As facts and opinions become interchangeable, history is erased and rewritten, and deepfakes call both universal and individual truth into question, reality itself becomes a subject of cinematic fascination. In this climate of informational instability and stylistic reinvention, the 57th edition of Visions du Réel opens with a selection poised to showcase the vital variety of contemporary non-fiction cinema. From 17.04 to 26.04, the small Swiss city of Nyon becomes an international forum for documentary, gathering over 160 films—83 of them world premieres—from a record 75 countries. These impressive figures underline the increasing scale that makes documentary cinema one of the fastest-growing genres.
Thanks to the advancing audience interest in authentic stories, political subjects, and social issues, the Swiss festival and its international competitors on the festival scene—Sundance, Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, Amsterdam’s IDFA, and Toronto’s Hot Docs—are gaining popularity. The last edition under the artistic direction of Emilie Bujès reflects this with its strong focus on highly cinematic works. With a keen eye on aesthetics, human drama, investigative suspense, as well as hybrid forms integrating animation, scenic improvisation, and symbolism, these works aim to blend informativity with intellectual entertainment. A prime example of this is Laura Poitras’s opening feature Cover-up, which premiered last year at Venice.
The gripping portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed US institutional violence from war crimes in Vietnam to the torture in Abu Ghraib, emphasizes the importance of press freedom for a functioning democracy. As Guest of Honor, Kelly Reichardt will hold a masterclass and receive a retrospective that looks at the connections between realist fiction and documentary. Special Guest Sergei Loznitsa completes this trio of auteurs with his purist cinematic observations and formally strict fictional works. From CPH:DOX arrives Dongnan Chen’s winning hybrid drama Whispers in May, reimagining its young protagonist’s grappling with structural changes and economic hardship as a lyrical coming-of-age tale.
Highlights from Sundance include Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s Nuisance Bear about the fraught relationship between humans and nature in the Canadian “polar bear capital,” Churchill, Manitoba. John Wilson’s humorous History of Concrete goes on an eccentric exploration of the urban universality of the titular material, floating from punchlines to profoundness. Subjectivity, humor, and formal experiments provide a temporary respite from the erosion of a perceived cinematic certainty which was never much more than an inventive illusion. Interestingly, AI-centered works are mostly absent from the catalog of urgent themes: migration, geopolitical frictions, nature’s beauty and fragility, and the aggressive rise of conservatism and conspiracy theories.
Among the 13 titles of the International Feature Film Competition, the most anticipated are Death in the Making by Piotr Pawlus, Jacqueline Zünd’s Heat, and Xisi Sofia Ye Chen’s From Dawn to Dawn. Jonas Spriestersbach’s Meanwhile in Namibia, Alain Gomis’s Dao, and Boubacar Sangaré’s Djeliya, mémoire du Mandé continue the renewed engagement with colonialist heritage and diasporic identity. Tempting as it may be to perceive this socially aware festival microcosm as a space of resistance against populism and right-wing radicalization, it’s more of a bubble. Most likely to burst it aren’t AI-manipulated images or censorship, but streaming. Just like CPH:DOX and Sundance, Visions du Réel promotes a wide range of program titles for online viewing.
The bitter irony of such misguided modernization is its counterproductive effect. Streaming is the antithesis of film festivals, reducing a collective experience and complex intellectual engagement to cinematic consumerism. If Visions du Réel wants documentary cinema to confront reality, it must happen in reality—not in a digital sphere.
Find the complete festival program here.
