars”) and Ukrainian director Hanna Badziaka.

Described by Variety as “an ominous portrait of the oppressive culture of cruelty in post-Soviet Belarus,” the film follows Svetlana, whose son died during his military service as the result of violent abuse, in her quest to expose and prosecute those responsible for his death.

Dedicating the award to “all the Ukrainians fighting Russian aggression and to Belarussian political prisoners,” the directing duo thanked all those who helped them make the film, in particular the protagonists, “who were brave to stand in front of the camera and patient with us as it was a long journey of four years.”

Handing out the prize, the jury said: “This was such a cinematic and meaningful film that took its time unfolding the complexity of living...

Further winners include ‘Seven Winters in Tehran’, ‘Mrs. Hansen & The Bad Companions’.

Alexander Mihalkovich and Hanna Badziaka’s Motherland, about the brutal military culture in Belarus, has won the main Dox:Award prize at Cph:dox 2023.

The Sweden-Ukraine-Norway co-production follows two storylines: a woman trying to shed light on the culture of violence and abuse in the Belarusian military after her son was found dead while in the army; and a group of young friends from the techno underground who face being drafted soon.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

The awards were handed out at a ceremony this evening...

SXSW’s documentary program has fast become one of the Film & TV Festival’s most exciting strands, and this year is no exception. Once again boasting an eclectic lineup that showcases a bevy of fascinating true-life tales from around the world, the docs class of 2023 is definitely one to keep an eye on.

This year’s roster sees a number of bold new voices and celebrated documentarians tackling a broad range of topics: from the perilous rise to fame of an Afghan sporting superstar to the daring performance art of a Russian queer icon; from the legendary creator of the first Black Barbie to Captain James T. Kirk himself.

We’ve picked out a handful of documentary highlights from SXSW 2023 that are sure to get festivalgoers talking and that, hopefully, will be popping up in theatres and on streaming platforms later this year…

Credit: Blackbeard Media Riders on the Storm...

Guests will include Wim Wenders, Joan Baez, Nathan Fielder.

The 20th anniversary edition of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:Dox) includes more than 200 films, of which over 100 are world premieres – the most ever at a single edition of the festival.

The festival will screen 61 titles across five international competition sections: New:Vision, F:Act, Nordic:Dox, Next:Wave and the previously announced Dox:Award titles.

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46 of the 61 competition titles are world premieres, with 10 international premieres and five European debuts.

Films directed by women make up 47% of the lineup, with men represented on 38%. Ten percent...

Festival runs March 10-18. Further selections to be announced in early February.

The world premiere of Paramount and eOne’s spring tentpole Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will open the 30th edition of SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 10.

The action fantasy quest story stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, and Regé-Jean Page and is directed and co-written by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. It opens in the US on March 31.

SXSW runs March 10-18 as an in-person event only. In addition organisers announced feature and short Competition entries, the Headliners and Midnighters line-ups, and select titles...

The Sundance Institute has announced this year’s grantees for the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, with a total of 1,396,500 in unrestricted grant support bestowed upon 35 projects.

“As we celebrate the Dfp’s 20th anniversary, it’s an exceptional achievement that Sundance has been able to provide documentary filmmakers robust and sustained financial support, from development through post-production, for two decades,” said Carrie Lozano, director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. “Thanks to our incredible funders, supporters, staff, and external reviewers, the Documentary Fund has been able to realize its top priorities during a tumultuous time: supporting underrepresented stories, directors and producers; providing much needed resources to urgent international projects; and elevating human rights and social, civic and environmental justice, all while foregrounding bold and artistic approaches. I am constantly amazed by the breadth and depth of our grantees.”

This year’s grant recipients have roots in 31 countries, with...

Previously supported projects have included American Factory, Collective, Fire Of Love, The Mole Agent.

Projects from Armenia, Chile, Uganda and Palestine are among grantees of the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, which in the 20th anniversary year of the Documentary Film Program (Dfp) has made 1.4m available in unrestricted grant support to 35 projects.

Of the recipients, five are in development, 15 in production, 10 in post, and the filmmakers behind five are actively pursuing support for audience engagement and social impact campaigns.

Some 57 of the current cycle’s submissions hail from outside the US. Among the 14 US films receiving support, all are directed...