The clocks have gone back, leaves are falling and Autumn is here. Pumpkins are filling the streets of Copenhagen ahead of Halloween on October 31st.


The other thing that's out is posters of all the candidates in the Danish local elections, happening on November 18th. They're on every metal post, the railings of bridges, and trees all over the city.




I love seeing this - an expression of people's pride in serving their local area. Local elections in the UK see a lot of flyers stuffed in letterboxes, and you don't get that same sense of community. The list of candidates is long so not easy to work out who to vote for...

AI, shopping and celebrity focussed algorithms, populist politics, and goldfish attention spans are all valid reasons to be gloomy about the future of documentary, but there is light in the darkness! People are craving personal & international perspectives, authenticity and debate. They care about what their fellow humans are living through. We just have to let the audience know those films and series are out there.

Strands/brands like Storyville still matter - so congratulations to the strand's new commissioning editor Nevine Mabro, announced last week. She has a big job on her hands to defend long-form documentary when such films are under such scrutiny at PSBs like the BBC. Storyville is so important to keep such stories on air in the UK - though I know that the few slots only scratch the surface of what's available for the viewer. Under Nick Fraser, it gave me a big break as a producer with the film A Cry from the Grave, on the massacre at Srebrenica 30 years ago. I hope the strand can retain the breadth - of subject, view, treatment - that has made it such a benchmark.

November is a big month for doc events. Dok Leipzig and the Jihlava Festival are both on this week. Documentary Campus' Industry Days in Halle are from the 31st-1st November - including a very interesting looking day long conference on digital production. I've done a couple of workshops for the Masterschool participants, one in Copenhagen and one online. Adam Gee is such a great head of studies for the Masterschool - here's the manifesto he wrote at the beginning of the year about the aims and values of this year's programme.

Over in the Amercas, the 20th edition of DocsMX is taking place in Mexico City this week. I met the festival director Inti Cordera earlier in the year and would love to work with him - we've been talking about training initiatives. The festival looks incredibly rich, and knowing how under-resourced the festival is, all the more impressive. Check out its busy Instagram here



DocNYC starts on November 12th in New York - the USA's largest documentary festival - and then IDFA in Amsterdam (still the largest festival the world) starts on the 13th November, with the industry event the IDFA Forum happening from the 16th-19th

Listing all these events is giving me FOMO. This time last year I was in both DokLeipzig and Halle, but I'm going to be following them from afar this week. Let me know if you're going and what you're planning to see. And if you're looking for a moderator/mentor/trainer for an event, please get in touch.

It's also awards season - November 18th, the same day as the Danish local elections, is the Grierson Awards ceremony in London, which I enjoyed going to last year. Here are the nominations

Global audience voting for the Cinema Eye Honors opens on Tuesday 28th Oct, with a film I loved Mr Nobody Against Putin on the list. Also nominated is Coexistence My Ass, which I've followed for a while and saw in CPH Dox, now starting a self-distributed US run.

Academy members are also starting to view the longlist to come up with the nominations - The Campaign for most is already in full swing. I met Helle Faber, the producer of Mr Nobody Against Putin, in the metro back from the airport last week - I'm so impressed by how she can manage such a campaign (along with everything else) without the support of a big studio like Netflix or A24. If anybody I know is an Academy member, Helle asked me to pass on the message to please watch her film!


Let's all keep standing up for democracy and independent docs. Enjoy the autumn!