East European Forum 2008
Saturday and Sunday 24 projects were pitched at the East European Forum at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival in Czech Republic. It is always difficult to measure what is a success but of course positive reactions/commitments from broadcasters count. In my experience – that for pitching sessions go more than 10 years back – 25% of the projects presented do normally get some finances from these events.
In Jihlava this year my guess is that at least 6 will be supported at this stage. Many others are still in development and received advice for further development. And the sentence: ”come back to me”. And others were told that this is too local, which does not mean that the film to be made could not turn into high quality. Remember ”Czech Dream” – who had thought that this film would tour the world? The IDF team (see picture) that stood behind this 8th edition of the East European Forum, had again turned the session into something warm and creative in a design under the motto ”Recycle Life – Make Documentaries”. The panel of broadcasters was this year around 20 people, including representatives from the Sundance Institute and ITVS from the the US. In an atmosphere of slight depression for the public broadcasters in Europe the participation of the funds was real good news!
