Awards & Fellowships  

Puerto Rico Film Festival

Held Aug 19–23, PRFF focuses on Caribbean and Latin American stories. 

✦ Gabriela Díaz Arp’s Matininó won Best Documentary Feature

Sarajevo Film Festival’s Female Filmmakers Support Program

Sarajevo Film Festival’s Female Filmmakers Support Program selects seven female directors from Southeast European countries to receive professional and financial support through production and post-production. 

✦ Ilinca Calugareanu’s Anatomy of Indifference joined the 2026 cohort

Frameline Film Festival

Held June 17–27 in San Francisco, Frameline is the largest and longest-running queer film exhibition in the world. 

✦ Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig’s Jaripeo received the Frameline50 Audience Award for Documentary Feature 

Mediterrane Film Festival

Held June 21–28 in Malta, the film festival celebrates creativity, collaboration, and talent from across the Mediterranean. 

✦ Jeanie Finlay’s All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea received the Golden Bee for Mare Nostrum People’s Choice Award

Ariel Award Nominations

The Premio Ariel, presented by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC), is the most distinguished honor in Mexican cinema. 

✦ Indira Cato’s Llamarse Olimpia (Being Olimpia) received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature

Sundance Institute Producers Lab

The Producers Lab pairs emerging producers with mentors and industry leaders for an intensive professional development experience designed to build sustainable careers in independent film. 

✦ Chelsea Hernandez was selected as a 2026 fellow

SIFF Forum: Women in Motion

Held June 15–28 as part of the Shanghai International Film Festival, Women in Motion brought together four filmmakers from around the world to share their creative paths under the theme "creativity in motion."

✦ Carla Gutiérrez participated as one of the selected filmmakers

Women Behind the Camera 

Founded by filmmaker and actress Armida López, this grant supports women filmmakers in preserving the art of shooting on celluloid.

✦ LaTahj Simmons-Weaver was chosen as a grant recipient 

Gotham Week 

The US's oldest and largest curated marketplace for film and TV creators will be held Sep 27–Oct 3 in New York. 

Featured projects in the market include:

✦ Beth Aala’s The Script ✦ Resita Cox’s Basketball Heaven ✦ Sara Chishti’s Taxi Driver  ✦ (AlumNest) Jessica Kingdon’s Untitled Animal Project

Festivals & Screenings  

To Hold a Mountain returned home

✦ Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić built an open-air cinema in Sinjajevina, the very landscape where To Hold a Mountain was filmed, bringing the film back to the community where it all started.  

DokuFest

Held Aug 7–15 in Kosovo, DokuFest is one of the world's leading documentary and short film festivals.

✦ Maryam Ebrahimi’s The Phantom Pain of Rojava screened in the Human Rights Dox section ✦ (AlumNest) Alisa Kovalenko’s Traces screened in the Human Rights Dox section

Locarno Film Festival

Held Aug 5–15 in Switzerland, Locarno is one of Europe's oldest and most celebrated platforms for independent film. 

✦ Hao Zhou’s Shi Hou (Already Happened) was selected for the Pardi di Domani–Concorso Corti d’Autore (Auteur Short Film Competition)

Venice Film Festival

Held Sep 2–12 in Venice, the film festival is part of the Venice Biennale. 

✦ Lydia Cornett’s Test Track will have its world premiere in the Orizzonti Shorts Competition  ✦ (AlumNest) Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s They're Here will screen out of competition in the Venice Open section  

2026 Venice Gap-Financing Market

Part of the Venice Film Festival, the Venice Gap-Financing Market (Sep 4–6) offers select projects an opportunity to close their finance gap through one-on-one meetings with their teams of industry professionals. 

✦ Rita Baghdadi’s Stallions will participate ✦ (AlumNest) Carola Fuentes’ Untitled Water Documentary will participate

Sarajevo Film Festival 

Held August 14–21 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFF is the largest film festival in Southeast Europe.

✦ Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s To Hold a Mountain competed in the Documentary Film Competition Program

Unseen Cinema Nairobi

Unseen Nairobi is an independent art-house cinema and social gathering space in Kenya.

✦ Maia Lekow and Christopher King’s How to Build a Library screens Aug 1–29

Maite Alberdi retrospective at The Paris Theatre 

Maite Alberdi's latest documentary, A Child of My Own (Un Hijo Propio), is now streaming on Netflix. To celebrate the premiere, the Paris Theatre screened a selection of her work Aug 7–13.

Titles included:

✦ The Eternal Memory ✦ (AlumNest) The Mole Agent ✦ (AlumNest) In Her Place

Camden International Film Festival

Held Sep 17–23 annually in mid-coast Maine, CIFF is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the US.

✦ Sierra Pettengill's Argonauts at the End of History ✦ Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig’s Jaripeo ✦ Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s To Hold a Mountain ✦ (AlumNest) Emily Cohen Ibañez's River ✦ (AlumNest) Lydia Cornett's Test Track ✦ (AlumNest) Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller's They're Here

Streaming 

✦ Ella Glendining’s Is There Anybody Out There? is streaming on POV ✦ Loira Limbal’s Through the Night is streaming on The Criterion Collection  ✦ Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass is streaming on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Grasshopper Film ✦ Maia Lekow and Christopher King’s How to Build a Library is streaming on POV ✦ Jeanie Finlay’s Your Fat Friend will stream on Apple TV, Kinema, Amazon Prime, and YouTube starting Aug 31 

Job well done 

✦ Jeanie Finlay was a guest on Kinema’s podcast “Have You Seen My Film?” discussing her innovative approaches to film distribution.

✦ Through Cazimi Studios, Emily Mkrtichian and Kamee Abrahamian are exploring what it means to practice care as a creative ritual. Inspired by Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) futurism, they center caregivers as sustainers of community. 

✦ Film Independent’s high school documentary filmmaking program kicked off with a screening of Ann Kaneko’s Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, followed by a Q&A with Kaneko to help 75 LA students build the framework for their own short films.

✦ Art House Convergence and Kinema created The Booking Fair, an event where ten film teams were connected directly with art house theater programmers. Chithra Jeyaram and her film Love Chaos Kin took part in this pilot program.

✦ Natalie Baszile’s book Friends and Family is available for pre-order. Out on Oct 6, this novel explores themes of friendship, race, and privilege—and how they all intersect. 

✦ Brett Story presented an audio-visual master class on John Berger at the Museum of Moving Image. The lecture focused on Berger’s commitment to art and socialism amidst the Cold War. 

✦ Salomé Jashi was named a 2026 mentor of Circle Doc Accelerator—an international training and mentoring program specifically for women and gender-expansive filmmakers in documentary film. 

✦ C&E Associate Director of Program Elaisha Stokes was part of the “Who’s Who in the U.S Doc Ecosystem: An Overview for International Filmmakers” panel at DOC NYC on July 15.