Despite the fact that CPH:DOX has emerged as a highly successful and thriving destination for the documentary industry every spring, this year’s event was shrouded by global economic and political turmoil. If previous year’s editions rehashed familiar complaints about financing and distribution woes, this year’s threats were both more urgently physical and existential. American documentary filmmakers looking for life preservers in Europe in the face of the “MAGA-ification of U.S. gatekeepers”—as Variety called it in a festival report—found the consensus in Copenhagen was that it wasn’t going to be easy.
Sales Report
Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival’s industry platform Agora has gained prominence among documentary professionals and become one of the key events in the winter calendar. Documentary Magazine spoke to Vergou and several professionals in attendance to take stock of this year’s market, examining content trends and the current climate for business. When discussing content trends, Vergou focuses on the growing conversation about supporting filmmakers who lack access to national funding due to political reasons or who have been forced to flee their home countries due to persecution. This year, Agora, in collaboration with DOK Leipzig’s DOK Industry, launched the Doc Together initiative to provide practical support.
Interviews with sales agents, sales news, project announcements, and industry trends at DocSalon panels at the 2025 European Film Market (February 13–19). The 2025 edition of the Berlinale has been one of the coldest in recent memory, with the German capital covered in snow for almost ten days and the thermometer occasionally hitting -10°C. The A-list gathering, which ran from 13–23 February this year, saw a brand-new management team take over the festival direction. The festival’s American director Tricia Tuttle appointed German-French executive Tanja Meissner to head the EFM.
It’s not called the Sundance “International” Film Festival, but it has become increasingly so, becoming one of the most vital global launchpads for nonfiction work. Despite the fact that there have yet to be any flashy global streamer deals (or even smaller sales) announced for any of this year’s documentaries, the industry’s wheels are churning. Highly praised films, such as Geeta Gandbhir’s riveting Directing Award winner The Perfect Neighbor and David Osit’s complex media exposé Predators are likely to find buyers soon, while at least one of the festival’s World titles was scooped up for international sales.
“In a time when public interest media is in jeopardy—from market forces, from big tech, from political pressures—we need to organize,” declares DISCO
A dizzying, fast-paced, 150-minute montage about American jazz, Western imperialism, European colonization, and the assassination of Congolese