Documentary: What’s Next?

Dan SALERNO | Documentary Business

Documentary filmmakers, producers of nonfiction content, short film creators, and nonfiction storytellers are all facing the challenges brought about by rapid changes across the industry. As streaming platforms continue to consolidate and emerging technologies develop at an unprecedented pace, how can we prepare for and navigate the challenges ahead?

This keynote will explore the latest developments in the documentary industry, examining the diverse distribution landscape spanning streaming platforms, pay-TV and specialty channels, public and commercial broadcasters, YouTube, and theatrical documentary releases. We will look at which organizations are still investing in new documentary projects, which partners are worth building relationships with, and what kinds of content and creators they are currently seeking.

Ms. Hu’s Garden

China｜2024｜ 103 min ｜PAN Zhi-qi

This is a story about love and self-redemption.

Ms. Hu, who lives in Chongqing’s Shibati neighborhood, runs a modest, low-cost guesthouse and spends her days collecting discarded items from the nearby commercial district. Despite her own financial struggles, she often helps guests at the guesthouse who are experiencing hardship.

In contrast to the harsh realities of her life, Ms. Hu possesses an extraordinarily rich inner world. Using discarded commercial waste that she collects, she has built a garden—a poetic space that belongs entirely to her. She hopes that this garden will help redeem both herself and her son, Shaobin, who suffers from depression. But to Shaobin, the garden is merely a pile of rubbish, a means for his mother to escape from the past.

Filming began in 2012 and continued for nearly a decade. Using the garden as a recurring thread, the film documents the inner worlds and everyday realities of Ms. Hu and her son, Shaobin, over the course of their lives together.

Pitching Session: CCDF-17 Selected Projects

Sweetie Ping + Who Will Love Me When You Die

Sweetie Ping

China ∣2024 ∣ 33min ∣WEN De-chuan

Feng Yiping, president of the Chengdu Association for the Visually Impaired, has devoted herself to advocacy for people with visual impairments for many years. Through her tireless efforts, the association has gradually found its footing, but her family life is shrouded in crisis: her daughter is suffering from liver fibrosis, her father’s Alzheimer’s disease has progressed to its late stage, and her husband has been diagnosed with cancer following a medical checkup.

Despite everything, Feng remains remarkably optimistic. At a celebration hosted by the association, she unexpectedly reunites with her former husband, bringing memories of the past flooding back. Through their encounter, we begin to uncover the story of her first half of life—and come to understand the source of her optimism in the face of an extraordinarily difficult life.

Who Will Love Me When You Die

Malaysia ∣ 2025 ∣ 29min ∣Beatrice LEONG

What happens when the other soul that has long dwelled within you returns, after years of estrangement, to a place that has fallen silent?

An autistic person returns to her mother—two intertwined lives shaped by love and fear. The choices they made to protect one another echo quietly across time, rewriting memories and revealing unspoken truths. Misdiagnosis, erasure, and long-buried grief resurface, leaving indelible marks on their existence.

When fear has shaped a life, what does it mean to keep moving forward? And when mother and daughter build an emotional bond out of love, what remains in the end?

HARD TRUTHS – Marrying Creativity and Market Reality

Mandy CHANG｜ Documentary Film Council
Chris HUMPHREY｜Asia for A+E Creative Partners
Bob MOORE ｜ EyeSteelFilm
Rachel WEXLER ｜Bungalow Town Productions

In the documentary field, directors often take on the dual role of director and producer. It is an incredibly demanding responsibility. But what happens when these two roles are separated? What does each one actually do?

The director is responsible for the creative and filmmaking process itself, while the producer serves as the point where creative vision ultimately meets the realities of the business. Producers identify stories—or find the right creative teams—secure funding and resources to bring a project into production, keep the film within budget, and ensure that the finished work reaches its audience.

In the world of narrative filmmaking, producers have the authority to hire—and, when necessary, fire—directors. Ultimately, the power and responsibility rest with the producer.

In this session, experienced producers with extensive international production experience will share their insights, knowledge, and hard-earned lessons from working across the industry.

No One Is Coming to the Rescue: Documentary Distribution in the Age of Platforms

Maëlle GUENEGUES｜CAT&Docs
Orly RAVID｜ The Film Collaborative
María VERA｜Kino Rebelde

The brutal truth is this: the streaming platforms stop buying, the broadcasters stop calling, and the deal you thought would save your film simply never happens. No one is coming to rescue you. That’s when it’s time to save yourself.

This session brings together three people who fight for documentaries on the front lines of the market every day: Maëlle GUENEGUES of CAT&Docs in Paris; María VERA, founder of the distribution and sales agency Kino Rebelde; and Orly RAVID, founder of the nonprofit The Film Collaborative, whose mantra is simple: “The rights aren’t ours. They’re yours.”

Stop waiting for buyers to come knocking. From festival strategy to hybrid distribution, this is a survival guide for the platform era—and proof that the smartest distribution strategy should begin the day you start shooting.

How Documentary Editors Build Narrative from the Footage？

Bryan CHANG｜Editor, Director
FENG Xi｜Editor

Editing is often the most invisible yet crucial force in a documentary. In this forum, editors Zhang Suozhong and Feng Xi will be in conversation with director Jiang Songchang, unpacking how a documentary’s narrative structure is discovered and constructed from hundreds of hours of raw footage.

From the first viewing of the rushes to the moment when a structure finally begins to emerge, the three creators will share the intuition, judgment, and creative tension that shape the work in the editing room. The discussion will also address a fundamental question of authorship: when an editor fundamentally reshapes the story of a film, is their contribution simply technical execution, or does it constitute co-authorship?

As AI tools increasingly enter the post-production process—automating transcription, organizing footage, and even generating rough cuts—the conversation will also ask: what aspects of an editor’s judgment can AI never replace? And as these tools continue to evolve, are they quietly changing the very nature of documentary editing?

Mr. Nobody Against Putin + Masterclass

Denmark、United Kingdom、Germany、Czech Republic、USA ｜2025｜ 90min ｜David BORENSTEIN、Pavel TALANKIN

He is known simply as P—a nameless man who was never meant to become a hero.

A beloved teacher at a Russian primary school, P once turned his office into a safe haven where children could feel free to be themselves. But after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the school was taken over by Putin’s propaganda machine. Patriotic lessons, military training, and slogans about war gradually replaced education.

Forced to become part of the system, P picked up the camera he had once used to document school life. He began filming how children were being trained to become believers in war, how graduates were sent to the front lines, and how an entire town was transformed by fear and silence. When he realized that these images could cost him his freedom, or even his life, he nevertheless chose to smuggle the truth out of Russia.

Through rare firsthand footage, the film reveals how authoritarianism infiltrates everyday life and reshapes education, while bearing witness to how an ordinary teacher, faced with profound powerlessness, makes one of the most dangerous—and clearest-eyed—choices imaginable.