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Doc Weekly is attending IDFA 2026 ! Here are our hottest tips from the world’s largest documentary film festival of the year. A blend of some of the best films to have graced the documentary film festival circuit in 2026 and those that we think could make their mark in 2027.
Mexican and Mexican-American documentary filmmakers are having a moment this film festival season, including Mexicanamerican by Eddie Sanchez (Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca, Closing Night Gala at GuadaLAjara Film Festival) and Daughters of the Forest by Otilia Portillo Padua (2026 Vision Audience Award at SXSW). Experimenting with narrative, form and archive their documentaries explore the impacts of climate change, deforestation, migration, economic inequality and threats to Indigenous ways of life in Mexico.
FIC Luanda is back after an 11-year hiatus, with a formidable programme and a city to reconnect to. 12 documentary films offer a way into this Angolan encounter between documentary, vérité, and the politics of looking.
The Mouvement lycée of 2026 has brought French police brutality to the fore, but Police violence is not a new problem in France. From its colonial origins, to how they’re trained, to the brave families fighting for justice in court, here are 12 documentary films with which to explore and understand the subject in depth.
NAZA’s revelations from the inside of the Israeli war machine are comprehensive and terrifying. With NAZA, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are successfully uncompromising in their journalistic rigour while using documentary cinema to show the profound psychological nature of what’s at play.
On Sunday 4th October 2026, Brazilians head to the ballot box with Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro currently neck and neck in the polls. Going beyond current cursory media coverage, the 7 following documentaries are key to understanding the underlying forces at play in this election.
Five years in the making, Magilligan meticulously composes time around its character to reveal not just their story, but the part that class, addiction and the carceral system itself play in unraveling it. We interviewed Ross McClean after the film’s World premiere at Visions du Réel.
Created in 2015 by the Cannes Film Festival and LaScam and supported by l’Ina, L’Œil d’or rewards the festival’s best non-fiction feature film, across all sections. This year’s distinguished jury was presided by Mstyslav Chernov (2000 Meters to Andriivka, 20 Days in Mariupol) and 21 films were competing.
Sensual, lyrical and textured, Jaripeo takes us into the heart of an obscured queer subculture of Mexico’s rodeo scene. Doc Weekly writer Jasmine Haniff spoke with directors Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig for the film’s screening at Visions du Réel.
Three friends are on the cusp of adulthood, caught between tradition and the desire to forge their own path. A Fire There, winner of the Special Jury Award at Visions du Réel, tells their story with poetry and beauty. Doc Weekly was there to interview director Marlene Edoyan.
Amid the sparkle and glamour of Europe’s most important celebration of film, it’s no secret that documentary is a neglected genre, but this year’s Cannes documentary selection has progressed from 2025. Here’s a list of all the documentaries showing, across the official and parallel selections.
After years away, Chinese filmmaker Vee Shi returns home to care for his ageing father, and to make a film about his family. Time and Tide had its World premiere at Visions du Réel and Doc Weekly was there to interview Vee Shi and Cinematographer/Producer of the film Nicholson Ree.
And the winners of the 57th edition of Visions du Réel are…
From the 17th to the 26th of April 2026, Visions du Réel is back ! Here are 15 films we’re excited to see : from Werner Herzog to John Wilson, from Hassen Ferhani to artists unknown, this is year programme is as rich and diverse as ever.
André is an Idiot is a comedic documentary about André Ricciardi, who’s dying of colon cancer. After putting off a routine colonoscopy for a year, André is diagnosed with cancer which, because of the delay, is terminal. That’s right, I said comedic.
Runa Simi takes place in Cusco, Peru, and follows a local man, Fernando Valencia, on his quest to dub The Lion King into Quechua, the largest pre-Colombian language in Latin America.
Doc Weekly was back in Biarritz for Fipadoc in 2026, boasting 150+ films from 35 countries across 5 major competitions ! Here’s a complete list of this year’s award-winners.
Four years after Ukraine’s full-scale invasion, Fipadoc is showing it’s support in 2026 for a cultural community operating under extreme duress and screening five films from the frontlines that have a completely unique take on the war and the profound impact it’s having on Ukrainian society, five films that communicate the visceral effects it can have on the psyche. Here are five films on Ukraine you must see in 2026…
Opening the 2026 edition of FIPADOC is a perfectly unique first feature about one artist’s pursuit of a singular experience: to sing a duet with a whale.
Gone is the once ambivalent torpor of the Irish folk music scene. Útóipe Cheilteach (Celtic Utopia) by Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén tells the story of a new generation of artists bringing it back to its cynical, political and countercultural roots. Discover an exclusive teaser of the film on the day of its World Premiere at Locarno Film Festival 2025.
