Sunny Side set for 25th year

Sunny Side of the Doc is gearing up for its 25th anniversary, running June 23-26 in La Rochelle, France.

The international market dedicated to factual content is now open to every continent and, following the success this year’s Asian Side of the Doc, there will be a bigger Chinese delegation at this year’s event.

To mark its 25th anniversary, there will be free screenings of 17 films that have benefitted from Sunny Side, Asian Side or Latin Side including Gonzalo Arijón’s Battle for Rio, Tonislav Hristov’s Love and Engineering and Thierry Michel’s The Chebeya Affair, A State Crime?.

Panels at this year’s event include an exploration of how producers and broadcasters are confronting the issues of environmental pollution, how commercial funding can be integrated into the documentary ecology and the future for public service media.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) will hold its annual Science and Education pitch session at Sunny Side, open to all decision makers, with commissioning editors from EBU members.

Networking opportunities include Meet the Producers breakfast sessions, aimed at encouraging co-productions.

This year’s Sunny Lab will take place in an extended area split into three parts: debates and presentations; demo and installation; a limited workshop for practical sessions on production visualisation. Key words for this year’s Lab are pragmatism, viability, creativity and diversity.

The opening keynote for the Sunny Lab will be delivered by Canadian Media Fund’s Nathalie Clermont.

For more information, visit the market’s official website.