22/03/2024 - 37 films in competition and a multitude of events will feature in the 46th edition of the international documentary festival, unspooling 22 – 31 March

Opening with an event premiere of Mati Dop’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Dahomey [+see also:
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film profile] (due for release in French cinemas this September), the 46th International Documentary Festival - Cinéma du Réel is unspooling in Paris between 22 and 31 March.

Central to the programme concocted by Catherine Bizern is a competition showcasing 37 films (including 19 feature films, 20 world premieres, two international premieres and 15 French premieres). The feature film jury is composed of Romanian director Radu Jude, his French colleague Marie Voignier, Spanish producer (based in Paris) Andrea Queralt, her compatriot Manuel Asín (Artistic Director of the Punto de Vista Festival) and French composer Hervé Birolini. The short films and first films jury, meanwhile, notably comprises Portugal’s Ico Costa and American Deborah Stratman.

Stealing focus among the feature films in competition, we find Direct Action [+see also:
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film profile] by Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau (crowned Best Film in the Berlinale’s Encounters line-up and awarded a Special Mention in the category of Best Documentary), Soundtrack To a Coup d’Etat [+see also:
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interview: Johan Grimonprez
film profile] by Belgium’s Johan Grimonprez (honoured in Sundance), Who Cares? [+see also:
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film profile] by his compatriot Alexe Poukine, Silence of Reason [+see also:
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film profile] by Macedonia’s Kumjana Novakova (who won awards in Sarajevo and the IDFA), the world premiere of The Garden Cadences by Bosnia’s Dane Komljen, the Belgian production The Roller, The Life, The Fight by Elettra Bisogno and Hazem Alqaddi, You Burn Me [+see also:
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interview: Matías Piñeiro
film profile] by Argentine’s Matías Piñeiro (well-received in Berlin’s Encounters section) and Daniel Mann’s French-Israeli production Under a Blue Sun [+see also:
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film profile] (discovered in Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition).

Other movies screening in world premieres in competition include the French feature films Leaving Amerika [+see also:
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film profile] by Marie-Pierre Brêtas, Voyage à Gaza by Piero Usberti, Under the Leaves [+see also:
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film profile] by Florence Lazar, Americum by Théodora Barat, The Signal Ligne by Simon Ripoll-Hurier, Les mots qu’elles eurent un jour by Raphaël Pillosio, and Clémentine Roy’s French-German co-production Arancia bruciata. Rounding off the section are the co-productions Resonance Spiral (Portugal/Guinea-Bissau/Germany) by Filipa César and Marinho de Pina, and Le Fardeau (Central African Republic/France/Democratic Republic of the Congo/Italy) by Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino, not to mention the non-European films La laguna del soldado (Colombia/Canada) by Pablo Alvarez-Mesa and Republic (Singapore/China) by Jin Jiang.

Further premieres on the agenda include exergue - on documenta 14 by Greek director Dimitris Athiridis (screened in the Berlinale Special), The Zola Experience [+see also:
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interview: Gianluca Matarrese
film profile] by Italy’s Gianluca Mattarese (discovered in the Giornate degli Autori line-up), Obscure Night – Goodbye Here, Anywhere [+see also:
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interview: Sylvain George
film profile] by Sylvain Georges (awarded a Special Mention in Locarno), Patience, mon cœur by Sophie Bredier, L’Homme–Vertige by Malaury Eloi Paisley, 44 Jours by Martine Delumeau, and two movies by Jacques Kebadian revolving around writer Pierre Guyotat.

Equally eye-catching on the festival agenda is a tribute to the late Marie-Pierre Duhamel- Müller (the former executive director of Cinéma du Réel), retrospectives dedicated to the feminist German director Claudia Von Alemann, French filmmaker Jean-Charles Hue, and his American counterpart James Benning, special screenings of Looking for Robert by Richard Copans (about Robert Kramer), among other movies, the "Popular Front(s)" programme (showcasing Berlin award winner No Other Land [+see also:
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interview: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
film profile] by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Se souvenir d’une ville by Jean-Gabriel Périot, L’Évangile de la révolution by François-Xavier Drouet, Guérilla des Farc, l’avenir a une histoire by Pierre Carles, The Land Is Ours by Cécile Laveissière and Jean-Marie Pernelle, and Silva Khnkanosian’s French-Armenian production Far from Michigan) and the First Window section (for short films).

As for the 11th edition of the festival’s professional sidebar, ParisDOC, the Work-in-Progress line-up is set to showcase six movies in post-production (courtesy of Marie Losier, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Camilo Restrepo, Elsa Brès, Sylvie Ballyot and Marie-Valentine Regan), there’ll be round tables taking place within the Public Forum event, the Morning Sessions are scheduled to analyse the state of independent documentary cinema and creation, and First Contact will see producers discovering nine projects at the writing stage. All this, without forgetting the heritage documentary meetings.

(Translated from French)