August 2025 took Modern Times Review across the region: from Portugal’s MDOC to Prizren’s DokuFest, Sarajevo Film Festival, and Skopje’s MakeDox. We now turn north—Baltic Sea Docs starts this weekend, where we’ll be on-site—before heading to Norway’s Nordic Docs.
Inside: standout premieres and provocative titles; interviews with filmmakers tracing resistance, memory, and form; and essays ranging from DokuFest shorts to the fraught presence of IDF soldiers in India. Plus a reminder to apply to the Verzio Documentary Film Critics Workshop, where our Industry will mentor.
Join us as summer closes and a busy autumn begins—on the ground, in conversation, and across the pages of Modern Times Review.
Follow Editor-in-Chief Truls Lie on Telegram and Industry Editor Steve Rickinson on Twitter. Join our Facebook Group, Modern Times Review, for an uncensored conversation on all things «Modern Times». And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.
News
Baltic Sea Docs opens this week with 26 projects and expanded industry events
Cinemata aims to be a movement infrastructure for documentary in Asia-Pacific
Influential Polish documentary filmmaker Marcel Łoziński passes away
Docu Talent Awards 2025 Spotlight Georgia, Armenia-Switzerland, and Czech Republic
Winners announced at 11th Edition of MDOC – Melgaço International Documentary Film Festival
Verzió Documentary Film Critics Workshop opens call for emerging voices
ESSAY
Dokufest: Guardians of Democracy in Past Imperfect
by Mariana Hristova
In light of the Western political discourse increasingly revealing its own hypocrisy, four DokuFest short films revisit the past, uncovering details that cast new light on the shaken image of today's so-called liberal order.
Francesca Albanese: From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide
by Francesca Borri
Francesca Albanese’s UN report on Israel’s occupation of Palestine, widening culpability to global enablers and calling for prosecutable corporate accountability.
Generation Gaza: Among the Israelis in India
by Francesca Borri
Among Himalaya backpackers, Israelis process 7 October, Gaza memories, and identity crisis—numbed by drugs, haunted by politics, searching elusive peace.
Remaining responsive to the times we inhabit
by Sevara Pan
In politically and socially volatile times, dedicated documentary streaming platforms may play a critical role in responding to today's realities.
Interview
Inside Durban IFF: A Conversation with Festival Manager Andrea Voges
Drawing on nearly two decades in festival curation and arts management, Andrea Voges spoke about DIFF’s post-pandemic recovery, this year’s 85-film line-up
ShareDoc: When Empathy Demands More Than Applause
ShareDoc turns post-film empathy into real support for documentary protagonists.
«There’s something wrong, and I want to understand what it is»
Vitaly Mansky talks with Modern Times Review on his Manifesto for Real Cinema.
Films
Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media
Director: Matthew O'Neill, Perri Peltz
Grieving parents, whistleblowers, and lawyers expose a predatory industry rewarded for harm.
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Director: Audun Amudsen
Filmmaker Audun Amundsen navigates the self-help industry’s promises, uncovering exploitation, insecurity, and the mechanics of digital persuasion.
Coexistence, My Ass!
Director: Amber Fares
Noam Shuster Eliassi’s path from UN hopeful to fearless comedian, testing taboos and hope between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.
Cuba & Alaska
Director: Yegor Troyanovsky
Laughing in the face of death, the two heroines of journalist-turned-filmmaker Yegor Troyanovsky's debut documentary Cuba & Alaska pitch viewers into the agony and ecstasy of Ukraine's frontlines.
Flowers of Ukraine
Director: Adelina Borets
On the outskirts of Kyiv, a woman in her 70s demonstrates her love of freedom.
In the Penal Colony
Director: Gaetano Crivaro, Silvia Perra, Ferruccio Goia, Alberto Diana
Sardinia’s last penal colonies merge inmates, workers, animals, machines, and wind into a lyrical collective cry for freedom.
Militantropos
Director: Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorleva, Simon Moskovyi
From mass graves to choral singing, images traverse Ukraine’s landscapes, questioning identity while war normalises behaviours unimaginable.
Of Mud and Blood
Director: Jean-Gabriel Leynaud
The devastating cost of a mineral we all hold in our pockets.
Pigcasso: Million Dollar Pig
Director: Stefan Enslin
Explore a story of animal intelligence, creativity, and ethics as a rescued pig becomes an artistic phenomenon in South Africa.
Russians at War
Director: Anastasia Trofimova
An anti-war camera slips past permits and platitudes, capturing motives, injuries, and doubts while institutions debate safety, speech, and empathy.
Sisters of Ukraine
Director: Mike Dorsey
Mike Dorsey's Sisters of Ukraine offers a fresh – and emotional – look at the refugee crisis sparked by Russia's 2002 invasion, and the international response to it.
Third World
Director: Arsen Oremović
The liminal experience of legendary Croatian band Haustor – which shaped the former Yugoslavia new wave music scene in the 1980s – is explored in Arsen Oremović's Third World.
Unanimal
Director: Sally Jacobson, Tuva Björk
Isabella Rossellini narrates a reflective essay-film questioning human dominance, collapsing categories of pet, livestock, wildlife, and revealing systems of control.
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