Sunny Side of the Doc’s Aurélie Reman and Documentary Campus’s Donata von Perfall tell ScreenMDM Talks about joining forces to bring the beloved La Rochelle event back—and reformatting it for a new era.
Citing the loss of key funding sources and organizational constraints, Sunny Side of the Doc announced late last year that it would nix the 2026 edition. For more than 30 years, Sunny Side of the Doc has been a critical hub for Europe’s documentary ecosystem. Donata von Perfall, managing director of Documentary Campus, was in Rio for the World Congress of Science & Factual producers (the organizations have a strategic partnership) when news broke that the event was canceled. She and her team quickly sprang into action.
“It really came, actually, from a shared understanding across the international documentary community that this space needs to remain,” von Perfall says in the latest episode of Real Talk. “We were able to bring together with Aurélie our 25 years of experience in the industry, our training programs, festivals, and conferences.”
For Reman, managing director of Sunny Side of the Doc, running June 22 to 24, the partnership with Documentary Campus reflects the new spirit of collaboration cropping up across the media landscape. “New alliances also need to be built,” she says in the podcast, which you can watch on YouTube or Spotify, or keep reading below.
It wasn’t just about resurrecting the event; it was about bringing it back in a way best suited to today’s challenges and opportunities. New elements include Meet-and-Match, which von Perfall describes as “an efficient market-oriented meeting point to connect producers with decision makers for match-made meetings to seal real deals.”
At the heart of Sunny Side’s reboot is a focus on “meaningful exchange,” von Perfall continues—”targeted conversations and very, very practical collaborations, rather than relying heavily on traditional public pitching formats. We designed the Meet-and-Match to create more discussion-driven spaces with curated matchmaking, roundtables, and opportunities for focused dialogue among producers, commissioners, distributors, funders, and emerging partners from outside the traditional system. So we are also including brands and foundations. And all of this is reflected in more than a hundred incredible projects we have selected from around the world, which make this market especially unique this year. Our goal is to create an environment that feels more dynamic, collaborative, and responsive to how business is actually being done.”
Amid this time of uncertainty, the goal was to bring clarity and visibility on what broadcasters are now looking for, to realign everyone, and make sure we also have a shared ambition,” Reman says. “The big trap would be to try to oppose two worlds like linear/nonlinear, digital/TV. That’s not where we are right now. And because of the event’s name—Sunny Side of the Doc—we need to bring that optimism. We wanted to make sure to make more visible and understandable what their editorial needs are, the actual means in terms of financing that they can put on the table, and solutions they found to create alliances or partnerships that would allow independent producers, creators, and authors to bring their impactful stories to the audience.”
While showcasing practical opportunities in the “traditional” business of documentary, the team has also curated a range of keynotes and sessions on emerging opportunities, including digital-first approaches and the use of AI to best manage archives. Ben Zand is among the event’s featured speakers.
“A market needs to kick the industry and to show the new opportunities that are out there,” von Perfall says.
“And we know that there’s no other place like it when you talk about non-fiction for TV, digital, and platforms,” Reman adds.
Accreditations are coming in from everywhere, Reman adds, including the U.K., the U.S., and Japan. But the European contingent remains at the heart of Sunny Side.
“This year more than ever, we will call on our community to be very vocal about how important, how necessary it is to maintain a Sunny Side of the Doc and do everything we can so that it remains a collective compass for the future of the industry,” Reman says. “We can only do that if we get together in person and in community.”
Von Perfall added, “Our industry is navigating a major transition. There are a lot of new opportunities out there. And this is what the Sunny Side is bringing to the floor.”
