Factual festival Sunny Side of the Doc to relocate to Strasbourg from 2027

Sunny Side of the Doc has been held in La Rochelle for 27 years

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SUNNY SIDE: As delegates swelter in La Rochelle at the annual Sunny Side of the Doc, France’s National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC) has announced a change of location for the long-running factual festival.

Gaëtan Bruel, the CNC’s president, announced on the opening day of Sunny Side here on the Atlantic coast that the event will switch to Strasbourg from 2027.

Bruel said national and international partners will work with the documentary industry to build a new June event on the French-German border to “meet the needs of a rapidly changing sector.”

Crucially, the new event comes with backing from the City of Strasbourg, the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, the Grand Est Region and the CNC. This year’s La Rochelle event was initially cancelled due to funding challenges before winning a reprieve thanks to CNC backing at the turn of the year.

Bruel said: “The creation of this new international documentary market in Strasbourg marks a major step in the structuring and influence of the sector. In a context of reconfiguration of the sector, it is essential to position ambitiously a reference market with an international dimension but also a place to promote the institutional issues attached to it.

“I want to believe that the impact of this new event will be decisive in promoting meetings and co-operation, but also in diversifying and accelerating access to funding that will bring to life the diversity of documentary perspectives that we need, more than ever.

“By setting up in Strasbourg, in the heart of Europe, this market will ambitiously uphold the fundamental values of documentaries: high standards, diversity and openness to the world.”

The move marks the end of an era for Sunny Side which was founded by Yves Jeanneau 36 years ago in Marseille and has spent the last 20 years here in La Rochelle.