On 23 January at FIPADOC, the Minister for Culture Rima Abdul Malak launched the 2023 Year of the Documentary initiative; one of the French masters of the genre, Nicolas Philibert, has just walked away with Berlin’s Golden Bear via On The Adamant [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Nicolas Philibert
scheda film]; and the 45th Cinéma du Réel Festival is making its final preparations before opening on 23 March… The documentary form is clearly making headlines in France, and it’s a fortunate thing, given that the Best of Doc #4 Festival is unspooling 8 – 21 March in more than 60 of the country’s cinemas.

Having grown from a one-week event to two, the festival is touring cinemas in France showcasing 10 of the best documentary films of the past 12 months. Each of the cinemas involved will be screening at least three films from among the selection, with the directors or other speakers accompanying their screenings.

The line-up includes Babi Yar. Context [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Sergei Loznitsa
scheda film] by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (awarded Cannes’ Special Golden Eye Prize), Who’s Stopping Us [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Jonás Trueba
scheda film] by Spain’s Jonas Trueba (the winner of San Sebastián’s Best Cast trophy and the Goya for Best Documentary), A Night of Knowing Nothing [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Payal Kapadia
scheda film] by India’s Payal Kapadia (another Cannes Golden Eye victor), Soy libre [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by France’s Laure Portier (unveiled in Cannes’ ACID selection and earning itself the Diagonales Grand Jury Prize in the Angers European First Film Festival), Black Notebooks (I: Viviane & II: Ronit) by Israel’s Shlomi Elkabetz (treated to a Special Screening in Cannes), the multi-award-winning and thrice-Oscar-nominated Flee [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
scheda film] by Norway’s Jonas Poher Rasmussen, H6 [+leggi anche:
trailer
intervista: Yé Yé
scheda film] by French-Chinese director Yé Yé (shown in a Cannes Special Screening and nominated for the 2023 Best Documentary Lumière), Ghost Song [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by French filmmaker Nicolas Peduzzi (shown in Cannes’ ACID line-up), That Which Does Not Kill [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Alexe Poukine
scheda film] by his compatriot Alexe Poukine (singled out as the most innovative movie in the Visions du Réel Festival) and Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] by Palestine’s Abdallah Al-Khatib (rewarded at Visions du Réel and subsequently screened in Cannes’ ACID section). A jury of high schoolers, in partnership with the film education programme "Cinema, one hundred years of young people", is also set to award the Best of Doc Prize to one of the selection’s ten films, which will also see the winning movie being pre-purchased by the Tënk platform.

The line-up is even further enhanced by another three feature films: See You Friday Robinson [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] by Iran’s Mitra Farahani (awarded the Special Jury Prize within the Berlinale’s Encounters section), which will open the festival on 8 March in Paris’s L’Archipel cinema, Atlantic Bar [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by Fanny Molins (screened in Cannes’ ACID selection), which will screened in various premieres ahead of its cinema release on 22 March, and, in terms of heritage films, Love Meetings by Italy’s Pier Paolo Pasolini. And that’s without forgetting a brand-new section consisting of eight short films also made by the directors featured in the selection.