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Switzerland’s documentary Visions du Réel has unveiled the 31 documentary projects selected for the 2026 edition of its VdR–Industry platform, marking the first program overseen by newly appointed head of industry Sabine Fayoux Cantillo, who takes over from Alice Burgin.
For Fayoux Cantillo, the move felt like a natural fit. Before joining the festival team, she had experienced the event from the other side of the industry table while serving as associate director of program at Chicken & Egg Films.
“It’s a documentary festival that I had both the luck and the joy of attending as an industry representative myself in my former role at Chicken and Egg,” she told Variety. Having taken part in numerous international forums and markets, she said the event stood out for the depth of dialogue between filmmakers and industry professionals. “There’s a real space that fosters this deep listening,” she said, pointing to the conversations that unfold through the roundtables and one-on-one meetings. “It’s a very unique format,” she added, which “feels so refreshing.”
Running April 19-22 alongside Visions du Réel, the industry gathering will bring together filmmakers, producers and financiers around projects spanning development through post-production, drawn from more than 600 submissions and representing 28 countries.
Across the lineup, 61% of projects are directed by women, while 45% come from first-time feature filmmakers, and 58% are directed and produced by filmmakers from the Global South.
Among the 15 titles in the pitching lineup is “The Vortex of Extinction” by Macedonian director Ljubomir Stefanov, whose 2019 VdR entry “Honeyland,” co-directed with Tamara Kotevska, won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and went on to earn two Academy Award nominations. The new project follows a young ecologist investigating a mysterious pattern of violent behavior among turtles, that may signal a troubling “vortex of extinction” unfolding in the wild.
Other notable projects in the pitching lineup include “A Season in Europe” by Swiss filmmaker and VdR regular Jean-Stéphane Bron (“Cleveland vs Wall Street”), offering an inside look at workings of European institutions, and “Hello?!” by Belgian filmmaker Sofie Benoot (“Apple Cider Vinegar,” “Desert Haze”), which explores the fragile interconnections between humans and the natural world.
“What stands out this year is not necessarily a single topic, but rather a shared sensibility across very different geographies and stories,” Fayoux Cantillo noted. “Each project remains singular, with voices and artistic visions that assert themselves with clarity and an attuned awareness of the world we live in.”
Several projects grapple with geopolitical tensions and conflict. Lebanese filmmaker Myriam El Hajj (“A Time to Rest,” “Diaries From Lebanon”) returns with “Letters From a Ceasefire,” co-directed with Iranian filmmaker Omid Hashemi, based on an exchange of letters between the two filmmakers reflecting on conflict and the possibility of change.
“It’s this really beautiful epistolary film,” Fayoux Cantillo said. “Through their back and forth you hear their thoughts, their feelings, their musings around the regional conflict… while also asking where love can exist within all of this.”
The theme also runs through Ukrainian filmmaker Olga Gibelinda’s “Firing Line,” which examines the impact of war on everyday life.
Beyond geopolitical tensions, Fayoux Cantillo said two broader ideas emerged across the selection: the fragile notion of home and the role of ecology as a lens through which filmmakers explore wider social and ethical questions.
“Many projects that we are highlighting this year examine this idea of home, but in its most fragile state, both from a political lens, historical lens, and ecological lens. And of course you can’t really talk about stories of home without this kind of personal lens, either.”
Ecology appears throughout the lineup, though rarely in the form of conventional environmental storytelling. “[The projects] use ecology not as a subject matter – it’s not your kind of typical environmental film – but more as a metaphor or a basis for deeper ethical questions,” said Fayoux Cantillo, citing “The Vortex of Extinction,” Stefan Pavlović’s “Stuttering Fluidity – How My Father Became a Sea Creature (in Seven Parts),” Yasmin van Dorp’s “The Bubble of Bliss,” and Benoot’s “Hello?!”
Elsewhere in the lineup, U.S. filmmaker Todd Chandler will present “TRADE,” an exploration of labor and consumer culture unfolding inside American trade shows, while Russian-born director Vladlena Sandu brings “Transposition,” a personal project examining memory, history and displacement.
The VdR-Work in Progress showcase will feature six projects, including the latest film by Mexican filmmaker Laura Plancarte, who returns with “BOOM!” and “Liberal Arts” by U.S. filmmaker Pacho Velez (“Searchers”), about an eccentric professor whose experimental class becomes the subject of a documentary.
In the Rough Cut Lab, projects range from Laura Otálora’s “Captain,” an intimate portrait of a father and daughter confronting Alzheimer’s disease, to Matjaz Pinter’s “Summer Grass Winter Worm,” following the unlikely journey of a rare Himalayan fungus from Nepal to China.
The industry program will award more than CHF 80,000 ($102,000) in prizes across its various sections, including the prestigious Eurimages Co-production Development Award, which comes with €20,000 ($23,000), and the Visions Sud Est prize, which offers supporting projects from the Global South.
The 2026 industry juries include filmmaker Gabrielle Brady, Sundance Institute Documentary Fund manager Dominic Davis and Venice Days artistic director Gaia Furrer.
The industry days will open with a conversation with Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”), whose work has helped redefine the boundaries of investigative documentary.
The VdR-Industry program runs April 19-22 in Nyon, Switzerland.
Below are the 2026 VdR-Industry projects:
VdR-Pitching
“A Season in Europe” by Jean-Stéphane Bron (Switzerland)
Production: Lionel Baier (Bande à part Films)
Switzerland, France
“Firing Line” by Olga Gibelinda (Ukraine)
Production: Olga Gibelinda (Malanka Studios), Stasys Baltakis (Film Jam), Jonas Kellagher
(CommonGround Pictures)
Ukraine, Lithuania, Sweden
“Hello?!” by Sofie Benoot (Belgium)
Marc Goyens (Quetzalcoatl), Guillaume Malandrin (Altitude100), Steven Rubinstein Malamud (GROM), Matej Sotnik (guča films)
Belgium, Netherlands, Slovakia
“La Linda” by Francina Carbonell (Argentina)
Production: Maria Paz González (María una vez), Gema Juarez Allen (Gema Films)
Chile, Argentina
“Letters From a Ceasefire” by Myriam El Hajj (Lebanon), Omid Hashemi (Iran)
Production: Julie Bergeron & Corentin Sénéchal and Daniel Chabannes (Reality Films/Epicentre Films)
France
“Retrograd” by Anders Mielcke Grønbæk (Denmark), Esben Persson (Denmark)
Production: Kasper Lykke Schultz (Elk Film)
Denmark
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Koval Bhatia (India)
Production: Dominique Barneaud (Bellota Films), Riham Ezzaldeen (What Took You So Long), Koval Bhatia (A Little Anarky Films)
France, United States, India
“Stuttering Fluidity – How My Father Became a Sea Creature (in Seven Parts)” by Stefan Pavlovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Netherlands)
Production: Eyal Sivan (Serendipity Films), Kostana Banovic (artTrace Foundation)
France, Netherlands
“The Bubble of Bliss” by Yasmin van Dorp (Netherlands)
Production: Hester Breunissen & Janneke Doolaard (DOXY FIXY)
Netherlands
“The Myth” by Che-Chia Hsu (Taiwan)
Production: Jia Zhao (MUYI FILM), Che-Chia Hsu (MindMine Films)
Taiwan, Netherlands
“The Vortex of Extinction” by Ljubomir Stefanov (North Macedonia)
Production: Maya E. Rudolph (Louverture Films)
North Macedonia, United States
“To My Dearest” by Grace Hsia (China)
Production: Grace Hsia (Wild Angle Films), Wenli Liu
China, United States
“TRADE” by Todd Chandler (United States)
Production: Alysa Nahmias (AJNA Films), Keith Wilson (Breezy Circle)
United States
“Transposition” by Vladlena Sandu (based in the Netherlands)
Production: Jos de Putter (Dieptescherpte BV)
Netherlands
“Uganda” by Daniel Mann (United Kingdom)
Production: Fabrizio Polpettini (La Bête), Christophe Gougeon (Acqua alta)
France
VdR-Work in Progress
“A Road Less Travelled” by Alexander Murphy (France, Ireland)
Production: Cosme Bongrain (Goodseed Productions), David Collins & Eamon Hughes (Samson Films)
France, Ireland
“BOOM!” by Laura Plancarte (Mexico)
Production: Johnny Brewin (Boom Film Project Ltd.), Christilla Huillard-Kann (Elda Productions)
United Kingdom, France
“Job 1:21” by Samuel Suffren (Haiti)
Production: Eugénie Michel Villette (Les Films du Bilboquet), Samuel Suffren (Kit Films)
France, Haiti
“Liberal Arts” by Pacho Velez (United States)
Production: Scott Cummings, Pacho Velez (Pachoworks), Milo Borsuk
United States
“My Skin and I” by Milton Guillén (Nicaragua), Fiona Guy Hall (United States)
Production: Zorana Mušikić & May Odeh (Mayana Films), Milton Guillén, Fiona Guy Hall
Germany, United States, Nicaragua
“The Nights” by Ana Bovino (Argentina)
Production: Natalia de la Vega (Navega Cine), Ana Bovino
Argentina
VdR-Rough Cut Lab
“Captain” by Laura Otálora (Colombia)
Production: Estephania Bonnett (Playlab Films), Nicolás Herreño (Tomato Content)
Colombia, Spain
“Holy Human Angel” by Angeliki Aristomenopoulou (Greece)
Production: Rea Apostolidis & Yuri Averof (Anemon Productions), Heather Millard (Compass Films), Vicky Miha (Asterisk)
Greece, Iceland
“Summer Grass Winter Worm” by Matjaz Pinter (Slovenia)
Production: Martin Saxer (Entangled Films)
Germany
“The People Outside” by Jewel Maranan (Philippines)
Production: Jewel Maranan (Cinema Is Incomplete)
Philippines
VdR-Development Lab
“A Journey to Love Should Be Taken by Train, and Only Train” by Elahe Esmaili (Iran)
Production: Elahe Esmaili, Fabien Greenberg (Antipode Films)
Iran, Norway
“Auguries, Dreams and Soils” by Luciana Decker Orozco (Bolivia)
Production: Camila Molina Wiethuchter (Omm Cine)
Bolivia
“Identity Curls” by Nadège Butoyi (Burundi)
Production: Diane Kaneza (Mikadie Production), Jean Marie Ndihokubwayo (Clap4Creativity)
Burundi
“This Is Not a Wasteland” by Sachin (India)
Production: Sachin (rohī collective), India
VdR-Development Lab Finalists
“Of the Trees Unmoved” by Nino Benashvili (Georgia, Germany)
Production: Tekla Machavariani (Nushi Film), Eva Blondiau (Color of May)
Georgia, Germany
“YOUTH” by Daria Zhuravel (Ukraine)
Production: Anastasiia Zakhilko (Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema), Victor Thomas (Les 48° Rugissants/Jeudi Soir), Kristof Gerega (Schuldenberg Films)
Ukraine, France, Germany
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