Hi everyone, Aylin Gökmen here, with a new episode featuring a conversation with Pablo Álvarez-Mesa about his film, The Soldier’s Lagoon (2024), which received the Docs in Orbit Invitation Award at Cannes Doc-Marché du Film last year. The Soldier’s Lagoon  is a strikingly beautiful and multi-layered piece centered on the Colombian páramo region. The film explores the land’s history, encompassing Bolívar's political legacy, colonialism, and the presence of armed groups, shedding light on how...

Hello everyone. This is Hosein Jalilvand in Geneva with a new episode for Docs in Orbit featuring a conversation with Matthew Lancit about his latest film, Play Dead! (2023). Play Dead!  is a funny, tender video diary on living with diabetes, where Lancit playfully transforms his personal experience and fear of dying into a body horror film, where an invisible disease crawls inside his body. The film premiered in the Camera Lucida sidebar of Dok Leipzig in October 2023 and available to...

We are releasing a conversation recorded on Tuesday, November 14th, 2023, at IDFA, where I met with Julian Ross and Farah Hasanbegović to recap Corresponding Cinemas. Corresponding Cinemas was a new series at IDFA this year, and in many ways, it was an experiment to see what invisible connections surface when an institution decides to transfer over its curatorial control to filmmakers. The idea is simple and compelling. It would be a series of films and conversations with filmmakers who...

Today is the first day of the 36th edition of IDFA, the world's largest documentary film festival - a twelve-day event in Amsterdam featuring more than 250 titles in 22 sections.  Earlier this week, I sat with Orwa Nyrabia, the Artistic Director of the festival, to speak with him about the role, responsibility and relevancy of film festivals and how IDFA is meeting the current moment.  We also discuss some of the new sections in the program, including SPECIAL SCREENINGS,  SIGNED, and the...

An abandoned house opens the door to revisit the past by bringing to life a unique, nearly destroyed image archive from the unrecognized territory on the border of the Black Sea: Abkhazia. A place normally inaccessible for Georgians because of the ethnic conflict that happened between Georgia and Abkhazia back in 1993. Combining voice, archive, and recent footage, the film examines a lost and split identity stuck between the margins. The audio-visual fragments of this archive are intricately...

It's been a few days since Dok Leipzig wrapped up, but we are still reminiscing about the films we encountered and the people we met. So, we made a little souvenir of our time there, featuring a collection of voice memos from a cross-section of festival attendees sharing their favorite film discoveries from this year's event. FEATURING:  Juliette Menthonnex, director of Tale of the Three Flames, speaks about Man In Black by Bing WangEka Tsotsoria, editor of Self-Portrait Along the Borderline...

Twenty-six years ago, for the 35th New York Film Festival, curators Gavin Smith and Mark McElhatten introduced the festival's experimental sidebar, Views from the Avant-Garde. While their inaugural program featured names like Stan Brakhage, Gregory Markopoulos, and Nathaniel Dorsky, it also opened a space where voices experimenting with cinema's language might meet new audiences. In the festival's intervening years, the vocabulary around this type of cinema evolved and Views from the...

As we prepared for the festival, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Franka Sachse, a director and animator who is also the curator for the Animation Night at DOK Leipzig.   Aylin Gökmen moderates the conversation. The Animation Night is scheduled for Friday, October 13th, featuring Tess Martin showcasing several of her short films that provide a fascinating insight into the artist's creative journey. The event will be divided into two parts: the first part will focus on her...

The 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland has come to a close, but we are still thinking about many of the films we encountered there. For our recap, we invited a cross-section of attendees to share their favorite film discoveries.  Included in this episode are films from nearly every section of the festival - the Concorso Internazionale (International Competition), the Concorso Cineasti del presente section (Filmmakers of the Present), the Pardi di domani (Leopards of...

This year was a special year for the Golden Apricot International Film Festival in Yerevan. It celebrated its 20th anniversary and also the 100-year anniversary of Armenian cinema. To recap the event, we invited filmmakers, film critics, and other guests to share their impressions about a favorite film they encountered at the festival.  We hope you enjoy listening to this mosaic of impressions from a cross-section of participants! Jude Chehab, Director of Q , speaks about Silent House by...

A conversation with Karen Avetisyan, the Artistic Director and CEO of the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia, which took place from the 9 - 16th of July. This year it marked a double milestone for the festival, celebrating both its 20th anniversary as well as the 100th anniversary of Armenian Cinema. Eka Tsotsoria traveled to Yerevan for the occasion, and before making her way there, she sat with Karen to learn more about the programming. In this conversation, Karen shares...

Director & DOP Kirsten Johnson, President of the 2023 Œil d’or Jury, and writer, director, and producer Guetty Felin in conversation about the many ways filmmaking creates possibilities to search for the invisible, to bring life to the dead and to time travel in our own lives. This discussion was organized by Cannes Docs - Marché du Film with the support of Doc Alliance, Participant, LaScam in association with L'oeul d'or, Année du Documentaire, DAE, CNC, & ACID.  Distributed by...

An impenetrable Field of Optimism: Intersections of the Personal and Political in Documentary Filmmaking - Filmmakers Zeynep Güzel, Mina Keshavarz and Sahra Mani (Bread and Roses, Special Screenings, Festival de Cannes 2023), will come together to discuss their work, dreams, aspirations, and hopes for the future, both professional and personal. This discussion was organized by Cannes Docs - Marché du Film with the support of Doc Alliance, Participant, LaScam in association with L'oeil d'or,...

Moving beyond Empathy and Equity in Global Stories - The distinction between the West and the rest has been replaced by a multipolar world where the cultural influence of “the rest” is rising. This presents the chance for the documentary industry to re-invent itself by moving beyond empathy and equity. But is the documentary industry ready for this? A panel discussion presented at this year's Cannes Docs - Doc Day with producer, writer, and director Mehret Mandefro, cofounder of various...

Panel discussion presented at Cannes Docs 2023 at the Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes and curated in partnership with the DAE - Documentary Association of Europe The documentary industry, like the rest of the audiovisual chain, has been in a radical period of transformation in the last 10 years. We hear more and more often about content and format, rather than film and language. Where is the place for the creative documentary in this value chain? This panel discussion explores this topic...

Panel discussion presented at Cannes Docs 2023 at the Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes on May 20, 2023 and curated in partnership with the DAE - Documentary Association of Europe  Parts of the independent film industry are currently engaged in a crucial discussion about the need for more equitable and accountable curation in film programming and selection processes. More and more filmmakers and industry stakeholders alike are openly questioning the traditional power structures that have...

To kick off our collaboration with Cannes Docs this year, we sat with Pierre-Alexis Chevit, the head of Cannes Docs, and Babette Dieu, the coordinator for the event, to hear about this year’s thoughtfully designed program. They also share their personal experiences that shaped their interest in documentaries and the importance of creating physical and symbolic spaces in the industry for the independent filmmaking community to feel supported.  Each year, during the Marché du Film at the Cannes...

The festival may have come to a close, but many of the films have continued to stir something inside us. This episode features a collection of voice memos gathered from a cross-section of attendees at  Visions du Réel, sharing their responses to a film they encountered at the festival. ----- FEATURING: Nicole Chi, Director of Guián, about This Woman by Alan Zhang Ghada Fikri, Director of How Are You, Baba? about Locus Cordis by Alhasan YousefAlhasan Yousef, Director of Locus Cordis, about...

[April 20, 2023] Docs in Orbit Podcast - Episode #55 - Visions du Réel 2023 with Emilie Bujès (moderated by Christina Zachariades) In preparation for the 54th Edition of Visions du Réel, we sat (virtually) with Emilie Bujès, the festival's artistic director, to hear about how this year’s program came together.  Visions du Réel has a strong reputation for championing creative, contemporary non-fiction cinema and has played a vital role for independent documentary filmmakers for decades. The...

In this episode, we turn our attention to First Look, an annual showcase of new and innovative international cinema at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.  This year’s event will mark the 12th edition of the festival, which will take place March 15 - 19th. Over the course of those five days, more than 30 works from all over the world will be exhibited for the first time in New York at the museum - this includes features, short films, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as forms that...

Featuring a conversation with Alexander Abaturov about his film Paradise (2022), which premiered at IDFA in the International Competition section. The film is set in the small village of Shologon in Northern Siberia, documenting the local inhabitants battling severe and extreme wildfires during the summer months. Alexander Abaturov is a filmmaker based in Paris. He was born in Siberia. Paradise (2022) is his second feature documentary film. His first film, The Son (2018), premiered at the...

Notes from Eremocene (Berlinale Forum, 2023) by Viera Čákanyová is an experimental documentary that delves into the future possibilities of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. Through a captivating blend of analog footage and 3D scanner images, Čákanyová captures the clash between traditional and digital elements of contemporary society. This is her third feature, concluding a trilogy that began with her debut work, FREM (2019), followed by the documentary White on White...

We are joined by Cristina Nord, the Artistic Director of the Berlinale Forum, an independently curated section of the Berlinale with a focus on diverse cinematic forms and narrative approaches. I invited Cristina to speak about the rich history of the Forum and what has shaped her curatorial eye. We also discuss some of the non-fiction films included in this years collection, which will be the 53rd edition of the program.  Moderated by Christina Zachariades For show notes visit...

As we put the final touches on our first batch of episodes, we wanted to just pop on to say hi, we appreciate you tuning in, and we are excited to discover new films together!  - Christina Zachariades For show notes visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit for updates.