Montreal, April 17, 2025 – Forum RIDM and Telefilm Canada are proud to announce the projects selected for the upcoming Docs-In-Progress – Canadian Showcase at the Marché du Film, the Cannes Film Festival’s international industry market.
Presented by Cannes Docs, the documentary section of the Marché du Film, Docs-In-Progress, is a pitch event presenting feature-length documentary projects at an advanced stage of editing. The event’s Canadian Showcase gives selected Canadian filmmakers and producers the chance to present their works-in-progress to an audience of international buyers, distributors, festival programmers, and sales agents. This marks Canada’s sixth participation in the initiative.
In preparation, Forum RIDM and Telefilm Canada provide pitch training and personalized support to the four selected teams, helping them prepare to make the most of this unique opportunity and to launch their films onto the international market.
The Marché du Film will take place in Cannes from May 13 to 21, 2025.
The four selected projects for Docs-in-Progress – Canadian Showcase 2025 are:
SKIN OF THE SKY
Directed and produced by: Andrea Bussmann
Synopsis
Skin of the Sky is a poetic essay film that lingers in the contested spaces of the Mexican-American borderlands, where human and non-human lives are entangled in systems of control, disappearance, and survival. Told through fragments, the film traces the often-invisible journeys of horses conscripted into labor, smuggling, spectacle, and abandonment — beings caught in the same violent economies that shape human existence at the border. Moving between clandestine racetracks, slaughterhouses, and desert patrols, the film reframes the border as a shifting threshold — shaped by power yet full of shadows: untold histories, silenced bodies, and echoes of resistance.
Andrea Bussmann was born in Toronto, Canada. She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and an MFA in Film Production. After completing her degrees, she directed He Whose Face Gives No Light. In 2016, she co-directed Tales of Two Who Dreamt, which premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won Best Documentary at the Festival International de Film de Femmes in 2017. Her feature Fausto premiered in 2018 at the Locarno International Film Festival and won Best Latin American Feature at Mar del Plata International Film Festival. That same year, she was awarded the Discovery Award by the Directors Guild of Canada.
WE SHALL EAT WHEN THE RIVER IS FULL
Directed and produced by: Banchi Hanuse
Co-Writer: Jessica Mayhew
Synopsis
At Nuxalk Radio, a rinky-dink, ramshackled station on the edge of the world, an inquiry into the disappearance of their sacred fish unearths a deeper truth about their ancestors who vanished before them — unraveling a chilling story buried in Canada’s past.
Banchi Hanuse is a producer, director and co-founder of the Nuxalk Radio, a station dedicated to keeping the Nuxalk language alive. She directed the short documentaries Cry Rock (2010) and Nuxalk Radio (2020), as well as the feature-length Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun (2023). She continues to amplify Indigenous stories and advocate for cultural and environmental stewardship.
Jessica Mayhew holds a law degree and a Bachelor of Performing Arts. She combines her legal education with a passion for storytelling to create a unique understanding of issues affecting Indigenous Peoples. She is committed to telling real histories, dispelling myths, and highlighting Indigenous voices through her work.
CONCRETE TURNED TO SAND
Directed and produced by: Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora
Synopsis
Following a collective of oyster farmers on Cortes Island, British Columbia, Concrete Turned to Sand traces the changing intertidal zone as it endures the effects of ocean warming and acidification. Exploring modes of perception and scale, the film reveals the transforming landscape and the intertwined livelihoods within it.
Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora are award-winning filmmakers based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their films investigate the ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, their work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. Their work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, Kassel Dokfest and VIFF.
THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD
Directed and produced by: Brett Story
Synopsis
The Production of the World is an archival film about artists and activists in the 1950s caught up in the cultural Cold War. At once a spy thriller about the CIA infiltration of the art world, and a fascinating biography of the writer most responsible for helping us decode images, John Berger, The Production of the World offers a timely archival investigation into the battlegrounds of culture. The enigmatic and prolific John Berger is a guide to this period, raising the film’s most probing and contested question: what is the value of art in turbulent political times
Brett Story is an award-winning filmmaker and writer whose work pushes the formal boundaries of political cinema. Her films have screened in theatres and festivals internationally, including at Sundance, CPH:DOX, and SXSW. She is the director of the feature films Union (with Steve Maing), which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes and The Hottest August, and author of the book Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power Across Neoliberal America. She was nominated for the Cinema Eye Award for Best Director in both 2020 and 2025, and is a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Award, a Sundance Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
About Telefilm Canada
As a Partner of Choice, Telefilm Canada is a Crown corporation dedicated to the success of Canada’s audiovisual industry, fostering access and excellence by delivering programs that support cultural resonance and audience engagement. With a lens of equity, inclusivity and sustainability, Telefilm bolsters dynamic companies and a range of creative talent at home and around the world. Telefilm also makes recommendations regarding the certification of audiovisual coproduction treaties to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and administers the programs of the Canada Media Fund. Launched in 2012, the Talent Fund raises private donations which principally support emerging talent.
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About Forum RIDM
Forum RIDM aims to stimulate the production and distribution of independent documentaries, both nationally and internationally, by promoting the exchange of information and meetings between the various professionals in the documentary industry. Roundtables, conferences and workshops on major current issues will bring together over 500 filmmakers and representatives of various production, broadcasting and distribution companies over five days.
Forum RIDM’s 21st edition will take place from November 21 to 26, 2025.
Informations: ridm.ca/en/forum-ridm / info@ridm.ca
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Caroline Rompré | pixelleX communications | 514-778-9294 | caroline@pixellex.ca
