In late June, La Rochelle closed a chapter in documentary history. After twenty editions in the city, Sunny Side of the Doc, the genre’s leading international market, held its very last edition there before its rebirth in Strasbourg in June 2027. A week ago, we wrote about financing. Today, the other half of the story: where, and how, a documentary gets sold.
A final edition that speaks volumes
Over three days, the 2026 edition brought together 1,500 professionals from 55 countries, more than 800 companies and 190 international decision-makers, with French channels and foreign broadcasters leading the way. An edition put together in just five months, at a time when traditional funding is under pressure. And still, everyone showed up.
Its managing director, Aurélie Reman, calls it the edition “of mobilisation”. The industry is not retreating: it is reorganising, actively searching for new models of production, financing and distribution.
Selling a documentary today means building alliances
The market’s most interesting signal is not in the numbers, but in the formats. In partnership with Documentary Campus, Sunny Side launched Meet & Match and Speed Dating, meetings designed to connect producers, broadcasters and financiers at every stage of a project, along with a Copro HUB dedicated to international co-productions.
The takeaway is simple: a documentary is no longer sold at a single counter. It is built collectively, a French channel here, a foreign broadcaster there, a pre-sale, a distributor. The projects that find their place are the ones designed from the writing stage to travel: a subject that reaches beyond its territory, an angle that reads internationally, images that hold up anywhere.
Strasbourg 2027: more than a change of address
In June 2027, a new international documentary market will open in Strasbourg, backed by the CNC, the City, the Eurometropolis and the Grand Est Region. The symbolism is strong: the market is settling in the home city of Arte and of the European institutions, at the heart of the broadcaster network that keeps creative documentary alive.
The message is just as strong: documentary is now thought out on a European scale, co-productions and circulation of works included. Those who build that dimension into development will start with a head start.
What this changes when you produce, for brands too
For us, the lesson goes beyond creative documentary. Whether a film is carried by a channel, an independent production or a brand, its distribution has to be worked out before the first frame. Which screen are we aiming for, which audience, what lifespan? A film designed to exist beyond its commissioner is a film a broadcaster can consider, a festival can select, an audience chooses to watch.
That has been our way of working from day one: engineer the project first, then bring out the camera. Beauty makes people watch a film; structure, subject and distribution strategy make it exist. « Pas que du beau, du BOW ».
Do you have a documentary project, corporate or creative, and wonder which screens it could live on? That is exactly the conversation we love to have.