Panorama.doc offers a concise survey of the festival season, showcasing standout documentaries that premiered at major international film events.
The programme opens on a resonant note with the Russian premiere of Imago by Déni Oumar Pitsaev, winner of two awards at the latest Cannes Film Festival: the L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary and the French Touch Prize of the Jury for Innovation in Filmmaking. Born in Chechnya and later moving to Belgium, Pitsaev returns to his native village in search of answers to timeless questions. What constitutes “family”? What defines “home”? Where is the place that belongs to you just as much as you belong to it?
Sissel Morell Dargis’s Balomania, about Brazilian baloeiros who launch hundreds of giant balloons into the sky, develops the programme’s central motif—the dream, the obsession with a grand idea, and how audacious courage and boundless imagination often counter the weight of reality.
Louis and Auguste Lumière, whose visionary passion for technical innovation gave birth to a new art form, are the protagonists of the next film. Lumière! The Adventure Continues is an immersion in cinema as a space of pure joy and creative freedom. Crafted by Cannes Festival director Thierry Frémaux, the film draws on lesser-known works by the founding fathers of cinema.
Multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and winner of a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, has garnered 17 awards and 35 nominations worldwide. Through innovative, jazz-inflected editing, the film tells an astonishing story of international conspiracies surrounding Congo’s decolonization.
While the protagonist of Imago envisions building a futuristic home in his native village, the central figures of Shannon Walsh’s Adrianne & the Castle turn their family nest into a theatre of dreams, seeking a fragile balance between living in a fantasy and engaging with the real world—a pursuit shared by other protagonists of the Panorama.doc section.
Ivan Labutin, Natalia Pylaeva