Category Archives: Festivals

Doc-making, EN, Festivals

The workshop for docs in a rough cut stage! DOK Incubator

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Let's get personal was the motto of this year's DOK INCUBATOR at the Leipziger Pfefermühle. And the presentation was full with people who came to see the nine selected documentaries. A fine initiate witch started by Andrea Prenghyova, the creator of the DOK.Incubator in collaboration with DOK Leipzig three years ago..

Dok Incubator is a course that runs for three weeks, during half a year, where you apply with a rough cut.

dok01_color_0_2502c317b1d5fc They work with the teams of director, editor and Producer, with their films, to improve their film and work with the producers and teams to learn how to do international financing and distribution. They also work with the films to make them more international as well. Director and editor has cooperation with big european editors to improve the films. The course is held in different European cities. It is a media supported program like EAVE, but just for documentaries in post production.

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Sigrid Dyekjær is one of the central teachers

On Tuesday at DOK Leipzig...

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Claas Danielsen, the DOK Leipzig Director, together with Andrea Prenghyova – creator of the DOK.Incubator, journalist, film maker, documentary film producer and founder of Institute of Documentary Prague, and Ilo von Seckendorff.
EN, Festivals

Who is going to be the next DOK Leipzig Director?

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DOK Leipzig, the oldest documentary film festival in the world is looking for a new Festival Director who is fluent in German and English and should take up her or his position on 1 January 2015.

You can find more information on the job profile and application here.

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The 57th edition of DOK Leipzig will be between 27 Oct. and 2 Nov. 2014

Doc-making, EN, Festivals

IDFA is looking for emerging documentary film talent!

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IDFAcademy Summer School 2014

From June 30 through July 5 2014, IDFA organizes the seventh edition of the Summer School: a tailor-made training program for emerging filmmakers, taking place in Amsterdam and aimed at strengthening the narrative structure of documentary projects. Around sixteen projects from all over the world will be selected for the Summer School 2014. The deadline for submission is April 1, 2014.

IDFAcademy Summer School offers the opportunity to meet and work with highly esteemed filmmakers and film professionals who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with emerging film talent. The Summer School combines individual coaching with group sessions and an inspiring cultural program in a relaxed atmosphere. It offers two types of training possibilities: Script Development and Editing Consultancy.

Participants will be coached by eight international documentary experts. In previous years experts like Gianfranco Rosi (Director, Italy), Audrius Stonys (Director, Lithuania), Emma Davie (director, Scotland), Kate Townsend (Executive Producer BBC Storyville, UK), Sabine Bubeck-Paaz (Commissioning Editor ZDF, Germany), Debra Zimmerman (Distributor Women Make Movies, USA), Jesper Osmund (Editor, Denmark) and Peter Wintonick (Producer/ Director, Canada) were tutors at the Summer School.

Filmmakers who are selected have the opportunity to bring a sparring partner: a creative producer, a co-scriptwriter, or an editor in the case of participation in Editing Consultancy. If a project is selected, a participation fee for two persons of a total of €1000,- (excluding VAT) or in case of one person for a total of €750,- (excluding VAT) is due. This fee does not cover travel, accommodation or food expenses. There is a scholarship available per project (accommodation) for international participants.

For more information IDFAcademy Summer School how to apply, see http://www.idfa.nl/industry/idfacademy/attend-summer-school.aspx

EN, Festivals, Interviews

Interview with Gudrun Sommer, doxs!

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Dimitra Kouzi talked with Gudrun Sommer, the director of the unique festival Doxs!, which just took place in Duisburg, Germany (November 4-10). Watch the interview.(video in German with Greek subtitles)

doxs! is the oldest German film festival exclusively presenting documentaries for children and adolescents. The international film programme is part of the well-known documentary festival Duisburger Filmwoche. Each screening is accompanied by a moderated Q&A. The entry to all screenings is free for accredited festival guests and pupils.

doxs! works in various fields of media education and constantly develops new pilot-projects that set pace and break new ground.
doxs! jointly produced with the Goethe Institut a unique European Documentary film package, Young Heroes, in 2006.

EN, Festivals

Festivalitis

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Sussanne Guggenberger at the DOK-TalksSussanne Guggenberger organized DOK-Talks.

There are over 4000 festivals in the world! At the Dok talks of Dok Leipzig we had the possibility to get to know – hear little more about, Krakow Film Festival, the Docu Festival in Kosovo, the Moscow Film Festival, Dok Outlook International Market, Cinema Du reel in Paris, Sheffield Doc Fest, Bratislava Doc festival, CineDoc in Athens, Tempo Documentary Festival in Stockholm Sweden and Chopshots Documentary Film Festival held in April in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Krakow Film Festival was founded in 1961. It is held end of May-beginning of June, after Cannes and before Sheffield, and has a new exiting category: Music Docs! This year they also have a special country tribute to Britain. They are looking for author-driven docs; the stories should be universal, and the premiers must take place in Poland.

There may be no cinemas in Kosovo, yet the Dokufest.com organizers created eight cinemas in public spaces! There they festival is held every year in August. They topics are human rights, environment, youth, films from the Balkan area. This year they have the theme
Breaking borders. They submission begins on Friday 1st November and ends in March. The Kosovo doc festival made it into to create cine clubs in highshools and schools and they hold a program called Future is here. This aim is to help students up to 25 years to try to produce short docs in 7 days.

Moscow has a very popular and successful Film Festival with a small doc section. And they have created a strand in television for their films.

Visions du Reel,
 in Nyon, Switzerland, focus on director-driven films with an emphasis on cinematographic language and is held in the end of April. Next year they have a special on Tunisia. The festival is a Doc Alliance member and has a very strong market.

Cinema Du Reel
 is a festival held at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. All topics are fine with them, as long as the film has an author point of view, is director-driven, with a signature, or follows the rules of cinéma vérité. They don’t have a market but next year they will organize special screenings for professionals. Deadline for submissions: March 20-30.

Sheffield Doc Fest is a big and important documentary festival in Britain. They have 20.000 visitors and the festival is held in June. There are screenings, a market and a conference. Submissions are online until 25/1. They have several awards; one of them is the Green award. They care about topical stories with a strong point of view. Their Meet Market is a one-to-one meeting place where 65 projects are pitched to the 300 decision makers. Sheffield makes a lot of matchmaking work! There is also a cross-platform program where new formats and hybrid interactive docs find their place. They cooperate with the documentary campus. Hint: don't miss their parties – especially the roller disco!

EN, Festivals

Are you looking for a festival?

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Check out filmfestivallife.com! They have 800 festivals listed and counting. And they do a great job helping directors not only to find the right festival, but also to apply easily.

See also my post Festivalitis.

EN, Festivals

Talking about Festivals

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The Industry talks start tonight with the profile of a few quite interesting international festivals. Moderated by Susanne Guggenberger in the Pfeffermühle Café, the Talks with industry experts and producers/filmmakers,cover topics such as distribution and marketing options for your film and transmedia project, as well as specifics of markets, their players and introductions to festival programmers. So tonight we will meet festival programmers and find out what they are looking for! Neasa Ni Chianain, Guth Gafa International Documentary Festival, Falcarragh, Ireland (tbc), Galla Bador, Doc Aviv, Tel Aviv, Teddy Grouya, American Documentary FF, Palm Springs, Lulu Ratna, Doc Shot Indonesia,Yogyakarta (tbc), and Ana de la Rose Zamboni, IFF Guadalajara, Mexico.

If you want to know more about festivals check out filmfestivallife.com.

Doc-making, EN, Festivals

Croatian Films at the 56th DOK Leipzig

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This year’s important novelty is the SEED initiative launched by Restart and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre alongside six other regional partners with the aim of promoting documentary films made in Southeast Europe.

SEED – South East European Documentaries, is the initiative launched by Restart from Zagreb in association with the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and several regional partners: Bulgarian National Film Centre, Film Center Serbia, Slovenian Film Centre, Macedonian Film Fund, Ministry of Culture of Montenegro, and Balkan Documentary Center from Bulgaria. The aim of the initiative is to draw attention to regional co-production potentials, present the latest films to other festival programmers and stimulate networking between documentary filmmakers in the region and beyond.

Several Croatian films have also been included in the DOK market (and SEED also published a catalogue). These are Gangster of Love by Nebojša Slijepčević (nominated also at Prix Europa 2013), Occupation, The 27th Picture by Pavo Marinković, The Verdict by Đuro Gavran and Velvet Terrorists by Peter Kerekeš.

EN, Festivals

And the winner of Prix Europa 2013 is…

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PRIX EUROPA - Best European TV Documentary of the Year 2013

THE PUNK SYNDROME - A FILM ABOUT PERTTI KURIKAN NIMIPÄIVÄT / Kovasikajuttu Directed by Jukka kärkkäinen, J-P Passi

entered by Yle, Finland, produced by Mouka Filmi, co-produced by Indie Film, Auto Images, Film I Skåne

This film is about Finland’s most kick-ass punk rock band, Pertti kurikan Nimipäivät. The band members, Pertti, kari, Toni and Sami, are mentally
handicapped and they play their music with a lot of attitude and pride. We follow these professional musicians on their journey from obscurity
to popularity. We watch them fight, fall in love and experience strong emotions. We witness long days in the recording studio and on tour.
They laugh, cry, drink and fight over who gets to sit in the front on the tour bus. Then it is time to make up and go talk to people in the audience
and tell them how great their band is. Their songs are about the problems in society as well as about things that
they face in their everyday life: how going to the pedicurist sucks and the misery of living in a group home. The guys give a piece of their minds
to both politicians and people whose attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities need improvement.
This film is about the essence of punk. It is a story of handicapped people rebelling against the mainstream. This time you are allowed to stare and
wonder why they act the way they do. And you will fall in love with them as you watch how the most kick-ass punk band in Finland conquers the
world.

trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM58kP_JHkQ

and at the category of
TV IRIS - Under the Patronage of the Dutch Public Broadcaster NTR

PRIX EUROPA Best Intercultural TV Programme of the Year 2013

the documentary

DISPLACED PERSSONS / Familjen Persson I främmande land, Directed by åsa Blanck and Johan Palmgren

Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago in search of adventures. He drove eastward in his Land Rover and ended up in Pakistan where he
fell in love with Shamim. They married, settled down in Lahore and had two daughters, Zahra and Maria. Per raised his daughters to be free and
strong women which wasn’t very popular with neighbours and relatives. As Zahra and Maria grew older the family felt more and more threatened
by the surrounding society. At last, when the girls are in their mid-twenties, the family takes the difficult decision to move to southern Sweden, back to Per’s roots. Shamim, Zahra and Maria have great hope for their lives in the new country but once in Sweden nothing turns out as expected. The family have to live in a small caravan while being stuck in the Swedish bureaucracy, with endless meetings and paperwork. Money is scarce and their dreams slowly fades away.
After a while Zahra falls in love with Aun, a fellow Pakistani also trying to find a new life in Sweden. When Aun’s Swedish visa expires he moves
back to Pakistan and from there he proposes to Zahra, which she accepts. After a tearful goodbye Zahra leaves for Pakistan but promises she will be
back in Sweden, in a year or so. In the meantime Per, Shamim and Maria slowly begin to build a decent life in Sweden and especially Maria likes
her new country more and more. And finally, after years of longing, the family is reunited when Zahra and
Aun comes back to Sweden.With them they bring their son Lille-Pelle, Per’s first grandson. The whole family celebrate and rejoice, but will they live happily ever after?
Well, as Per says: ‘Right now things are pretty good, but how the future will be? Inshallah!’

entered by SVT, Sweden, produced by Strix, co-produced by The Swedish Filminstitute, NRK, Yle
http://www.svt.se/kultur/film/familjen-persson-i-frammande-land

More about Prix Europa here.

CineDoc, EN, Festivals, Screenings-Events

CineDoc Season 2013-14

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Layout 1This year, the CineDoc documentary festival opens with the award-winning documentary The Cleaners by Konstantinos Georgoussis.
In June 2012, the far-right Greek political party Golden Dawn came from nowhere to win seven percent of the parliamentary vote. THE_CLEANERS2

Without commentary, the film follows a number of party members during primary elections in central Athens. In disturbing and overtly radical terms, the men air their grievances about the scapegoat for all ills: the growing number of immigrants. In cafés and squares, they enter into discussion with supporters and opponents, keeping a sharp eye on migrant passersby.
Konstantinos Georgoussis, a graduate of the National Film and Television School of the UK, has directed and produced the film in a unique way.
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The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival and has been screened at the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam and broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK. The Museum of SS-“Topography of Terror” in Berlin, has honored the film with a special screening.
A Q & A will follow with director Konstantinos Georgoussis and journalist Dimitris Psaras (The Black Bible of the Golden Dawn, Polis Editions).
The documentary Democracy, The Way of the Cross follows at 21.30. The film follows the pre-election campaign of four candidates during the May 2012 Greek parliamentary elections.

Listen to
Marco Gastine's interview

The CineDoc 2013-14 program
CINEDOC 2013-14