EIGHT FESTIVALS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO SHOWCASE SELECTIONS OF DOCS-IN-PROGRESS; FIRST EVER CANNES DOCS CO-PRO SPEED MEETINGS TO TAKE PLACE FROM 23 TO 25 JUNE; DIEUDO HAMADI SPECIAL GUEST OF THE 5TH EDITION OF DOC DAY ON 26 JUNE; SEVEN FESTIVAL PARTNERS TO COLLABORATE WITH CANNES DOCS

The Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes announces the reinvention of Cannes Docs as a digital-only event offering feature documentary film professionals a dedicated platform to connect and a tailored program of events. 

From 22 to 26 June, Cannes Docs, as part of the Marché du Film Online, will recreate its essence online with virtual exhibitors, curated showcases of docs-in-progress, workshops, Doc Talks, co-production speed meetings, 1:1 consultations and online get-togethers. 

“Now that we are only a few days away from launching the Marché du Film Online, we realize how much creativity, hard work and commitment it takes to transport a film market to the digital sphere,” said Jérôme Paillard, Executive Director of the Marché du Film. “We are proud to team up with leading partners in the documentary field on this special edition to offer industry professionals around the world a new efficient market model where they will be able to discover projects, screen films, and find business partners.”

Cannes Docs will welcome ten featured virtual exhibitors

Documentary film professionals will be able to connect and organize meetings on the Marché du Film Online with buyers, distributors, VOD platforms and sales agents, and with numerous specialized doc sellers, including our ten featured virtual exhibitors: Antidote, Antipode, Article Films, CAT&Docs, Cinephil, Dogwoof, Metfilm Sales, Rise and Shine World Sales, Ruth Films and Sweet Spot Docs.

Seven Festival Partners will join forces with Cannes Docs

European documentary film festivals CPH:DOX, DOK Leipzig, IDFA, Ji.hlava IDFF, IDFA and Visions du Réel will collaborate again this year with Cannes Docs. Two major non-European festivals will also join the Cannes Docs network of partners this year – DMZ Docs (South Korea) and It’s All True - É Tudo Verdade (Brazil) –, thus bringing to the program exciting openings towards Asia & Latin America. 

Festival partners will be actively involved in the program, notably by curating projects from their own forum & professional platforms for the Cannes Docs Co-Pro Speed Meetings, and by hosting exclusive Doc Talks on topical issues of the field.

Selections of docs-in-progress curated by eight festivals and organizations will compete for four awards

From 22 to 25 June, Cannes Docs will showcase curated selections of docs-in-progress in finalization stage aiming to hit the film circuit within a few weeks or months. The Docs-In-Progress showcases are designed for decision makers looking for new titles, in particular festival programmers and sales agents.

Eight major international festivals and organizations will present their curated selection, including 4 docs-in-progress each, unveiled in the form of a video pitch and of a 10 minute sequence of the rough cut: CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator; Festival dei Popoli and Torino Film Festival (in collaboration with Toscana Film Commission and Piemonte Film Commission); FIDBA - Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de Buenos Aires; Film Development Council of the Philippines; New Zealand Film Commission; ParisDOC - Cinéma du réel; Telefilm Canada, in partnership with RIDM & Hot Docs; Docudays UA in cooperation with the Ukrainian Institute.

Four prizes will be awarded to the winning docs-in-progress on Friday 26 June - compared to one last year -, during an online Closing Get-Together. Prizes are comprised of the Docs-in-Progress Award, in partnership for the second time this year with IEFTA - The International Emerging Film Talent Association, endowed with a €10,000 cash prize and professional project follow-up by IEFTA; the Impact Award, in partnership with Nordisk Panorama, providing a 2 hour consultation on the film’s impact and outreach strategy; the Cineli Digital Award, with a DCP offered by Cineli Digital, Paris, France; and the VOSTAO Award, with French and/or English subtitles offered by VOSTAO, Brussels, Belgium.

The Docs-In-Progress Jury will be composed of Head of the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries in Riga, Latvia, Zane Balčus; French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress, Lina Soualem - and winner of the 2019 Docs-in-Progress Award with her project Their Algeria -, and Impact & Workshop Manager at Nordisk Panorama, Lea Maria Strandbæk Sørensen.

Pierre-Alexis Chevit, Head of Cannes Docs, said: “I am truly thrilled that the shift-to-online didn’t stop the ongoing expansion of the number of docs-in-progress showcases within the Cannes Docs program. We’ll be presenting no less than 32 projects in finalization stage – i.e. 8 more than the last two years –, curated by film commissions, festivals and organizations from all parts of the world. We also multiplied the number of awards, and are counting on a substantial number of decision makers attending (including of course some who can’t usually attend Cannes physically). All of this solely to give a maximum of chances of success to all the projects, for them to hit the market and festival circuit magnificently!”

Docs-In-Progress Showcases full lineup: https://www.marchedufilm.com/programs/cannes-docs/projects/

Cannes Docs Co-Pro Speed Meetings will be open to professionals from 23 to 25 June

As a novelty this year, the Cannes Docs Co-Pro Speed Meetings will be held over the course of 3 days, from 23 to 25 June. Potential co-producers and funding partners will be able to connect with 14 Spotlighted Projects selected by key festivals and organizations, including Cinema For Change, CPH:DOX, DMZ Docs, DOK Leipzig, IDFA, IEFTA, Ji.hlava IDFF, La Fabrique Cinéma | Institut français, Visions du Réel and When East Meets West. Marché du Film Online participants will receive within the next few days an update on how to access the speed-meetings.

The Cannes Docs Co-Pro Speed Meetings are organized in partnership with Eurodoc, DAE - Documentary Association of Europe, Emerging Producers and DPA - Documentary Producers Alliance.

Spotlighted projects full lineup: https://www.marchedufilm.com/programs/cannes-docs/spotlighted-projects/

Doc Talks, informal Hangouts and workshops as a cornerstone of the program

Cannes Docs 2020 will include five topical Doc Talks, tackling programming, distribution and creative aspects of the nonfiction field, through the lens of 5 first-class international doc festivals – CPH:DOX, DOK Leipzig, It’s All True - É Tudo Verdade, Ji.hlava IDFF and Visions du Réel – and of their invited guest speakers; four online informal Hangouts proposed by DAE - Documentary Association of Europe (the new pan-European community and member-driven organisation for documentary professionals, founded in Berlin in February 2020) and designed to share thoughts and projects among doc filmmakers; and four hands-on workshops created specifically for non fiction makers: 

• “Doc Pitching Training, On and Offline” with Stefano Tealdi
• “Film Marketing: Go Digital”’ with Alphapanda’s Mathias Noschis & Joanna Solecka
• “Do the Right Thing: Best Practices for Documentary Makers and Producers” with Chris Perez & Madeleine Molyneaux 
• “Standing Out (in Times of Confusion) – Distribution Tips for Up-and-Coming Doc Filmmakers” with Hedva Goldschmidt

Cannes Docs Events full calendar: https://www.marchedufilm.com/programs/cannes-docs/calendar/

Congolese filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi will be the special guest of the 5th edition of Doc Day 

Doc Day will be transported to the digital sphere, encouraging participants to gather and take a step back to reflect on how the documentary genre is continuously evolving as a marketplace, as an artistic form, and as a tool to raise awareness and drive global change.

On Friday 26 June, Congolese documentary filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi will be in discussion with Directors' Fortnight programmer and film critic Claire Diao.

Dieudo Hamadi’s feature film, Downstream to Kinshasa (En route pour le milliard) - repped at the Marché du Film Online by AndanaFilms-, is one of the documentary films in the Festival de Cannes Official Selection 2020 and the very first film from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Official Selection in the history of the Festival de Cannes. The film portrays the victims of the Six-Day War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who have been fighting for two decades in Kisangani for the recognition of this bloody conflict and who are demanding compensation. Tired of unsuccessful pleas, they finally decide to voice their claims in Kinshasa, after a long journey down the Congo River.

Doc Day is organized in partnership with CNC and L'Œil d'or - Documentary Award in Cannes.

Tënk and UniversCiné will curate special Cannes Docs screenings

Two additional satellite collaborations will give the final touch to the program, in line with this year’s dematerialized reality. 

French/European doc-only SVOD platform Tënk will offer 100 free 3-months trials to Cannes Docs participants (more information on how to sign up to be announced soon) and will present its subscribers, during the Marché du Film Online, two films previously showcased at Cannes Docs as docs-in-progress: Ibrahim: A Fate to Define, by Lina Al Abed (2019) and In Mansourah, You Separated Us, by Dorothée-Myriam Kellou (2019). 

UniversCiné, French VOD publisher and aggregator specializing in independent cinema, will offer to French territory viewers a special mini retrospective of all the documentaries having received the Œil d’or - Documentary Award in Cannes since 2015: Allende mi abuelo Allende, by (2015), Cinema Novo, by Eryk Rocha (2016), Visages Villages, by Agnès Varda & JR (2017), Samouni Road, by Stefano Savona (2018), For Sama, by Waad Al-Khateab & Edward Watts (2019) and La cordillera de los sueños, by Patricio Guzmán (2019).

Cannes Docs is organized in partnership with Festival Partners CPH:DOX, DMZ Docs, DOK Leipzig, IDFA, It’s All True - É Tudo Verdade, Ji.hlava IDFF & Visions du Réel; Media Partners Screen International, Business Doc Europe, Modern Times Review; and Programming Partners IEFTA, CNC, Œil d’or - Documentary Award in Cannes, Eurodoc, DAE - Documentary Association of Europe, Emerging Producers, DPA - Documentary Producers Alliance, Documentary Campus, Tënk and UniversCiné.

Cannes Docs is open to industry professionals accredited at the Marché du Film Online. The Marché du Film Online will take place from 22 to 26 June.

About Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes

The Marché du Film, the business wing of the Festival de Cannes, is the key stepping stone in the creation, production and distribution of films around the world. The Marché du Film draws its strength from the diversity of the actors it brings together: 12,500 industry professionals including 3,840 producers, 3,300 buyers and distributors and 1,187 festival programmers from 121 countries, all gathered in one unique setting to obtain financing, seize opportunities and take the pulse of international film creation and innovation.

Website: https://www.marchedufilm.com/