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Visions du Réel, one of Europe’s leading documentary film festivals, shines the spotlight on France this year, celebrating its deep-rooted documentary tradition powered by a robust public funding model, global co-production appeal, and a receptive local audience.

The country is a key presence at VdR again this year: among the 156 films selected are 32 French productions and co-productions, including 26 world premieres.

VdR is a major launchpad for auteur-driven documentaries with festival and theatrical ambitions, and France has plenty of those.

“The Attachment”

Eugénie Michel Villette, founder of boutique doc production outfit Les Films du Bilboquet, has four projects featured across Visions du Réel’s festival and industry sections – all international co-productions. “Anamocot” by Marie Voignier and “The Attachment” by Mamadou Khouma Gueye are vying for the festival’s top prize, while “I Eat With Two Hearts” by Natyvel Pontalier and “Alea Jacaranda” by Hassen Ferhandi are presented at the pitching and work-in-progress strands.

Known Associates Entertainment has acquired all African rights to Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” the Cannes prize-winning documentary about the fearless apartheid-era South African photographer that opens the Joburg Film Festival on March 11.

The acquisition by the fast-growing South African media company is part of a broader plan to ramp up its distribution efforts both on the African continent and in the U.S., beginning with the March 26 theatrical rollout of “Lost and Found” in South Africa.

“It’s probably one of the most important films to come out of South Africa in the last 30 years,” said Known Associates chairperson Joel Chikapa Phiri. “We’re very excited about it, and we’ve got lots of partners that are coming to join with us.”

Described by Variety’s Owen Gleiberman as a “penetrating portrait” of the iconic photographer, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” traces the career and life of Cole,...

The Marrakech Film Festival, which opened Friday with Justin Kurzel’s timely thriller “The Order,” has more than 70 films in its lineup, which, as is customary, mixes known titles and fresh fare.

“The Order” is part of the event’s gala screenings that also comprise French-Moroccan auteur Nabil Ayouch’s feminist musical drama “Everybody Loves Touda,” Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” all of which will be accompanied by their directors.

The 14-title competition dedicated to first and second works includes Moroccan director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s melodrama “Across the Sea,” about North African exiles in Marseilles, and Hind Meddeb’s doc “Sudan, Remember Us,” which pays homage to Sudanese people and culture by chronicling their 2019 revolution. “Sudan, Remember Us” is among films supported by the fest’s Atlas Workshops industry initiative, aimed at fostering and supporting the emergence of a new generation of Moroccan,...

Marrakech International Film Festival (Miff) is deploying a twofold tactic for its upcoming 21st edition to give a boost to its local theatrical distribution sector, and fuel wider global releases for Moroccan, Arab and Pan-African films.

“The idea is not to launch a market, but to create a platform whereby international distributors can discover films premiering in the festival’s selection and the projects at the Atlas Workshops,” the festival’s artistic director Remi Bonhomme tells Screen of the bespoke initiatives spanning both the festival(November 29 – December 7) and its parallel talent incubator the Atlas Workshops (December 1 – 5).

For the first time in its history,...

The Marrakech Film Festival unveiled its 2024 lineup on Thursday and set that Luca Guadagnino would replace Thomas Vinterberg as its jury president. The other jury members will be Andrew Garfield, Jacob Elordi, Virginie Efira, and Ali Abbasi. Vinterberg “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” festival organizers said.

The Marrakech fest on Thursday also unveiled the lineup for its competition, 11th Continent, and Moroccan Panorama sections, as well as gala and special screenings. In the competition, 14 films will compete for the Étoile d’Or, or Golden Star.

The 21st edition of the fest in Morocco will also honor Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and, posthumously, pay homage to Moroccan star Naïma Elmcherqui. The Marrakech fest takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 7.

Check out the full lineup for the 2024 edition below.

Competition

Across The Sea (LA Mer Au Loin)

by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi / France, Morocco, Belgium

with Ayoub Gretaa, Anna Mouglalis, Grégoire Colin, Omar Boulakirba,...

Justin Kurzel’s political thriller The Order starring Jude Law will open the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival in the presence of the director and producer Stuart Ford later this month.

The film is among seven films that will be showcased as gala screenings at the Moroccan film festival, which unveiled its line-up on Thursday.

The galas also feature a trio of Best International Feature Film Oscar entries, Nabil Ayouch’s Everybody Loves Touda (Morocco), Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here (Brazil) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany), all of which will screen in the presence of their directors.

The festival will screen 70 features from 32 countries across sections spanning the Official Competition, Gala Screenings, Special Screenings, the 11th Continent, the Moroccan Panorama, Cinema for Young Audiences & Families, and films shown as part of the Tributes program.

The 14 first and second films in competition include French...

Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the full line-up for its 21st edition which will open with Justin Kurzel’s crime thriller The Order onNovember 29 and run to December 7.

Kurzel’s debut featureSnowtownwon thefestival’s jury prize in 2011, and the filmmaker returned in 2022 to serve on the jury.

This year’s jury will be presided over by Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, replacing Thomas Vinterberg, and will award the Étoile d’Or for best film to one of 14 first- and second-time features in the international competition.

In total, the festival will screen 70 films from 32 countries, including 14 documentaries, 12 Moroccan titles, nine world...

Jonathan Millet’s thriller about Syrian exiles in France “Ghost Trail” took the Golden Star for narrative film at this year’s El Gouna Film Festival, with Julien Colona’s “The Kingdom” and Shuchi Talati’s “Girls Will Be Girls” taking the Silver and Bronze Star awards respectively. The awards ceremony wrapped the seventh edition of the prestigious Egyptian festival, held at the resort town of El Gouna between Oct. 24-Nov. 1.

Adam Bessa also took the best actor award for “Ghost Trail,” with Laila Abbas’s comedy about the Islamic Sharia Law “Thanks for Banking With Us!” and Meryam Joobeur’s drama about a Tunisian family navigating their son’s strenuous return from war “Who Do I Belong To” received the El Gouna Star for the best Arab film. Documentary-wise, Farah Kassem’s “We Are Inside” received the Golden Star for documentary film, with Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat...

French filmmaker Jonathan Millet’s thriller Ghost Trail won El Gouna Film Festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award for best narrative film. The festival ran October 24-November 1.

Lead Adam Bessa also won best actor for his performance as a young man on a mission to track Syrian regime leaders in France, where he must confront his former torturer. The film world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week sidebar.

The $25,000 Silver Star award went to Julien Colonna’s war drama The Kingdom, while Indian romantic drama Girls Will be Girls by Shuchi Talati won the $15,000 Bronze Star and the Fipresci award.

The latter...

Egyptian filmmaker Jad Chahine’s magical realism drama The Masters Of Magic And Beauty and Libyan-us filmmaker Jihan’s feature documentary My Father And Qaddafi have scooped the top prizes at the CineGouna industry platform of the El Gouna Film Festival.

Running October 25-31, the platform’s CineGouna Funding component showcased 21 projects in development and post-production.

Chahine’s debut feature The Masters Of Magic And Beauty won the $15,000 CineGouna award for best project in development. The feature follows the magical circumstances surrounding the birth of a little girl. A couple seeks counsel from the Oracle, only to discover that a...

El Gouna Film Festival has made significant enhancements to its industry platform CineGouna (October 25-31) to provide increased support for regional filmmakers.

Now in its seventh edition, the CineGouna platform includes CineGouna Funding (formerly CineGouna Springboard) to support Arab projects in development and post-production; CineGouna Forum (formerly CineGouna Bridge) which offers professional development through industry discussions, masterclasses and workshops; and CineGouna Market, which features 22 exhibitors in this year’s sophomore edition.

In addition, the newly-launched CineGouna Shorts supports short filmmakers through talent development and a funding competition. And the CineGouna Emerge programme, now in its second edition, is hosting 200 emerging filmmakers from Egypt.

Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, whose latest documentary “The Brink of Dreams” became the first Egyptian film to win the Golden Eye Award for best documentary at Cannes earlier this year, have received the Variety Middle East and North Africa Talent of the Year Award. The ceremony was held at the El Gouna Film Festival, where their film is also playing as part of the Feature Narrative Competition.

“The Brink of Dreams” is a moving coming-of-age story following the Panorama Barsha Troupe, an all-female theater group in a remote village in southern Egypt who take to the streets to act out their plays denouncing underage marriage, domestic violence and patriarchy in a deeply conservative society.

“It’s wonderful to get this award and truly meaningful for us as filmmakers. We deeply respect the creatives who received the award before us and are so very happy to join them,” said Riyadh.

After canceling the 2022 edition for a “reset” and postponing the 2023 edition from October to December due to the war in Gaza, the El Gouna Film Festival is back in full force for its seventh edition, taking place between Oct. 24-Nov. 1 in the Egyptian resort town.

The postponements and uncertainty challenged artistic director Marianne Khoury, who started at the job a few months before the festival’s sixth iteration and took over from Amir Ramses. “Last year was difficult because we had to postpone it three times but, in the end, we had a really nice edition,” Khoury told Variety.

“I think I joined at a good time when there was a need to change,” she added. “El Gouna started strong. The program was always strong but the media always concentrated the coverage on the glamor and red carpet. When I joined, I wanted to rebalance that a little bit and...

The seventh edition of CineGouna, the industry arm of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, has updated its core programs to reflect its “commitment to fostering creativity and supporting regional talent in the film industry.”

Former CineGouna SpringBoard is now CineGouna Funding, while former CineGouna Bridge is now CineGouna Forum. The former offers financial and artistic support to Arab film projects, while the latter provides professional development opportunities through industry discussions and workshops. CineGouna Market, the festival’s market arm, returns for its sophomore edition, as does CineGouna Emerge, which supports emerging filmmakers and introduces new initiatives for young talents. This year’s edition also sees the debut of CineGouna Shorts, dedicated to supporting short filmmakers through talent development and a cash competition.

“Rebranding the whole program is a crucial step. I believe it makes more sense now,” the head of CineGouna Funding Ahmed Shawky told Variety. “With the expansion of the Market,...

The Oscar hopes of almost a dozen documentaries will be getting a lift from the International Documentary Association.

The IDA announced the first 11 films in its FallDocs screening series, traditionally an important FYC showcase for documentaries with awards ambitions. Among the 11 are Sugarcane and Blink, both from National Geographic Documentary Films; Frida and I Am: Celine Dion, from Amazon MGM Studios; Black Box Diaries from MTV Documentary Films; Hollywoodgate from Fourth Act Film; The Last of the Sea Women, an Apple TV+ documentary that is about to make its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, from Kino Lorber. Scroll for the full list of films.

As it has done for several years running, FallDocs is also making room for several films without distribution to date: The Brink of Dreams (winner of the L’Oeil d’or prize at the Cannes Film Festival); The Flats,...

Matt Dillon, Alice Diop and Karla Sofia Gascon will bring their springtime spirit to this month’s Nouvelles Vagues Film Festival, now running from June 18 – 23 in Biarritz. Launched last year with the support of Chanel, the nascent festival invites both established and emerging talents to share an expansive vision of youth, hosting a competition dedicated to young adult stories overseen by a jury all under the age of 35.

“Across all sections, this festival shines the spotlight on younger generations and celebrates young characters on screen,” says programing director Lili Hinstin. “We wanted to look to the future through the prism of the next generation, and to interrogate the questions and contemporary issues important to them.”

To that end, this sophomore edition kicked off with the world premiere of “Night Call,” a Brussels-set thriller, taking place over the course of one heated night, foisting an unsuspecting locksmith into a criminal underworld...

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Foundation has announced that Mohammed Al-Turki is stepping down as its CEO to focus on personal projects and his career as an independent film producer and businessman.

The body, which was created in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s lifting in late 2017 of its cinema ban, oversees the Jeddah-set Red Sea International Film Festival and is also charged with helping to build a cinema ecosystem in the country.

Under Al Turki’s watch, the foundation held the first three editions of the Rsiff and supported 250 projects from Saudi, Mena and Africa and Asia.

The foundation said the search for a successor was underway and that in the interim, former Red Sea Film Foundation board member Mohammed Asseri was stepping in as acting CEO.

Shivani Pandya Malhotra remains in place as managing director of the foundation and Al-Turki will continue to support the leadership team in an advisory role.

Raoul Peck’s winner of the Cannes documentary prize Ernest Cole: Lost And Found is to be released in the UK and Ireland by Dogwoof.

The documentary distribution and sales specialist is eyeing a theatrical release towards the end of the year, ahead of the 2025 awards season. France’s mk2 Films represents international sales.

Ernest Cole: Lost And Found premiered in special screenings at Cannes and won the L’OEil d’Or prize jointly with Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s The Brink Of Dreams. It charts the life of Ernest Cole, a South African photographer who was the...

Cannes awards have become hugely influential in subsequent awards races, especially the Oscars. The top honor, the Palme d’Or, confers prestige and a stamp of approval — this year from the Competition jury led by multi hyphenate Greta Gerwig — that awards voters take seriously.

Palme winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall” were all Best Picture Oscar contenders and won Oscars. And they were all picked up by specialty distributor Neon before they won their Cannes prize. Neon did not break its streak. It acquired two eventual prize-winners before the closing ceremony: Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner “Anora,” the first American film to win the prize since Terence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011, and Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which took home a special award.

Thus “Anora,” from veteran indie filmmaker Baker (Cannes entry “The Florida Project...

Sean Baker’s Anora has won the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which wrapped Saturday night (May 25).

The US comedy-drama stars Mikey Madison as the titular Anora, a sex worker who finds herself married to a Russian oligarch and must fend off his parents who are keen for an annulment. It marks Baker’s second time in Competition, following 2021’s Red Rocket.

Scroll down for full list of winners

In his speech, Baker devoted the award “to all sex workers past, present and future”, and voiced his support for theatrical distribution: “The future of cinema is where...

The hype out of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, for those far-flung and on the ground, tells one story: This was among the weaker lineups in recent memory.

Sure, huge stories broke out of the festival, from Francis Ford Coppola’s distribution push for his self-funded, decades-in-the-making passion project “Megalopolis” to Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof fleeing his home country after being sentenced to eight years in prison, finally making it to Cannes with his new film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” This journey inspired the jury to award him and his film a Special Prize (Prix Spécial).

Elsewhere in the official selection, Un Certain Regard already handed out its prizes on Friday from a jury led by Xavier Dolan and including Maïmouna Doucouré, Asmae El Moudir, Vicky Krieps, and Todd McCarthy. Among the top winners were Roberto Minervini (“The Damned”) and Rungano Nyoni (“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”) tying for Best Director,...

For the second year in a row, the L’Oeil d’or prize – the top award for documentary at the Cannes Film Festival – is being shared by two films.

The award announced on the Croisette today went to Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck, and The Brink of Dreams, directed by Ayman El Amir and Nada Riyadh.

Peck’s film centers on the titular South African photographer who documented life under apartheid for his country’s oppressed Black population. Actor Lakeith Stanfield voices writings from the late artist in the film. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found premiered in the Special Screenings section of Cannes.

Director Raoul Peck at the Deadline Studio during the 77th Cannes Film Festival presented by Neom on May 22, 2024.

The L’Oeil d’or jury – comprised of president Nicolas Philibert, as well as Dyana Gaye, Elise Jalladeau, Francis Legault and Mina Kavani – wrote,...

Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole: Lost And Found and Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s The Brink Of Dreams have jointly won Cannes’ documentary award, the L’Œil d’or.

Ernest Cole: Lost And Found played in official selection as a Special Screening, while The Brink Of Dreams played in Critics’ Week.

Ernest Cole: Lost And Found is the latest film from Peck, whose body of work includes the Oscar-­nominated I Am Not Your Negro and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Lumumba. The documentary is an account of the life of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black photo...

And the winner is: “Simon of the Mountain.”

The film, directed by Federico Luis – and marking his feature debut – was awarded Cannes’ Critics Week Grand Prix.

Sold by Luxbox, the Argentina-Chile-Uruguay production stars Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, the lead in breakout “El Angel,” as Simon, 21, a lonely only son who falls in with a group of discapacitated kids, feigning a discapacity. Thanks to their friendship he flowers, discovering love, sex and a sense of belonging.

“I am thinking not only about what it means to us, but also about what it means to the people in Argentina who, over the course of the next four years, will struggle, trying to make local films,” said Luis, accepting the award.

“At home, there are people who still think we make films no one wants to see. I hope this will change it and that Argentinian people – and then the whole world – will watch Argentinian cinema.

Three days after its Critics’ Week world premiere, “The Brink of Dreams” director-producer team of Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir delved into the making of their documentary in an exclusive, behind-the-scenes conversation at the Palais des Festivals.

Hosted by the Cannes Docs sidebar of the Marché du Film, the conversation saw the Cairo-based Felucca Films duo offer insider intel and tips on their sophomore feature. Their debut feature, “Happily Ever After,” premiered at IDFA in 2016.

“The Brink of Dreams” follows the compelling coming-of-age story of an all-female theatre troupe in a remote village in southern Egypt, who take to the streets to act out their plays denouncing underage marriage, domestic violence and patriarchy in a deeply conservative society.

Shot over four years, the film takes viewers on a compelling journey from childhood to womanhood, featuring intimate scenes within the girls’ families and close-up conversations between the protagonists and their fiancés,...