Projects

Projects

Cannes Docs

La pietà

Directed by: Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés

Produced by: Pepe Andreu, Rafa Molés | SUICAfilms, Spain, Olafur Rognvaldsson | AXfilms, Iceland, Arūnas Matelis | Studio Nominum, Lithuania

Country of production: Spain, Iceland, Lithuania

Runtime: 80'

Expected release: November 2025

Production stage: Editing

Budget: €392,890 (90 % in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, buyers, gap financing

Synopsis:

Seven siblings isolated themselves at the beginning of the past Century at the foot of Europe’s largest glacier. They explored and worshipped it before anyone talked about the melt. Their farm is now an empty skeleton. But their voice will echo again like a litany, like a warning. On the wall, the image of a ‘pietà’, with the great white shroud twisted over the corpse of the dying son.

Director’s Profile:

Rafa Molés is a director, scriptwriter and producer. Graduate in Information Sciences. Journalist of the year’ award in the III Edition of the Journalism Awards of the Valencian Community. Lecturer in the Department of Communication Sciences at the Jaume I University of Castellón until 2017. His films include « Lobster soup » (2020), selected in San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, Visions du Réel, ZagrebDox, Calgary, Taipei, Tehran, Dok.fest Munich, Transylvania, RIFF Reykjavik, among others; « Picotazos contra el cristal » (2019), premiered at the Madrid International Film Festival; « Experiment Stuka » (2018), selected at DocsValencia and DocsBarcelona; among others.

Co-director’s Profile:

Pepe Andreu is a film director, scriptwriter and filmmaker from Elche. Graduate in Information Sciences (Image and Sound). He has more than 25 years of professional experience as a television director as well as directing documentaries for film and television. Since 2013 he has also been a producer at SUICAfilms. His films include « Lobster soup » (2020), selected in San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, Visions du Réel, ZagrebDox, Calgary, Taipei, Tehran, Dok.fest Munich, Transylvania, RIFF Reykjavik, among others; « Picotazos contra el cristal » (2019), premiered at the Madrid International Film Festival; « Experiment Stuka » (2018), selected at DocsValencia and DocsBarcelona; among others.

Producer’s Profile:

Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés started to produce together in 2013 in SUICAfilms. They have worked in documentary as well as fiction. Their films include « El Agua » (2022) by Elena López Riera, « Lobster Soup » (2020) by Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés, or « La Mort de Guillem » (2018) by Carlos Marques-Marcet, among many others.

The award-winning director Arūnas Matelis (Directors Guild of America, IDFA, etc.) has produced more than 50 documentaries, including « Before Flying Back to Earth » (2006), IDFA (winner), Dok Leipzig (winner); or « Wonderful Losers: A Different World » (2017), Warsaw (winner), Minsk (winner), Trieste (winner).

The producer, director, and cinematographer Ólafur Rögnvaldsson founded, with the screenwriter Anna Th. Rögnvaldsdóttir, in Reykjavík in 1991, AXfilms. He has been involved in some of the country’s most important fiction feature films, fiction series, and documentaries.

Cannes Docs

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie

Directed by: Nagore ECEIZA

Produced by: Nagore Eceiza | El Santo Films, Spain, Izaskun Arandia | Izar Films, Spain, Manuel Pereira | Cabiria Films, Spain

Country of production: Spain

Runtime: 70' / 55'

Expected release: May 2026

Production stage: Production

Budget: €333,000 (80% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers, gap financing, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

After eight years of clandestine interfaith love with her Hindu partner, circumstances force Muslim artist Dorine to return to her family. She is forced to adapt to the strict discipline imposed by her father, a fervent practitioner of Islam, for whom the mere act of drawing a human form is considered a transgression.

Director’s Profile:

Producer, director, editor, and DOP. She founded El Santo Films in 2022, after a ten-year professional career as a freelancer, during which she has trained with internationally renowned artists and worked with professionals from a wide variety of fields in the audiovisual industry.

Closely identified with the social documentary genre, she has participated in film productions in Newfoundland, the Ecuadorian Amazon, Cape Verde, Paris, Algeria, Israel, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Mexico, India, and Puerto Rico. She is currently touring festivals with the short film « Wao Zone », awarded eight international awards to date. She is currently directing and co-producing « If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie », her feature-length debut, which will be released in 2026. She is also co-producing the feature-length documentary « Before You, My Shadow », by director Natxo Leuza, which is currently in development.

Producer’s Profile:

Founder of IZAR Films, a film production company based in San Sebastián since 2013. The company specializes in films about human rights and social issues, and they work mainly with women filmmakers. The technical teams are also made up of at least 50% women.
IZAR Films is currently developing the documentary feature film « If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie » in production stage and « Irailak », a documentary feature film in development stage where she is Director and Producer.

Cannes Docs

Average White Band: Soul Searching

Directed by: Anthony Baxter

Produced by: Richard Phinney | Montrose Pictures, UK, Stacy Robinson | Kartemquin Films, USA

Country of production: UK, USA

Runtime: 100'

Expected release: October 2025

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: €771,000 (70% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, buyers, distributors, gap fiancing

Synopsis:

How a group of lads from working class Scotland became one of the most admired soul and funk bands in the history of music, winning over the likes of Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and a future US President – “Those boys could jam,” recalls Barack Obama. And as one of the most sampled bands in hip hop, Average White Band’s music continues to be hugely influential today.

Director’s Profile:

Anthony Baxter is a multi-award-winning director based in Scotland.His work include the BAFTA-winning Eye of the Storm, his poignant profile of artist James Morrison, which was broadcast in prime time on BBC2 and on more than 200 PBS stations in the United States. FLINT: Who Can You Trust? is the “monumental” (The Guardian) account of one of the worst man-made disasters in American history. A Dangerous Game is a searing indictment of the profound ecological and social impact of luxury golf resorts around the world.Baxter’s iconic You’ve Been Trumped, in which a small Scottish community battles against the future American President, won a dozen international awards and was distributed globally through Netflix. The sequel, You’ve Been Trumped Too, follows Donald Trump’s initial Presidential campaign, and had its premiere at IDFA.

Producer’s Profile:

Richard Phinney is an award-winning journalist, producer and filmmaker. He produced and wrote the award-winning theatrical documentaries You’ve Been Trumped (2011), A Dangerous Game (2014), You’ve Been Trumped Too, and FLINT (2020) and won a Scottish BAFTA for his work on Eye of the Storm.

Stacy Robinson has 20 years of experience writing and producing documentaries for CNBC, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, OWN, and numerous cable networks. She wrote and directed the\ Emmy Award winning documentary on Ida B. Wells and the Birth of Gospel Music for PBS, and received a National Emmy nomination for her work as Co-Director of We Are Witnesses: Chicago. She is currently Artistic Director of the Kartemquin Films, with its legacy of award-winning documentaries (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, Life Itself etc.) spanning over five decades. Kartemquin also champions filmmakers in developing their craft, and aligns with partners who understand that documentaries are powerful vehicles for truth that can transform the world around us.

Cannes Docs

Two Mountains Weighing Down My Chest

Directed by: Viv Li

Produced by: Daniela Dieterich | CORSO Film, Germany, Olivia Sophie Van Leeuwen | 100 %, the Netherlands

Country of production: Germany, the Netherlands

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: January 2026

Production stage: Editing

Budget: €610,000 (100% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, buyers, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

A Chinese artist wannabe, drifting between Berlin’s overwhelming queer scene and a traditional family in Beijing, is constantly adapting to shifting opinions of herself, the world, and most importantly, China. Following a witty yet insightful search of identity and belonging, the film goes deep inside two completely different societies, only to question, how do we live in a globalised, but polarised world?

Director’s Profile:

Viv Li is a filmmaker and artist based in Berlin. Born and raised in Beijing, she spent the past 15 years living in Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia. Her first narrative short, « Across the Waters, » was nominated for the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and won the Lights On Women’s Worth Award. Her short documentary, « I Don’t Feel at Home Anywhere Anymore, » was awarded a Jury Special Mention at IDFA, among 8 other international awards after traveling to 70 festivals. Currently, she is working on her first feature project, supported by Sundance Institute, Berlinale Talents, and Chicken&Egg Pictures.

Producer’s Profile:

Daniela Dieterich is based in Cologne, Germany. She has a university degree in Communications, Media, and Sound-studies and is a Sundance Grantee and Dok.Incubator Alumna. She has worked as production manager for various short and feature films, including « Oray » by Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay (winner of the GWFF Best First Feature Award at Berlinale 2019) and for film seminars at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (khm). Since 2017, she has been working as production manager and producer for CORSO Film, including as producer for « Searching Eva » by Pia Hellenthal (Berlinale Panorama, Special Mention CPH:DOX, Audience Award Athens, IDFA, Hot Docs, Sheffield, and many more).

Cannes Docs

Sarkash

Directed by: Sophie Schrago

Produced by: Pauline Tran Van Lieu, Lucie Rego | Hutong Productions, France, Heejung Oh, Sarah Kang | Seesaw Pictures, South Korea

Country of production: France, South Korea

Runtime: 70'

Expected release: February 2026

Production stage: Rough cut

Budget: €325 000 (85% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, gap financing, impact strategy guidance

Synopsis:

Defying the conservative forces in her community, Khatoon opened the first Women’s Sharia Court in Mumbai. Ever since, women come there to denounce violence and get justice, reversing the power dynamics in place.

Director’s Profile:

Sophie Schrago is a documentary filmmaker and anthropologist who draws on her experience living in different cultural settings to tell stories at the intersection of religion, race, ethnicity, and gender. After joining the programming team of the International Film Festival on Human Rights (FIFDH, Geneva) for several editions, she developed various short documentaries including Malcolm X and the Sudanese re-leased in February 2020 on the occasion of Black History Month in New York. She also worked as an assistant-director on the film A Thousand And One Berber Nights by Hisham Aïdi, which is being acquired by the Maroc 2M channel. Her work has been recognized by various bodies such as the Wenner-Gren Foundation, SCAM, the Women Make Movies as well as the Union Docs Center for Documentary Art. She is currently finishing her first feature documentary.

Producer’s Profile:

We created Hutong Productions in 2018. Our ambition is to produce unexplored narratives carried by daring artistic visions. Committed to giving visibility to a wide variety of cinematographic genres and directors from all countries, we produce short and feature-length films, fictions and documentaries, including many first films. Our films are released on TV and in theaters and screened at international festivals, in museums and on SVOD platforms. We act as majority producers (THE WATCHMAN – Black Nights Tallinn, ACTS OF LOVE – Hot Docs Toronto), co-producers (INTERCEPTED – Berlinale), or in the development phase (THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES – Cannes Un Certain Regard 2023, Best Director Award and Golden Eye for Best Documentary). We are members of the SPI, Eurodoc, Atelier Network, European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA) and Women Make movies networks.

Cannes Docs

Your Honour

Directed by: Bircan Birol

Produced by: Reece Cargan | RANDAN, Scotland, UK

Country of production: UK

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: May 2026

Production stage: Late development

Budget: €455,049.30 (35% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Sales agents, distributors, festivals and gap financing

Synopsis:

Trans law student Efruz lives under constant threat to her safety and well-being in today’s authoritarian Turkey. Her friend Bircan films Efruz over the years as her dream of becoming a human rights lawyer is challenged more than ever, and where the two friends find hope from the past, in friendship and resistance infused with laughter.

Director’s Profile:

Bircan is a documentary filmmaker working between Scotland and Turkey. Her work explores themes of belonging, resilience, and resistance, as well as social impact and participatory filmmaking. Her debut short documentary, My Name is Anik (2019), premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and screened in theatres and festivals internationally. She is currently making her first feature-length documentary with Bombito/Randan Productions, supported by Screen Scotland and the International Documentary Association, and pitched at IDFA Forum. She is an alumna of IDFA Academy, Close-Up Initiative, Sheffield DocFest Queer Realities Director’s Lab, Glasgow Film Festival Talent Scheme, EIFF Script Starter, Filmonomics and Scottish Documentary Institute. She is also a BAFTA Connect member and an International Documentary Association Supported Artist.

Producer’s Profile:

Reece is a BAFTA nominated and RTS award winning producer and founder of Scottish production companies ‘Bombito productions’ & ‘RANDAN. Reece is Glasgow based and was selected by Screen International as a Rising Star Scotland. Reece has produced numerous award winning work, he recently he co-produced 2 features with the Netherlands – with support from Screen Scotland & Netherlands Film Fund.
Randan work across a varied slate of feature projects that span drama, documentary and animation. They have four theatrical release scheduled for 2025/2026.

Presented by: Reece CARGAN (RANDAN, Scotland, UK)

Cannes Docs

Love Letters

Directed by: Daniel Cook

Produced by: James Heath | Randan, UK

Country of production: UK

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: March 2026

Production stage: Production

Budget: £350,000 (42% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and buyers

Synopsis:

“Love Letters” is an intimate documentary that captures the daily ongoings in the historical fishing village of Gardenstown. At the heart lies Juliet and Bubbles and their eclectic extended family and friends. This film will document their resilience, joy, and profound connection to community in a lyrical exploration of human experiences.

Director’s Profile:

Over the past two years, I have been developing projects along the Northeast Coast of Scotland, where the resilient spirit and joy of the people I encountered inspired the creation of “Love Letters.”

As a self-shooting filmmaker with a background in the arts, I’m interested in immersing myself in the lives of my subjects, creating films that are at once, performative and factual. I’ve always been drawn to unconventional storytelling, often uncovering distinct narratives through post-production or spontaneous encounters with contributors.

My previous film The Bayview, a Scottish BAFTA and Grierson nominated short documentary about a fishing community, has a similar sense of style. As a natural evolution, working with a community on the fringes of Scotland, I feel that ‘Love Letters’ has the potential to connect with audiences both in the UK and around the world.

Producer’s Profile:

James is a BAFTA-nominated producer known for his work on the SXSW award-winning feature film « The Fitzroy. » A graduate of prestigious programs including Berlinale, Rotterdam Labs, and EAVE Producers’ Workshop, he has established himself as a dynamic force in both commercial and narrative filmmaking.

In recognition of his innovative approach to production, James recently secured BFI Global Screen Fund backing to launch Randan, a new Film and TV focused production company in partnership with Bombito Productions’ Reece Cargan. They have an ambitious slate of projects due for release over the next year including, Screen Ireland-backed coming-of-age drama « Spilt Milk » which recently premiered at Tallinn Black Nights. He’s also venturing into documentary filmmaking with « Love Letters, » supported by BFI Doc Society and Screen Scotland.

Cannes Docs

Everybody To Kenmure Street

Directed by: Felipe Bustos Sierra

Produced by: Ciara Barry | barry crerar, Scotland

Country of production: UK

Runtime: 85'

Expected release: January 2026

Production stage: Development/ Production

Budget: €351,946 (65% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers

Synopsis:

Neighbours and activists rush to surround an immigration van detaining two residents in Scotland’s most diverse community. Everybody to Kenmure Street is an intense, ground-level, and ultimately joyous account of the standoff with the police and the UK Home Office. Our film celebrates collective action, looking to the stories that led to that day and the historic events that have shaped this community.

Director’s Profile:

Felipe Bustos Sierra is a Chilean-Belgian film director based in Glasgow. He is the son of a Chilean journalist who was exiled to Belgium after the 1973 coup d’état. His debut feature documentary, « Nae Pasaran » (2018), won Best Film at the 2018 BAFTA Scotland Awards, where Bustos Sierra was also nominated for Best Director (Factual). The film received a BIFA nomination for Best Documentary in 2018 and enjoyed a successful theatrical release in cinemas across the UK and Chile from 2018 to 2019. The film’s discoveries led to a new public monument inaugurated in 2019 as a permanent tribute to the workers at the Rolls-Royce factory, centered by the film. Bustos Sierra is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus, Eurodoc, and the EIFF Talent Lab.

Producer’s Profile:

Ciara is a producer and co-founder of Barry Crerar, a BAFTA-nominated independent production company based in Glasgow. From nurturing and developing new and emerging local screen talent to realizing the most dynamic and ambitious international co-productions, the company tells stories that connect contemporary global audiences with resonant and groundbreaking voices and themes.

Documentary credits include « Irene’s Ghost » (2018); drama credits include « Sebastian » (2024) and « Girl » (2023), both of which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival, as well as « Nobody Has to Know » (2020) by Bouli Lanners, co-produced with Versus Film Belgium.

Accolades include BAFTA Scotland Best Film nominations, selection for the inaugural Rising Stars Scotland 2022, and a BIFA longlist for Breakthrough Producer 2020.

Cannes Docs

Life in the Shadows

Original title: زندگی‌ در سایه

Directed by: Khadim Dai

Produced by: Ilyas Yourish | CONGOO Films, Belgium

Country of production: Belgium, Germany

Runtime: 90' / 52'

Expected release: August 2026

Production stage: Production

Budget: €391,440 (50% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Financing partners, co-producers, broadcasters, sales agents, festival programmers, buyers & distributors

Synopsis:

A decade after surviving a school bombing, a Hazara filmmaker returns to Quetta, Pakistan, to confront his past. Blending intimate family moments with the ongoing story of persecution and migration, Life in the Shadows is a poetic meditation on loss, resilience, and memory. It is a testimony of survival—and a tribute to a people on the move, carrying home in their memory.

Director’s Profile:

Khadim Dai was born during Afghanistan’s civil war. At the age of two, he fled with his family to Quetta, Pakistan, where he grew up as a refugee with a deep fascination for storytelling, poetry, and folk music. He eventually left Pakistan—but returned years later. While living as a refugee in Indonesia, he began exploring filmmaking, focusing on themes of statelessness and forced displacement.
Khadim worked as a cinematographer on impactful documentaries such as The Staging Post and Chasing Asylum. His short films have been exhibited at the Van Abbemuseum and REDCAT. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Video from the California Institute of the Arts.

Producer’s Profile:

Ilyas Yourish founded Kamay Film in Afghanistan in 2018 to produce films about identity, trauma, history, and memory, rooted in his homeland. After the Taliban’s return in 2021, he was forced into exile and is now based in Belgium. He began his career as a journalist and researcher, spending over a decade traveling across Afghanistan—experiences that continue to shape his cinematic journey.

His debut documentary Kamay premiered at Visions du Réel 2024, won multiple awards, and screened at more than 20 international festivals. Ilyas now leads the Belgian company CONGOO B.V., dedicated to bold, author-driven storytelling. He has co-produced for The Guardian and is currently developing several feature documentaries. His projects have received support from prestigious film foundations and have been presented at major documentary markets in Europe and North America.

Cannes Docs

Gravity, movement

Original title: 重_力

Directed by: Jessica Wan Yu Lin

Produced by: Jessica Wan Yu Lin, Tze Lan Cho | Hummingbird Production Co. Ltd, Taiwan

Country of production: Taiwan

Runtime: 110'

Expected release: December 2025

Production stage: Editing

Budget: $90,000 (37% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers, gap financing

Synopsis:

Cheng Chih-Chung (Chung) moves with his hands. With awareness, braces, and crutches, he can walk up to 14 kilometers on foot. He contracted polio at four and grew up with unanswered questions. At 19, he encountered theater and found an outlet. This film interweaves Chung’s daily life, archives, and performances to offer an intimate look at how he negotiates his identity and challenges societal perceptions.

Director’s Profile:

Jessica Wan Yu LIN was born in 1984, based in Taipei. She is an independent filmmaker who has experience in Avant-garde theatre and cooperates with sound artists and choreographers. She was nominated as the best editor of the Golden Horse Award for “Small Talk”, which won the Teddy Award in 2017. Her film « TPE-Tics » won the Special Jury Award in the 2015 Taipei Film Award, selected by FIDMarseille, Singapore International Film Festival, etc. Recent editing work “After the snowmelt” selected by Vision du Reel, Jeonju International Film Festival, and the Golden Horse, etc. Producing work « From Island to Island » won the Best Documentary Award of the Golden Horse and the Grand Prize in Taipei Film Festival 2024.

Producer’s Profile:

CHO Tze-Lan works in documentary production and has collaborated with award-winning documentary filmmakers, including HUANG Hsin-Yao, HUANG Hui-Chen, and LAU Kek-Huat. Her recent title « Taste of Wild Tomato » was selected for the 2021 BIFF and won the 2022 TIDF Grand Prize of Taiwan Competition. « After the snowmelt » selected by Vision du Reel, Jeonju International Film Festival, and the Golden Horse, etc. To look for more equal ways to coexist with the world, she is dedicated to making films about gender, indigenous, human rights, and environmental issues.