July 13, 2026
DokuFest is delighted to announce the selection for the highly anticipated View from the World section, bringing once again some of the best docs from the festival circuit to the festival.
Stories from Syria take somewhat of a central stage in the program, with three films examining the war and its aftermath.
In Birds of War, directed by Abd Alkader Habak and Janay Boulos, two worlds under pressure connect from Aleppo to London. From first-hand accounts of war and struggle to a love story, the directors uncover 13 years of differences, survival and persisting love.
A similarly long perspective informs One in a Million, winner of directing and audience award at Sundance, where Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes accompany Israa through ten transformative years. Beginning with her family's perilous escape from Syria and the epic journey to Germany, the film follows her adolescence as she negotiates exile, cultural identity and belonging.
The most shocking and thrilling of the three films is by no means Killing Anna, a psychological thriller about an academic that adopts a fake persona on Facebook to befriend and fool a war criminal into admitting his crimes!
Archives also feature prominently in the program, with a number of films using them widely and creatively.
A portrait of Lebanon assembled entirely from archival footage, Lana Daher’s Do You Love Me stitches together a poetic, expansive vision of a country fragmented by military, social, and economic turmoil, turning individual documents into collective memory.
Archives take on a different energy in Nova '78, Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias' exhilarating return to the legendary Nova Convention of 1978. Restored footage from Howard Brookner's archive revives a singular gathering of artists, writers and musicians, including William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson and many others, capturing a moment when artistic experimentation flourished across disciplines.
Mapping time through film is a way to channel a whole world and with that director Karl Friis Forchhammer of Christiania looks back on more than fifty years of a turbulent history of one of the most fascinating and utopian places on Earth, the eponymous Copenhagen free-town and a unique social experiment!
Fresh from Berlin and Cannes festivals comes a trio of films about individuals. A portrait of a Scottish artist at work, a look at a film critic and anti-colonial activist in retrospect and a charming film about a young boy in rural France.
Douglas Gordon by Douglas Gordon, directed by Finlay Pretsell, is a singular account of a major artist and his extreme devotion to art.
From the 13 years of revolution, following the life of Michele Firk in A life, a Manifesto, director Jean-Gabriel Périot, brings a fascinating account of a life that remains in writing while witnessing wars and mishaps throughout the troubled world of the ‘50-’60.
In Gabin, Maxence Voiseux follows the youngest member of the Jourdel family over the course of a decade, from the age of eight into adulthood. Between family obligation and personal dreams, the film becomes a tender coming-of-age portrait that captures the uncertainty of choosing one's own path without abandoning the people who shaped it.
Thus, family becomes another important theme of this selection, where the bond takes on more intimate and complex forms in If Pigeons Turn to Gold, Pepa Lubojacki's deeply personal exploration of addiction and intergenerational trauma. Constructed from years of self-recorded footage, iPhone videos, family archives and formally inventive visual interventions, the film refuses easy conclusions about care or responsibility.
The fragile balance between attachment and letting go also lies at the heart of The Beauty of Errors. Jukka Kärkkäinen observes the quiet emotional upheaval of a father whose life has revolved around raising his son. When that shared routine comes to an end, everyday moments become an opportunity to rediscover independence and accept the inevitability of change.
Family dynamics can also be found in majestic The Tale of Sylian, in which director Tamara Kotevska expands the reflection beyond the family unit. Set against economic hardship and rural decline in a village of North Macedonia, a continuous restlessness of search for a better future emerges. Human and animal lives intertwine in a moving story about resilience, loneliness and the search for hope in uncertain times.
Memory itself becomes the central subject in Remake, where renowned filmmaker Ross McElwee assembles decades of footage documenting both his filmmaking practice and his relationship with his late son Adrian. As personal archives intertwine with reflections on cinema and the failed adaptation of his seminal film Sherman's March, an inspection on grief and remembrance is what makes a film unforgettable.
Phenomena, directed by Josef Gatti, transforms documentary into a sensory exploration of the natural world. Created entirely through practical, in-camera experimentation, the film journeys from microscopic phenomena to the vastness of the cosmos, dissolving the boundary between scientific inquiry and visual art.
ELEMENTAL, directed by award-winning and emerging filmmakers from around the world, is a thought-provoking series of short documentaries that explore our lives through the elements of the periodic table.
Find out more on the programme here.
