Docu Rough Cut Boutique has announced the five documentary projects selected for its 2026 edition, with works from South-East Europe and the Caucasus set to take part in a three-module programme across Sofia, online and Sarajevo. The initiative is created and organised by Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Industry Days and the Balkan Documentary Center, and is dedicated to documentary projects in the advanced phase of editing.
The 2026 edition will unfold through three working modules, beginning in Sofia in May, followed by an online module in July and a final module in Sarajevo in August. The boutique format is designed to offer intensive mentorship to a small number of works-in-progress, giving directors, editors and producers the opportunity to refine their films before presenting them to the wider international industry.
Rada Šešić of the Sarajevo Film Festival said the organisers had received a large number of applications but remained committed to a selective model built around close, hands-on support. She noted that the selected projects were largely by new talents entering the European documentary scene and reflected «the resilience of documentary cinema» amid political and cultural pressure across the region.
Martichka Bozhilova of the Balkan Documentary Center also underlined the importance of independent documentary voices from the region, pointing to the programme’s role in supporting directors and editors amid a rapidly changing film industry.
The selected projects are Balkan Maestro, directed by Altinaï Petrovitch Njegosh and François Fleury, a Montenegro-France production following French conductor Marc Korovitch as he takes over the Montenegro National Orchestra; Kind of Adults, a Hungarian project by Rita Balogh and Peter Akar following Gen Z teenagers across six years; and No Offence, a Croatia-Czech Republic project by Lucija Marčec examining discrimination and its shifting targets.
The lineup also includes Rana, by Maria Cheresheva and Georgi Totev, centred on a 12-year friendship between a Palestinian woman in Gaza and a Bulgarian Jew, and Women of Akbelen Forest, directed by Selen Çatalyürekli, which follows village women in southwest Turkey as they resist coal mining that threatens their forest, homes and future.
