Cinepolitical: a monthly brief on documentary film
February's essential docs & dialogues
February is something of a hinge month for Modern Times Review, the annual point where winter slowness gives way to the documentary industry calendar’s accelerated public life. March, for us, is always busy. We will be around the continent at Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, FIFDH, One World Prague, and Movies that Matter, with extensive coverage of CPH:DOX running alongside it all.
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News
goEast 2026 targets AI-era image politics with «Strategies of Resistance» programme
Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival unveils full 2026 programme
Krakow Film Festival adds new award for documentary innovation
TIDF (Taiwan) announces competition finalists for 15th edition
Tampere Film Festival unveils 2026 documentary selections, spotlighting Finnish productions
Thessaloniki 2026 unveils honourary Golden Alexanders, restorations, and 57 Greek features
CPH:DOX unveils full 2026 programme, citing 86 world premieres
CPH:DOX announces full programme of 2026 CPH:INDUSTRY activities
FIFDH 2026 sets «Resisting Authoritarianism» theme for 24th edition
CPH:DOX unveils 2026 competition lineup, adds new FIPRESCI prize
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival sets 2026 tribute to the power of archives
CPH:DOX expands immersive non-fiction ambitions with INTER:ACTIVE 2026 programme
BIFED 2026 opens submissions as a call for ecological solidarity
Books
Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown
Author: Wim Carton Andreas Malm
A provocative look at who pays for warming, from migrants in extreme heat to communities in disaster zones, and why billionaire lifestyles matter.
Films
Far From Maine
Director: Roy Cohen
Haunted by the killing of Aseel Asleh in 2000, Arab-Jewish filmmaker and activist Roy Cohen addresses his Palestinian friend in a cinematic letter amid the devastating war in Gaza.
Orlando Pantera
Director: Catarina Alves Costa
Catarina Alves Costa’s portrait of Orlando Pantera avoids the mythology of his death, choosing instead a slow, humane chorus of voices, landscapes, and songs.
Palestine ‘36
Director: Annamarie Jacir
Palestine ’36 revisits the 1936 uprising as the template of the present, tracing Balfour, dispossession, raids, handcuffed kids, and a resistance born in plain sight.
Shards
Director: Sara Broos
From psychiatric waiting rooms to global journeys, Shards assembles fragments of life into a humane meditation on solitude, freedom of imagination, and collective healing.
Synthetic Sincerity
Director: Marc Issacs
Blending science and cinema, Synthetic Sincerity follows AI researchers and migrants to ask what remains authentic when images and machines blur.
The Other Side of the Sun
Director: Tawfik Sabouni
Survivors walk back into the cells that shattered their lives, recounting brutality inside one of Syria’s most feared prisons.
Threads of a Revolution
Director: Ross Domoney, Danny Mitchell
A short but satisfying documentary about the ideas of 1970s US radical Murray Bookchin as realised in Kurdish Syria.
Tristan Forever
Director: Tobias Nölle, Loran Bonnardot
A piano on a cargo ship opens Tristan Forever, a film about Tristan da Cunha and a doctor’s longing for distance, belonging, and a simpler life.
