Festival DOC — 6 November 2026: before the film is finished

Editorial · Who decides the shape of a film?

Today in Florence, Proxima presents six documentaries still in progress to programmers and distributors. For their makers, it is an opportunity to find the support needed to finish them and bring them to an audience.

But what happens when a film has to convince someone before it is even finished? Those watching may ask for a more clearly defined protagonist, a more linear story or a faster pace. Such requests can help the storytelling. They can also push very different works towards looking alike.

This issue matters particularly in documentary. The people and situations being filmed do not follow a script: they may contradict the director’s initial idea, raise unexpected questions or leave a story without a clear resolution. A film needs enough time to recognise this and change course.

The question therefore also concerns those who support cinema: how much room are we willing to give a work that we cannot yet fully describe? Supporting a documentary should also mean allowing it to surprise us.

In Focus · Proxima and access to film

Proxima 2026 renews its collaboration with SudTitles Palermo: one project will receive an award providing subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. The Proxima programme.

Thinking about accessibility while a film takes shape changes the question of whom it addresses. Imagining a large audience is not enough: we need to ask what conditions allow different people to participate. Describing a sound, identifying an off-screen voice and allowing time to read are part of the experience of a narrative. Access deserves a place in a work’s cultural project, with dedicated expertise and resources.

In Focus · Croatia, Slovenia and Italy at the co-production table

Tomorrow, Saturday 7 November, Country in Focus presents its selected projects at Cinema Astra at 10:00. A panel on co-production between Slovenia, Croatia and Italy will follow. Italian projects include Shining Nothingness by Federico Savonitto and Sonic Silence by Alessandro Ambroggi and Ludovico Chincarini. Country in Focus, Festival dei Popoli.

A co-production connects resources, but also different ideas of audience and storytelling. Its cultural strength can lie in preserving a story’s particular qualities while giving it new opportunities to circulate. The exchange becomes interesting when an international dimension expands a film’s questions without making its places and voices interchangeable.

Conversations · Who decides when a film is ready?

These events suggest a question for discussion: when does a request to make a film more accessible help people encounter it, and when does it end up making it conform? Answering requires us to distinguish material and sensory access from narrative expectations assumed to be universal.

Directors, editors, producers, programmers and viewers may mean different things by “finished”. A useful exchange should make those differences visible. Which uncertainty is worth preserving? Which obstacle actually prevents us from entering the film? This is the distinction around which we would like to open the conversation.