Still a bit overwhelmed by the splendid success their debut documentary achieved with its Sundance premiere, Rebecca Zweig and Efraín Mojica already have graced over a dozen film festivals with their intimate look at gay Mexican cowboys at the titular traditional rodeo event. Equally gentle and daring, Jaripeo explores the multilayered tension - social, sensual, and symbolic - evoked by the performances of masculinity as well a their collision with queer identity and desire. During their most recent festival stop at Visions du Réel, the director duo spoke with Lidanoir about finding their glamorous characters, shooting in Efraín's hometown, and the vibrant queer community at a place shaped by tradition and religion.

After giving relatable instructions on mundane topics in his successful series How to with John Wilson, the American documentary filmmaker and producer struck festival gold with his first feature-length documentary. The History of Concrete takes the omnipresent material as a thematic prism to explore very different kinds of structures, industrial, sociological, and emotional. After premiering at Sundance and packing movie theaters at Copenhagen's CPH:DOX, the tragicomical doc is now at Visions du Réel. Just after the Q&A of his sold-out screening, John Wilson found time for an interview with Lidanoir, talking the challenges of independent filmmaking, his desillusioned feelings about the titular material, and making the most unfunny things comical.

In the increasingly competitive landscape of international film festivals, few artistic directors have shaped theirs as decisively as Emilie Bujès. Her nine year at Visions du Réel saw the Swiss festival grow into one of the ost important international platforms for non-fiction film, attracting an impressive range of renowned filmmakers focused on realit stories as well as a exciting new talents. Before seeking out a new challenge at the Geneva International Film Festival, her final edition of Visions du Réel asserts her bold curatorial vision with a program that challenges established perceptions of non-fiction cinema. In an interview on site with Lidanoir, Bujés reflects on the balance between artistic and social-political aspects of selected titles, why she avoids th term "documentary", the financial challenges international film festival face, and the complicated presence of AI.

In an increasingly authocratic political climate in the US, where trans kids are systemically targeted by and barred from essential medical care, Amy K. Jenkins together with her son Adam presents a tender portrait of family love, growing-up, and being truly oneself. Just about a week after Adam's Apple debuted at SXSW, the US-American director as well as co-creator and writer Adam are at Copenhagen's CPH:DOX festival for the European premiere. In the festival hub at Kunsthal, surrounded by the beautiful artworks of the museum's current exhibition, they both Jenkins and Adam took the time for an interview with Lidanoir about unconditional love, working together on the film, and normalcy as a political statement.

After 12 intense days of film festival and with theatrical screenings of festival films continuing for several days after the official end of the event, CPH:DOX Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm has any reason to be exhausted. But that is not at all like the founding member who has been with the growing platform for international non-fiction cinema for more than 20 years. In this time, CPH:DOX has grown to one of the world's most respected and influential showcases of contemporary documentary films. Just after the 2rd edition's award ceremony, Niklas Engstrøm delayed the after show celebrations for an interview with Lidanoir. They discuss the unprecedented challenges to truth due to AI, the essential role of fact-based cinema in a populist age, and the ever-expanding future of the festival.

After debuting at Sundance where it won the prestigious World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazićs powerful portrait of resistance, community, and the beleaguered balance between progress and preservation celebrates its European premiere in the Highlights section of CPH:DOX. To Hold a Mountain shows a mother’s fight for the lands of her remote mountain community which are about to be turned into military training grounds. Between screenings of their work, the Serbian director and her Montenegrin colleague took the time for an interview with Lidanoir, discussing the challenging shoot over seven years, female heroes, and the universal meaning of local struggle.

A timely, profoundly humane portrait of medicine at the frontlines and the journalistic responsibility to force the public to acknowledge the realities of war, Poh Si Teng’s intense documentary arrives at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, just weeks after its celebrated premiere at Sundance. American Doctor follows Dr. Mark Perlmutter, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, and Dr. Feroze Sidwa, a medical collective with different roots - one Jewish, one Palestinian, one Zoroastrian - whose works stretches far beyond hospital walls. Together, they fight to save live in Gaza and campaign for an end of the Genocide against the Palestinians in spaces where care, conflict, and conscience collide. On site in Copenhagen, both the Malaysian-American director and journalist and Dr. Ahmad spoke in an interview with Lidanoir about the making of the documentary, the ethical weight of portraying human suffering, and the personal stakes behind the story.

With his integral interest in the LGBTQ+ community and its struggles Sébastien Lifshitz has become an equally essential and empathetic chronist of a history often ignored by conventional accounts. A Very Good Boy shines both as an intimate portrait of one of its overlooked personalities and the era reflected in his life. The tender documentary allows former gay porn icon Claude Loir to tell his life story, shaped by a fundamental need for freedom and a desire to live and love authentically. For the premiere at CPH:DOX, the French filmmaker speaks with Lidanoir about meeting his charismatic main character, the 70s as an era of new creative freedom, and the importance of preserving LGBTQ+ history.

Ihrem zwischenmenschlichen Fokus und wachen Blick bleibt Eva Trobisch in ihrem Ensemble-Stück ebenso treu wie dem Gespür für emotionale Nuancen. Bereits ihr erster Spielfilm Alles ist gut wurde in Locarno als bester Debütfilm ausgezeichnet. Nachdem sie vor zwei Jahren Ivo in der kurzlebigen Berlinale Sektion Encounters präsentiere, kehrt die Regisseurin nun zurück zum Festival - diesmal in den Wettbewerb. Dort folgt Etwas ganz besonderes den Mitgliedern einer provinziellen Familie auf der Suche nach ihren individuellen Zielen und sich selbst. Im Gespräch mit Lidanoir erzählt Eva Trobisch von der Initialzündung der Story, deutsch-deutschen Kino-Geschichte und ihrer Hatung zu der diffizilen Frage danach, was die eigene Persönlichkeit ausmacht.

Over the past decade, Emin Alper has established himself as one of contemporary Turkish cinema’s most incisive observers of politics, power, and the dangerous dynamics of populism. With Salvation, he returns to the Berlinale with an atmospheric competition entry examining a society on edge, crafting a story that is equally intimate and allegorical. A remote community in the Anatolian mountains becomes the enigmatic setting of an escalating conflict fueled by pathological paranoia and religious delusion. In conversation at the 76th Berlinale, the Turkish director reflects on the story’s universal meaning, the perilous charisma of unstable leaders, and the anxieties that drive people to succumb to inhumane cruelties.