Tag Archives: DOK. Incubator

EN, Festivals, Interviews, People

Always Together at IDFA 2014 Competition for First Appearance

Leave a comment

An interview with the Czech director Eva Tomanová, whose feature-length documentary Always Together, selected for IDFA 2014 Competition for First Appearance, premieres on November 20, 2014 in Amsterdam. Always Together is produced by Jiří Konečný (Endorfilm).

Plakat_always_together.

This is your first film, and it is already feature-length and in competition at IDFA.

Why did you switch from journalism to filmmaking?

Interesting stories have accompanied my entire professional life. I love them. I collect them. It’s not a radical change – rather, it’s an evolutionary step.  It’s important to know how to tell the story; minutes don’t count so much. I ‘ve directed many TV projects, documentaries, reporting (comparable to 60 minutes) before.

Journalism is a way of life; to me it is above all about curiosity. I also think I have a nose for interesting topics; I need to look at a subject from many different angles. I know how to make people talk to me. The arts, also, have enriched my whole life – drawing, sculpture, photography.

Eva_blackandwhite
Director: Eva Tomanová

How did you meet this family?

Another family that I helped as a journalist at the time introduced me. The man was very suspicious about me in the beginning. I remember standing behind the fence, being interviewed by him – he did not even invite me in.

Then, some weeks later, he expressed a wish to meet me again. He needed some help with the social welfare office. They did not like it that his children did not go to school.

ditko01_zuby_cisteni

How was your experience with the DOK.Incubator workshop?

DOK.Incubator was a great experience for me. I received very profound feedback from both sides, tutors and participants, which is always needed. The variety of nations and different points of view are another big advantage, and they all were so supportive. I believe it made me look differently at this and any other films that I might possibly make.
To be more specific, Sigrid Dyekjær gave me many dramaturgical ideas even before shooting. I met her through my work at the very first DOK.Incubator workshop. And the editor Per K. Kirkegaard (Armadillo) sort of reshaped my gaze and made it more relaxed, not so informative, and to let the characters speak for themselves.
Another important thing about this workshop is that you actually work with the whole team, the editor and the producer, and you develop the film together. Jiri has turned out to be a great help. Without him and without DOK.Incubator I would hardly have made it to IDFA.

Follow this blog for more!

Uncategorized

Sigrid Dyekjær gives Greek Producers practical tips!

Leave a comment

Sigrid Dyekjær is one of the most experienced producers in Denmark when it comes to national documentary production and international cooperation. In financing, producing and creative consulting Dyekjær has an extraordinary ability to knock in doors and break down boundaries in the film-industry.
sigrid3

Young Greek producers are struggling. Could you give them some practical tips?

Go international. Always think of how you can bring your film up for an international audience, how you can finance it internationally, and how you can move your film language in a direction where it is understandable, and emotional engaging to an international audience. In Denmark we accepted a long time ago, that nobody speaks danish in the world. We only have 5 million people in our country. If we should live by making films, we simply had to get our films out to the world. Nothing is happening in Denmark, we have the most boring, safe country in the world. But we were all brought up with Hans Christian Andersen, and the way he tells a story. So telling a story, no-matter weather it is from Denmark or where ever it is, can be done in a way, where other people, from other countries can understand it. To us it is not so important whether it is a good story, but it is important HOW you tell the story. Hans Christian Andersen is running in our blood, no doubt about that, his trademark was how the story was told, what was the outer story, the story your thought you were listening to, but underneath that, there was more to it, a deeper lawyer that went right into your bones and reminded you of something in your own life. I am sure the Greeks can do this; I am sure they can tell Greek stories in an international way. And there is so much more money to get hold of internationally than in Greece.

Uncategorized

Talking about successful producing with Sigrid Dyekjær

Leave a comment

May I introduce you (if you do not know her already) to the Queen of Danish documentary film, Sigrid Dyekjær, who runs Danish Documentary Production. I have always wanted to interview her, to try to discover why her wand is magic!

sigrid2
You are regarded as the queen of production! What makes you and your team so successful?

Ha ha ha... I never said I was the queen of Danish documentary film; thank god there are a lot of queens in my country doing this. But I think what is special about us, is we never sacrifice the film in order to deliver. We rather want to spend 1-2 more years in developing the film, if we feel it is not there yet or even produce it for 2-3 years more, if it is not at the level where we feel we can get it, than finish it. It is a priveledge, but we will do it. We don´t think of ourselves in this, we only think about our film, and our audience. we don´t want to disappoint them.

Denmark is a small country with a big film industry ­­- why is that?
We have quite good State funding. They have decided, even in financial crises, that giving money to culture and films is good; it makes people happy to see good films, and they get inspired, it gives a better mood and wellbeing to the people. The state has decided that you should be able to watch danish films in both cinema and on TV, so they have even given TV money to spent on films - only.
We also have a very professional industry now in Denmark, due to more money, a better film school.

Stay tunded! The article is going to be continued...

Doc-making, EN

DOK. Incubator’s workshop

Leave a comment

SUNDANCE DOCUMENTARY AWARD goes to a debut film from the DOK.Incubator´s
workshop!
The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, a low budget documentary,
developed within the DOK.Incubator workshop, has just won the award for
World Cinema Documentary Directing at the SUNDANCE Festival! For the
Gurchiani sisters, was the first time both producing and directing a feature
lenght documentary.

„Living for a long time in Europe, I wanted to return to Georgia and make a
film about young people there. So I organised a casting – and suddenly I
saw, that those faces have their own touching stories – and I decided to
listen to them,“ describes Tinatin Gurchiani, the debuting documentarist,
the very start of her road to the amazing success of this visually stunning
movie. The film was developed within DOK.Incubator, workshop focused on
editing and distribution, that provides an individual tutoring for
documentary projects from the rough cut stage to their release. After a half
year of intensive work, The Machine… achived sophisticated editing and a
precise distribution strategy, helping them to approach the prestigious
sales agency, Deckert Distribution, and achieve international distribution.
Their road to success started with their premiere at DOK Leipzig Young
Competition and finished with the most prestigious international competition
at Sundance.

The DOK.Incubator project has been launched in 2012 by a creative think-tank
DocIncubator (CZ), DOK.Leipzig festival (DE) and the Institute of
Documentary Film (CZ) , in cooperation with the Association of Independent
Producers (SK) and Centrala Filmproduction (PL). After the first edition,
beside DOK Leipzig and Sundance, two participant films have competed also at
IDFA, CPH:DOX and they participate soon in MoMA´s Documentary Fortnight.

More information about the workshop you can find at www.dokincubator.net
DEADLINE for the 2013 edition is March 5th.