Projects
Projects
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.
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.
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.
The Production of the World
Directed by: Brett Story
Produced by: Jeff REICHERT, Brett STORY | Oh Ratface!, Canada, Elhum Shakerifar | Hakawati, UK
Country of Production: Canada, UK, France
Runtime: 100'
Expected Release: May 2026
Production Stage: Post-production
Budget: $870,000 (40% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers, gap financing
Synopsis:
The Production of the World is an archival documentary about the radical art critic John Berger, the CIA’s infiltration of the arts during “cultural Cold War,” and the ways images operate as a battleground for politics. Set against the rise of the modern superpowers and the spectre of nuclear annihilation, it pits Berger against the CIA in a nonfiction espionage thriller about art and politics.
Director’s Profile:
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, CPH:DOX, and SXSW. She is the director of the feature films UNION (with Steve Maing), which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, THE PRISON IN TWELVE LANDSCAPES and THE HOTTEST AUGUST, and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. In 2020 she was nominated for a Cinema Eye Award for Best Director. She is a recipient of a Chicken & Egg Award, Sundance Fellowship, and Guggenheim Fellowship.
Producer’s Profile:
Jeff Reichert is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and critic. His films as a director have won awards and screened at major festivals worldwide and include the feature documentaries Gerrymandering, Remote Area Medical, This Time Next Year, and the fiction-documentary hybrid Feast of the Epiphany. He produced American Factory which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. He is also the co–founder and editor of the online film journal Reverse Shot (est. 2003), now a publication of Museum of the Moving Image, and has written for Film Comment and Filmmaker among others.
We Shall Eat When the River is Full
Directed by: Banchi Hanuse
Produced by: Banchi Hanuse | Smayaykila Films Inc, Canada
Country of Production: Canada
Runtime: 94'
Expected Release: September 2025
Production Stage: Post-production
Budget: CAD$670,000 (80% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Sales agents, distributors, buyers, strategic guidance, festivals
Synopsis:
At Nuxalk Radio, a rinky-dink, ramshackled station on the edge of the world, an inquiry into the disappearance of their sacred fish unearths a deeper truth about the ancestors who vanished before them -unraveling a chilling story buried in Canada’s past.
Director’s Profile:
Banchi Hanuse is a producer/director, National Geographic Explorer and co-founder of the Nuxalk Radio, a station dedicated to keeping the Nuxalk language alive. She directed the short documentaries ‘Cry Rock’ (2010) and ‘Nuxalk Radio’ (2020), as well as the feature-length ‘Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun’ (2023). Currently in post-production on ‘We Shall Eat When the River is Full,’ she continues to amplify Indigenous stories and advocate for cultural and environmental stewardship.
Skin of the Sky
Directed by: Andrea Bussmann
Produced by: Andrea Bussmann
Country of Production: Canada
Runtime: 120'
Expected Release: December 2025
Production Stage: Rough Cut
Budget: $45,000 (80% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Festivals, sales, co-producer
Synopsis:
Skin of the Sky is a poetic essay film that drifts through the borderlands, where horses and humans move through circuits of labor, violence, and abandonment. Told in fragments and spectral images, the film lingers at a threshold—where bodies vanish, stories echo, and the visible gives way to what resists being seen.
Director’s Profile:
Andrea Bussmann was born in Toronto, Canada. She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and an MFA in Film Production. She directed He Whose Face Gives No Light (2011) and co-directed Tales of Two Who Dreamt (Berlinale Forum, 2016), which won Best Documentary at the Festival International de Films de Femmes. Her feature Fausto (2018) premiered at Locarno and won Best Latin American Feature at Mar del Plata. That same year, she received the Discovery Award from the Directors Guild of Canada. Her films explore the porous borders between fiction and non-fiction, often weaving literature, myth, and experimental form into narratives shaped by lived encounters. Working across hybrid modes, she engages multispecies relationships, layered temporalities, and liminal states to challenge cinematic conventions and open alternative ways of seeing, sensing, and inhabiting the world.
Concrete Turned To Sand
Directed by: Jessica Johnson, Ryan Ermacora
Produced by: Jessica Johnson & Ryan Ermacora | Slag Pile Films Ltd, Canada
Country of Production: Canada
Runtime: 75'
Expected Release: July 2025
Production Stage: Post-production
Budget: CAD$220,000 (100% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, buyers, strategic guidance
Synopsis:
Following a collective of oyster farmers on Cortes Island, British Columbia, Concrete Turned to Sand traces the changing intertidal zone as it endures the effects of ocean warming and acidification. Temporal, geographic and ecological scales of perception flow between each other, as the film reveals the transforming landscape and the intertwined livelihoods within it.
Director’s Profile:
Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora are award-winning filmmakers based in Vancouver, BC. Their work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, their work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. Their work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, DOXA, and VIFF.
Producer’s Profile:
Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora are award-winning filmmakers based in Vancouver, BC. Their work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, their work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. Their work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, DOXA, and VIFF.
Jailers
Original Title: Carcereiras
Directed by: Julia Hannud
Produced by: Sabrina Zimmermann | Uma Filmes, Brazil
Country of Production: Brazil
Runtime: 94'
Expected Release: October 2025
Production Stage: Post-production
Budget: €417,493.50 (85% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Strengthen the film's presence in the international market, secure a deal with a sales agent, ensure distribution across multiple territories, explore its potential on VOD platforms and facilitate premieres at festivals
Synopsis:
Ana Paula (42) and Mariana (25) are prison officers working in facilities far from their roots. While Mariana seeks professional advancement, Ana Paula longs to return to São Paulo. On Christmas, both face dilemmas about their future and sense of belonging, forcing them to reevaluate their paths and choices.
Director’s Profile:
Julia Hannud is an auteur documentary director and the founder of UMA FILMES. She directed the short film « Amor, Só de Mãe » (2018), which was shortlisted for the Student BAFTA, and the feature film « Saudade Mundão » (2020), which premiered at FESTin Lisbon and explores the lives of women in prison. The film is available on digital platforms. She also directed the short film « Bacuranao, » produced during her master’s in documentary filmmaking at EICTV in Cuba, and is currently in the final stages of post-production. She is in the final stages of post-production for her upcoming feature film, « Carceiras. » The film has participated in various labs, including Campus Latino at the Goethe Institut (Mexico, Chile, Colombia), Nuevas Miradas (Cuba), SANFIC in Chile, and FULGOR LAB in Spain. Julia holds a master’s degree in creative documentary filmmaking from Pompeu Fabra University in Spain.
Producer’s Profile:
Sabrina Zimmermann is a creative producer with experience in audiovisual projects in Brazil and Spain. She has produced award-winning short films, such as « El Hacedor de Muebles » (2019), shown at the Locarno; « En la Boca de la Mina » (2019), winner of the GZ Award at CORTOCIRCUITO; and « A Comuñón de Mi Prima Andrea » (2021), awarded at the 52nd Visions du Réel, shortlisted for the Goya Awards, and nominated for the Mestre Mateo awards. She is a partner at Filmes de Pedra, an independent production company based in Galicia. In Brazil, she is a partner at Zimmermann Filmes. Sabrina produced her first feature film, « Queremo Róque! » (2021), a milestone for Chapecó, which was shown at In-Edit Brasil. She is currently in post-production on « Carcereiras, » directed by Julia Hannud. She is also developing « Cortejo dos Mortos » by Dario Aldana. Sabrina holds a degree in Production from EICTV – Cuba.
I Heard the Calling: The Return of the Tupinambá Cloak
Original Title: Eu Ouvi o Chamado: O Retorno dos Mantos Tupinambá
Directed by: Myrza Muniz, Robson Dias, Célia Tupinambá
Produced by: Myrza Muniz | Selvática Filmes, Brazil, Robson Dias | Búzios Films, France
Country of Production: Brazil, France
Runtime: 90'
Expected Release: February 2026
Production Stage: Post-production
Budget: €597,000 (17% in place)
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Gap financing, international co-producers, buyer, sales agents / distributors, strategic guidance.
Synopsis:
Célia Tupinambá, an Indigenous artist and leader, travels across European museums to access and document the eleven sacred Tupinambá cloaks, taken during colonization. Away from her village, she leads the movement for the return of these ancestors capable of healing the land. An impact documentary that delves into the cosmogony and cosmoagony behind the largest restitution in Brazilian history.
Director’s Profile:
Robson Dias is a Brazilian director, editor, and documentary filmmaker based in Marseille. He holds a Master’s in Documentary Directing from Aix-Marseille Université and a Cinema degree from PUC-Rio. His debut short « Pra Inglês Ver » won an award at the Gramado Film Festival. He directed the second unit of « Surfing West Africa » (Canal OFF) and co-wrote and edited the feature « Kabadio » before relocating to Europe. He trained at CLCF École de Cinéma in Paris and has worked for the past ten years across France, Germany, and Italy. A participant in the Warner Bros. Discovery accelerator program, he directed « Favela Turística », now streaming on MAX and airing on TLC and TNT. He recently spoke at Rio2C and remains active on the international film circuit.
Co-director’s Profile:
Célia Tupinambá is an artist, anthropologist, activist, filmmaker, and leader of the village in Serra do Padeiro, located in the Tupinambá de Olivença Indigenous Territory in southern Bahia. Célia holds a degree in Intercultural Indigenous Education from the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia (IFBA), and a master’s degree in Anthropology from the National Museum/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She co-directed the documentary « Voice of Indigenous Women » (2015) alongside Cristiane Julião Pankararu and Alexandre Pankararu. She is a representative at UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. After holding solo exhibitions in prominent venues, galleries, and institutions, in 2024 she became the first Indigenous artist to represent Brazil at the Venice Biennale, with the exhibition « Ka’a Pûera: We Are Birds That Walk. »
Producer’s Profile:
Myrza Muniz is a Brazilian director, writer, and producer based in Rio de Janeiro. She began her career in advertising, with a master’s specialization at ESCP Paris and working at Publicis Group Paris. She later transitioned to cinema, earning a degree from the Darcy Ribeiro Film School in Rio and participating in renowned labs by Globo and Netflix. Myrza creates both fiction and non-fiction series and feature films for platforms such as Amazon Studios and GloboPlay. She has collaborated on award-winning short films, including « Agora » (Grand Prize at the Short to the Point International Film Festival), the fiction short « Bença » (winner of the Prix Courtoujours at the Toulouse Festival), and the feature documentary « Recognized », which premiered at the 2025 edition of the É Tudo Verdade festival. She has led Selvática Filmes, a BIPOC-led production company, since 2017.
Defiant
Original Title: Afrontosa
Directed by: Coraci Ruiz, Julio Matos
Produced by: Coraci Ruiz, Julio Matos, Hidalgo Romero | Laboratório Cisco, Brazil
Country of Production: Brazil
Runtime: 90'
Expected Release: January 2026
Production Stage: Editing
Budget: €160,000 (100% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Festival programmers and international distributors, buyers, strategic guidance
Synopsis:
Suzy is a trans black woman from Campinas, the last Brazilian city to abolish slavery. She runs a shelter for vulnerable trans people, works in the public health service, does religious rituals, looks after her family and now she faces a new challenge: running for councillor. Through an intimate portrait, the film explores the joys and struggles of doing politics in a country resistant to dissident bodies.
Director’s Profile:
Coraci Ruiz has been a documentary filmmaker since 2003, when she took part in founding the production company Cisco Lab, which specialises in themes related to human rights and the environment. Her work includes the features « Letters to Angola » (awarded in Brazil, Angola, Portugal and Belgium), « Threshold » (more than eighty festivals and twenty-two awards in Brazil and abroad) and « Blooming on the Asphalt » (fifteen awards in Brazil and abroad). She has also directed a number of short films and series, including « Brazilian Sonorities: Women’s Lyrics » (winner of the TAL TV 2024 Award in the Music Content category). She is currently working on the feature films « Defiant » and “Mirante: send me news from over there ». She has a degree in Dance, a Master’s in Audiovisual Culture and Media, a PhD in Multimedia, all at Unicamp.
Producer’s Profile:
Julio Matos has been a director and producer since 2003, when he took part in founding the production company Cisco Lab, which specialises in themes related to human rights and the environment. His work includes the features « Letters to Angola » (awarded in Brazil, Angola, Portugal and Belgium) and « Blooming on the Asphalt » (fifteen awards in Brazil and abroad); and the short “Mute Utopia”, screened and awarded at important festivals such as It’s All True (Editing Award) and Biarritz Amérique Latine (Special Mention). He has a degree in Sociology from Unicamp and a master’s degree in Social Communication from Goldsmiths University of London.