Docs in Orbit

Last week brought the close of the 35th edition of IDFA and this year’s edition felt monumental. Not only for the sheer number of films on display (277) but also for the necessary and thought provoking panel discussions that were platformed - including an examination of the growing prosecution and incarceration of filmmakers around the world, the emergence of co-creation as a practice grounded in...

With such an overwhelming number of films on offer at IDFA, we invited Wouter Jansen to help curate a watch list of films that will be on display. Wouter is the founder of Square Eyes, a sales and distribution company based in Vienna specializing in bold, author driven features and shorts. This year, he will be at IDFA with two titles, ANHEIL 69 by Theo Montoya and EUROPE by Philip Scheffner. In t...

It is night in America. A young anteater is found dead by the side of a road in Brasilia, a boa constrictor wanders into the suburbs, and a maned wolf is found on a farm. The question is: are animals invading our cities, or rather are we occupying their habitat? IT IS NIGHT IN AMERICA (2022) by Ana Vaz is a spellbinding film that comes to the Camden International Film Festival wielding a strong en...

Fall is upon us, and what better way to begin this new season than in the cozy atmosphere at the Camden International Film Festival in mid-coast Maine - a major documentary event in the United States. In anticipation for this year's festival, I caught up with Milton Guillén, Senior Programmer at CIFF to provide texture around this year's stellar line-up and how the program came together. We also d...

Our first episode of a series covering the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival. We are joined by Rada Šešić, who leads the selection of films in the Documentary Competition. Rada SESIC (Croatia) is a critic, film maker, lecturer and a programmer. She is specialized in South Asian and Eastern European cinema. She also organizes the DocuRough Cut Boutique which we discuss in our conversation as well as the...

This year, the Locarno Film Festival is celebrating its 75th anniversary from August 3 - 13th in the beautiful Swiss Canton of Ticino. It’s a festival that is known for supporting independent, arthouse and avant-garde cinema, often showcasing darling films that break and blur the boundaries between cinematic genres. That is why I’ve always enjoyed and admired their program. It has introduced me to...

In this episode, we are pleased to share a special conversation with Jumana Manna about her recent film, FORAGERS, which we discovered at Vision Du Reel this past April. Jumana is a Berlin based visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Her new film, Foragers depic...

The day after his World Premiere at Sundance, we sat with Shaunak Sen, the director of ALL THAT BREATHES to discuss the many resonances of his work. In this heart felt conversation Sen shares with us his creative process in making this film and the ecological philosophies underpinning ALL THAT BREATHES. Moderated by Christina Zachariades, Docs in OrbitFor show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be s...

Geographies of Solitude with Jacquelyn Mills moderated by Sean Van Wert in Toronto. Featuring a conversation with Jacquelyn Mills about her most recent film GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE.In GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE, Mills offers us an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island and the life of Zoe Lucas, an environmentalist who has lived over 40 years on this remote, sliver of land off the coast of...

In this episode, I am joined by two film critics whose work I adore, Inge Coolsaet and Jordan Cronk - both of whom I had the great pleasure to meet at this year's swiss festival, Visions du Réel. Inge Coolsaet is a film critic based in Brussels. She writes for several international publications, including Point of View magazine, Filmmagie, Photogenie, and Cineuropa. She is co-editor-in-chief of th...

In this episode, we feature a conversation with Diem Ha Le about her debut feature film, CHILDREN OF THE MIST, which premiered at IDFA and had its Swiss premiere in the Grand Angle section of Visions du Réel. The film follows Dzi, a 12-year-old girl from the Hmong ethnic group in Northern Vietnam. During the Lunar new year, girls as young as Dzi become part of the customary practice of "bride kidn...

An episode focused on Visions du Réel, the international documentary film festival held in April in Nyon, Switzerland. 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. And it has also been a significant source of inspiration for this podcast, as we have made several film...

This episode pulls focus on CPH:DOX - one of the biggest documentary film festivals in Europe today. Situated in Copenhagen, the festival began on March 23, and we just wrapped up a full week of screenings! This year, the festival is hosting many exciting in-person events in Copenhagen and online offers for both the industry and the public, with a selection of films streaming online in Denmark for...

Edo Choi, a curator at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and film critic extraordinaire joins the podcast to discuss several standout films we encountered at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival. Films discussed include Avec amour et acharnement / Both Sides of the Blade / Fire, Rimini, Dry Ground Burning, Europe, Rewind and Play, See You Friday Robinson, and A Little Love Package....

Greetings from Berlin. In this episode, we are joined with Anna Henckel Donnersmarck, the curator and head of Berlinale Shorts. Berlinale Shorts is the section dedicated to daring works of the short form. This year’s line up does not disappoint, with a selection of 30 international and world premieres from new and established filmmakers like Radu Jude, Atsushi Wada, Sky Hopinka, and many more as w...

In this episode, we recap some of the films we encountered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival with special guest Milton Guillén - an award-winning filmmaker, faculty member at CalArts, and a programmer at the Camden International Film Festival. Films we discussed include:4:58 FIRE OF LOVE by Sara Dosa 9:12 ALL THAT BREATHES by Shaunak Sen15:53 WE MET IN VIRTUAL REALITY by Joe Hunting25:38 DOS ESTA...

In this episode, I am joined with filmmaker and dear friend, Venice Atienza ahead of her traveling to IDFA where we review the program. IDFA is one of the largest documentary film events, and their extensive programming is energizing for the international documentary film community but it’s also very overwhelming with over 260 titles and only ten days. So before boarding her flight, we went throug...

In this episode, we recap films from the Camden International Film Festival which just wrapped up over the past weekend. I sat with a dear friend of the podcast, Bronte Stahl, a filmmaker and producer from Westerly RI who is a frequent attendee at CIFF and also part of the festival's screening committee. Bronte and I studied documentary in film school many moons ago at the European master's progra...

Featuring a conversation with Payal Kapadia about her remarkably brave and powerful film A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING which took home awards at Cannes, TIFF, and CIFF. Here, she discusses with us her artistic approach, sources of inspiration, and the freedom she finds in documentary filmmaking. Moderated by Aylin GökmenFor show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @d...

The Fall Film Festival season has begun! And to kick things off, we invited Milton Guillén, a programmer from the Camden International Film Festival, to take us through the 17th edition of the festival lineup, featuring over 70 documentary films (features and shorts). In this episode, Milton provides a peek into how the program came together and adds texture to some of the films in the different s...

For our third episode dedicated to the 27th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, we feature a conversation with Stefan Pavlović whose film, LOOKING FOR HORSES, took home the Special Jury Prize in the documentary competition. Looking for Horses is Stefan’s first feature-length film and the result of his graduate studies at the Netherlands Film Academy in Artistic Research in and through Cinema ti...

The festival just wrapped but our coverage continues! In this episode, Christina Zachariades is joined by Macha Tsarencov and Steve Rickinson to discuss their travels to Sarajevo, the atmosphere of the festival, and several documentary films that screened as part of the competition. Films discussed include FACTORY TO THE WORKERS by Srđan Kovačević, THE SAME DREAM by Vlad Petri, DISTURBED EARTH by...

Our first episode of a series covering the 27th Sarajevo Film Festival. We are joined by Rada Šešić, who leads the selection of films in the Documentary Competition. We discuss her work as a filmmaker, critic, mentor, and film programmer. We also talk about the origins of the Sarajevo Film Festival and how it's rooted in cultural protest, review some of the films included in this year’s Documentar...

A conversation with Basma Alsharif about four of her short films: FARTHER THAN THE EYE CAN SEE, HOME MOVIE GAZA, WE BEGAN BY MEASURING DISTANCE, and OH PERSECUTED, which were programmed in 2021 on Another Screen, FOR A FREE PALESTINE: Films by Palestinian Women, curated by Daniella Shreir. Basma al-Sharif is a visual artist and filmmaker raised as something of a nomad between Kuwait, France, the U...

A roundtable conversation featuring three filmmakers presenting work at Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto, in the shorts section and were made within the framework of DocNomads, a European Master degree program in Documentary film, Directing. Anna Artemyeva’s film, DON'T HESITATE TO COME FOR A VISIT, MOM (2020) is a powerful and timely film chronicling Anna’s separation from her youn...