Sunny Side of the Doc 2020 Winners Revealed

The Connected Edition of Sunny Side of the Doc and PiXii Festival announced the winners live online during its awards ceremony on June 25, the last day of this year’s digital event.

“This year, we fixed ourselves the objective of continuing the fight for the documentary genre while reinventing Sunny Side of the Doc. We are obviously incredibly delighted and eager to host the festival once again in La Rochelle next June, together with all industry professionals,” said Roman Jeanneau, CEO of Doc Services. “Yves used to say, and we all thought the same, that ‘As much as the documentary genre must be recognized as a public entity, Sunny Side of the Doc is necessary and vital to the documentary genre.”

Winning titles at Sunny Side of the Doc 2020 include Kozak from Ireland’s Dot TV & Films (Best History Pitch); A Perfect Spy from France’s Little Big Story (Archives Storytelling Award); The Tiger Mafia from Switzerland’s HOOK Film (Best Wildlife Pitch); Roma (wt) from Moon Man in Ukraine, Tangerine Tree in the Netherlands and Final Cut For Real in Denmark (Best Social Issues Pitch); The Mayor, Me Mussolini and the Museum from Road Televisionin Italy and Illégitime Défense in France (Best Arts & Culture Pitch/ West Lake IDF Award); Behind Lucy from Spain’s Somadrome (Best Science Pitch); Ancestral Secret VR from Chile’s Galgo Storytelling (Best Digital Experiences Pitch); Pure Unknown from Jump Cut in Italy, Sisyfos Film in Sweden and Amka Film Production in Switzerland (East Doc Market Award, DAE Talent Encouragement Award); Long Live My Happy Head from Scotland’s Melt the Fly (AIDC Award); E. Is for Escovedo: The Sheila E. Story (wt) from Walnut & Rose Pictures in the U.S. (IMZ Award); and System Terror from Germany’s Tondowski Films (Dox Box Mentioning Prize).

More than 1,700 accredited industry professionals from 950 companies from more than 60 different countries took part in the Connected Edition of Sunny Side of the Doc. The event’s platform—with the video library—registered near 100,000 viewed pages. The program featured pre-recorded conferences, interactive sessions held live or with a chat interface, an online screening library and networking activities.

Mathieu Béjot, director of strategy and development at Sunny Side, said: “It’s an excellent result for our first Connected Edition which has been able to bring together the documentary community from around the world. We would like to give a warm thank you to all industry delegates taking part, for their agility and collective commitment towards this digital adventure. For the very first time, the ratio of French to international accredited industry delegates is equal at 50/50, which gives us material to think about the global reach an online event can have.”

Béjot added: “After the health crisis and lockdown which we have all faced, this is a strong signal which highlights the crucial need for new documentary productions for television channels and platforms.”

PiXii Festival also went digital, providing exposure to immersive experiences (AR, VR, 360-degree, binaural sound and physical installations) from the Official Selection. Video pitches created especially by project holders to get around the lack of a physical showroom in La Rochelle. For its 4th edition, the international festival of digital cultures featured projects from Israel, Denmark, Singapore, Poland, Australia and Canada. These pitch videos will also be available free to watch on the Sunny Side of the Doc website as of July 1.

Stéphane Malagnac, development executive of PiXii, said: “These pitch presentations are real assets for the creative teams, as they’ll be able to use them for other purposes once the Connected Edition is over.”

The connected.sunnysideofthedoc.com platform is open to accredited delegates until June 30. From July 1, all projects and programs, as well as conference and round tables replays, will be available (for accredited professionals) via sunnysideofthedoc.com until September 30. The Pitch Sessions are available until June 30.

The 32nd edition of Sunny Side of the Doc and the 5th edition of PiXii Festival are slated to take place next year from June 21 to 24, with a focus on documentary co-productions with Central and Eastern Europe.