‘Balomania,’ About Brazil’s ‘Balloon Mafia,’ Boarded by Cargo Ahead of CPH:DOX Premiere, Trailer Debuts (EXCLUSIVE)

The Flats, a film about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, won the top award at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen at a Friday night, earning a €10,000 prize. 

Annika Pham Coming straight from Sundance with their respective buzzy docs “Power” – a Netflix Original – and “Union,” U.S. director/producer Yance Ford and his Canadian counterpart Brett Story delivered March 20 an empowering talk at Copenhagen’s “Film:makers in Dialogue” session, where they bounced ideas between each other about power structure in American society, capitalism, race and class divides from historical and contemporary perspectives. “Power,” which was competing at CPH:DOX for the Human Rights Award, is a forceful documentary essay on the origin of U.S.

Lise Pedersen The ongoing war in Gaza was high on the agenda at the awards ceremony of CPH:DOX, Copenhagen’s international documentary film festival, with numerous filmmakers calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as they picked up their awards. Opening the ceremony following a concert by the locally-based Middle East Peace Ensemble, artistic director Niklas Engstrøm told the crowd gathered in Copenhagen’s historic Kunsthal Charlottenborg, which is home to the fest throughout the 10-day event: “It felt right to start with this basic human message of hope and peace.” On the theme of conflicts past and present, Italian director Alessandra Celesia picked up the top Dox:Award for “The Flats,” a powerful, timely and haunting film about a community living in the shadow of the pain and trauma of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Lise Pedersen Science is one of the central themes of leading European doc film festival CPH:DOX. Alongside the broad selection of films on offer in the CPH:SCIENCE section, the event also opens the floor to conversations on the role of science docs with key players, ranging from filmmakers and producers to commissioners and public broadcasters.

Less than two weeks after 20 Days in Mariupol won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, another important film about Ukraine has bowed on the world stage.

House of the Dragon is returning to HBO in June 2024 for the highly anticipated second season and new character posters have been released!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Belgian filmmaker Sofie Benoot‘s “Apple Cider Vinegar,” which has its world premiere in the International Competition section of Visions du Réel, has been picked up for world sales by Filmotor. The trailer and poster are being released exclusively by Variety. The film is narrated by actor Sian Phillips, who appeared in “I, Claudius” and David Lynch’s “Dune,” and is a veteran nature documentary narrator.

The hummingbirds of Every Little Thing are migrating from North America to Europe. Sally Aikten’s film about the extraordinary avian aerialists and a Los Angeles woman who tends to injured hummingbirds is making its European premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, after initially hovering over Sundance.

The story shocked the world 10 years ago: the Copenhagen Zoo’s decision to euthanize a healthy two-year-old giraffe named Marius because they considered it a “surplus animal.” CNN reported on it. So did Le Monde in France, the U.K.’s Guardian and The Independent, and the Irish Times.

Lucy Boynton debuted her new movie The Greatest Hits at SXSW this week and the official trailer is now available online!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales agency Lightdox has acquired documentary “Marching in the Dark” in advance of its world premiere at CPH:DOX. The feature debut from Kinshuk Surjan focuses on how the growing number of suicides among farmers in India is affecting the agricultural community. The trailer debuts exclusively on Variety below.

EXCLUSIVE: A documentary about the legendary Billy Preston that’s set to debut tonight at SXSW might not see the light of day.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been given exclusive access to a first-look clip (below) from Simon Ennis’ documentary “The Hobby,” which world premieres at SXSW on Friday. International sales are being handled by Vortex Media. “The Hobby” is an affectionate, character-driven portrait of the subculture of board games, covering the World Series of Board Games in Las Vegas and reaching back to Ancient Mesopotamia.

Lisa Vanderpump is launching a brand new reality show on Hulu – Vanderpump Villa!

Annika Pham Doc specialist house Autlook Film Sales has picked up world sales on the Finnish film “Once Upon a Time in a Forest,” ahead of its world premiere in the main competition of Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX festival. Variety is premiering its trailer (below). The film, directed and produced by Virpi Suutari, scooped the $15,000 Al Jazeera Documentary Pitch Award at the last Cannes Marché du Film.

Max has dropped the official trailer for season 3 of Hacks, which returns May 2 for nine episodes.

Annika Pham Danish sales outfit DR Sales, attached to the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning doc “A New Kind of Wilderness,” has boarded another high-quality Norwegian documentary – “Phantoms of the Sierra Madre” by the multi-awarded Håvard Bustnes (“Raging Grannies,” “Golden Dawn Girls”). The epic and self-reflective film, made in partnership with the Mescalero Apache Tribe, is due to world premiere in the main DOX:Award competition of Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX festival, running March 13-24. Bustnes, Christian Aune Falch and Torstein Parelius are producing for Norway’s Upnorth Film, in co-production with Finland’s Napa Films.

Caroline Brew editor The sci-fi thriller “Things Will Be Different” has released a first-look clip ahead of its SXSW Film & TV Festival world premiere. The film stars Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy and premieres March 11 as part of the festival’s Midnight selection. Marking Michael Felker’s feature directorial debut, “Things Will Be Different” follows siblings Joseph and Sidney, played by Thompson and Dandy, who are on the run from the law.

Annika Pham Taskovski Films has acquired world rights to the Danish doc “Daughter of Genghis,” produced by “The Lost Leonardo’s” Andreas Dalsgaard for Elk Film. The debut feature of award-winning photo-journalists Kristoffer Juel Poulsen and Christian Als will world premiere in the F:ACT competition section of the leading international documentary festival CPH:DOX in Copenhagen.

Christopher Vourlias London-based world sales company Taskovski Films Sales has acquired the sales rights to “Until I Fly,” a coming-of-age story by directors Kanishka Sonthalia and Siddesh Shetty, ahead of its world premiere March 10 at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Produced by Sonthalia at Kopuku Films, in co-production with Christilla Huillard Kann of Elda Productions, the film tells the story of Veeru, a resilient young boy of Indian Nepalese heritage, who has to face the daily challenges of cultural rejection in an Indian Himalayan village, where most of the inhabitants look down on his mixed identity.