The fourth edition of Nord/Est/Doc/Camp, organised by the Bolzano Film Festival Bozen alongside the Euganea Film Festival and Pordenone Docs Fest, continues to position the event as a key platform for documentaries emerging from Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Designed as a multi-stage lab combining feedback, training and networking, the programme supports projects in production or post-production, with a focus on strengthening script development, and sharpening festival and distribution strategies.

During the 13 April session, moderated by Sergio Fant, four works in progress stood out for their strong authorial voices and their engagement with urgent socio-political and personal themes, ranging from the climate crisis and post-war trauma to intimate family dynamics and environmental memory. We detail them below.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light – Nuno Escudeiro (Italy/France/Portugal)
Previously known under the working title Grand-Popo, Nuno Escudeiro’s feature-length documentary unfolds in a coastal town in Benin that is slowly being swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean. Produced by Bolzano-based Helios Sustainable Films alongside France's Solent Production and Portugal's Bam Bam Cinema, the pic blends observational and participatory approaches to portray a community caught between environmental collapse and political intervention.

Escudeiro’s project is rooted in a long-term engagement with the region, initially sparked by research into the historical ties between Portugal and the so-called “Slave Coast”. Over time, the film evolved into a more collaborative and spiritually inflected work, incorporating Vodun cosmologies and local belief systems as central narrative elements.

Rather than adopting a purely political lens, the director explores how climate change, state-led coastal restructuring and ancestral memory intersect in shaping the characters’ sense of belonging and loss. The film follows figures such as a musician torn between leaving and staying, a tour guide preserving oral histories and a Vodun priestess performing rituals to restore balance.

Currently nearing the end of post-production, the project is positioning itself within both the festival circuit and the theatrical landscape, with its hybrid aesthetic potentially appealing to audiences interested in creative documentaries that bridge ethnographic, environmental and spiritual storytelling.

Sonic Silence – Alessandro Ambroggi, Ludovico Chincarini (Italy)
Produced by Verona-based firm Orango, Sonic Silence marks the feature debut by co-directors Alessandro Ambroggi and Ludovico Chincarini. Set in Bosnia, the film examines the enduring legacy of the 1990s war through the story of Alen, a man who has spent over three decades searching for the remains of his father, one of thousands still missing.

Structured around three generations of a single family, the documentary uses Alen’s obsessive search as a prism through which to explore trauma, memory and the transmission of unresolved grief. His young son and war-veteran uncle embody different relationships to the past, highlighting how the consequences of conflict continue to shape contemporary Bosnia.

The narrative takes a dramatic turn when Alen discovers human remains and begins an illegal excavation of a suspected mass grave, only to face institutional inertia and political obstruction. The filmmakers emphasised the Kafkaesque nature of the system, where justice remains stalled by ethnic tensions and lack of political will.

Still in production and approximately 75%-80% complete, the movie has also thrown up several logistical and ethical challenges, particularly following reported intimidation linked to the investigation. The helmers aim to complete shooting by the autumn, and Sonic Silence will be positioned as a politically urgent and character-driven work that resonates with broader European debates on memory and accountability.

My Sister Is a Pirate – Jacopo Mutti (Italy/Sweden)
Produced by Jump Cut in Trento and co-produced by Sweden’s Sisyfos Film Production, Mutti’s project offers a markedly different tone, blending documentary with performative and imaginative elements.

At its core, the film is an intimate portrait of the director’s relationship with his sister Carmen, a TV editor whose passion for live-action role-playing (LARP) becomes both subject and narrative device. What begins as an attempt to document her world gradually transforms into a shared creative process, in which filmmaking itself becomes a form of play.

Set largely within a Milan flat reimagined as a pirate ship, the project explores the tension between adulthood and the persistence of childhood imagination. By exchanging the camera, and incorporating staged and spontaneous moments, Mutti constructs a hybrid language that oscillates between diary film, observational documentary and genre-inflected fantasy.

Currently in development and financing, despite several years of accumulated footage, the film is still searching for its final form. The creative team is actively reworking the material, with production expected to continue throughout the year before entering editing in 2027.

Quando è pronto, il fieno canta – Letizia Buoso (Italy)
Letizia Buoso’s feature debut promises to be an ambitious hybrid documentary rooted in personal and geographical memory. Produced by the director alongside Headline and Trieste-based outfit Okta Film, the project has been in development for seven years and is now approaching completion.

Set in a valley in Trentino shaped by geological and historical transformations, the film originates from Buoso’s attempt to reconstruct her grandmother’s past, spanning the Austro-Hungarian and Italian periods. However, the narrative gradually expands beyond the family dimension to encompass broader reflections on environment, migration and collective history.

Structured into chapters and built around fragments gathered over time, the film adopts an essayistic form, combining voice-over, archival research and observational footage. The turning point comes with 2018’s Storm Vaia, which devastates the local forest, and reveals underlying tensions between nature, memory and human intervention.

Buoso’s approach foregrounds the idea of history as a living presence, rather than a closed past, drawing on philosophical reflections and an emphasis on interspecies coexistence. The film is currently in post-production, with work focusing on sound design and narration. Completion is expected by the summer, ahead of a festival launch.