{"id":727370,"date":"2026-06-10T12:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727370\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:24:13","slug":"doc-campus-leader-donata-von-perfall-on-partnering-with-sunny-side-of-the-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727370\/","title":{"rendered":"Doc Campus Leader Donata Von Perfall On Partnering With Sunny Side Of The Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor more than a quarter century, Documentary Campus<\/a> has been supporting the global nonfiction filmmaking community through training programs, conferences, and Silbersalz, \u201cthe first international Science & Media festival of its kind.\u201d Now the nonprofit is taking its mission even further.<\/p>\n

\n\tDoc Campus is partnering for the first time with Sunny Side of the Doc<\/a>, the international marketplace set for June 22-24 in La Rochelle, France. It came to the aid of Sunny Side when the institution, founded 37 years ago, appeared on the verge of dissolution after losing a vital European grant.<\/p>\n

\n\tDonata von Perfall<\/a>, managing director of Doc Campus, tells Deadline she was running the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers in Rio de Janeiro late last year when she heard Sunny Side might fold.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat really struck me was immediately this shared response from the industry that a market, an international strong European market, is needed,\u201d von Perfall recalls. \u201cSo many people came to Documentary Campus to ask me, what should we do? How could we go forward?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Sunny<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSunny Side of the Doc in La Rochelle, France<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJean-Franc\u0327ois Auge\u0301 \u2013 Studio Ouest<\/p>\n

\n\tFrench organizations kicked in needed financial resources and Doc Campus combined with Sunny Side to reenvision the program. \u201cTogether with them, it was just a natural process,\u201d von Perfall says, but with 2026 soon approaching, \u201cWe just had to be very speedy\u2026 We had to come up with a fresh concept and a new approach to this market within four weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the innovations for this year are replacing the pitch sessions with \u201ca new concept which we called Meet & Match,\u201d von Perfall explains. \u201cWe [created] a digital catalog where you just click on what you\u2019re looking for, what you need, and every project that applied had to give proof that 30 percent of the financing is [already] in place. And then we basically made it also easier for the other side, so for the decision makers, for the distributors, producers, other alternative funding institutions, that they could search what they really would like to support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe newly created Copro HUB will present daily case studies examining successful co-productions. That places an emphasis on tangible experiences versus notional projects that may or may not go anywhere. Through that approach, von Perfall says, \u201cWe were able to increase the quality and really curate them with our teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Participants<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tParticipants in Sunny Side of the Doc meet by the port of La Rochelle<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSunny Side of the Doc<\/p>\n

\n\tSSD in 2026 is singularly focused on returning value to attendees. \u201cIf you come to Sunny Side, it needs to be worthwhile to come,\u201d notes von Perfall. \u201cAnd that\u2019s for every participant who takes the money and takes the time to come to Sunny Side\u2026 And if you come to a market, you want to sell and you want to go back home with money or at least with interest, with serious interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA nimble response has been needed to allow Sunny Side to continue. And the same kind of creative thinking is called for in the documentary space generally, to deal with dramatic shifts in the media landscape. Old systems of distribution can\u2019t be relied on to carry the business forward.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPublic services like linear, it\u2019s transforming, it\u2019s going through a major shift. And I think in Europe, we are not in the best state at the moment. We have a worldwide conflict situation,\u201d von Perfall notes, referring to war in Ukraine and Iran. \u201cInvesting into culture, where media belongs, goes down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Sunny<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSunny Side of the Doc\/Documentary Campus<\/p>\n

\n\tSunny Side, partnering with Doc Campus, can serve to reframe opportunities.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat you have in the U.S. that we haven\u2019t in Europe in that way is this incredible support via philanthropic money and foundations. And I think this is the transition which we see coming in Europe as well. We see more and more bigger productions also going for philanthropic [support],\u201d von Perfall says, adding that digital presents other opportunities. \u201cCreation of YouTube channels on very specific niche topics. For example, for a producer a new business model [could be] just to produce for one YouTube channel\u2026 [content on] agriculture, surfing, whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYouTube platforms documentaries of every length. Other social media players are moving in that direction, von Perfall says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTikTok, it started to [take] long form content,\u201d she affirms. \u201cEven Insta, all these platforms are now increasingly more and more looking for longer content. And the longer the content is, the bigger the revenues you\u2019re getting. So, it\u2019s becoming more and more interesting to really work on those platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid all the changes in documentary distribution, creators should be encouraged by one thing: \u201cIn today\u2019s world, factual is more important than ever,\u201d von Perfall insists. \u201cAudiences are increasingly looking for trusted fact-based storytelling across any kind of platform. And documentary, what we\u2019re doing offers something that much of the modern media landscape often lacks. And that\u2019s depth, that\u2019s the context and the nuance. Documentary allows stories to be explored in a way that goes beyond headlines. While misinformation thrives on speed and simplification, if I may say, documentary encourages understanding, critical thinking and informed discussion. That\u2019s what we feel that audiences worldwide, also the younger generations, are increasingly looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVon Perfall adds, \u201cSupporting documentary storytelling is therefore not only important for the industry itself, but for society as a whole. That\u2019s how I see it. It helps to ensure that audiences continue to have access to credible, well-researched stories that can inform, challenge and inspire. The question is how do they find it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s a question the 2026 edition of Sunny Side of the Doc, in partnership with Documentary Campus, is well positioned to answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than a quarter century, Documentary Campus has been supporting the global nonfiction filmmaking community through training…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,352188,352409,134,344,352189],"class_list":["post-727370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-documentary-campus","tag-donata-von-perfall","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-sunny-side-of-the-doc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}