East European Forum Prague
Saturday morning I attended the pitching of 18 projects and an award ceremony, including 9 awards – they will be announced on the site and/or the Facebook page of the organizing IDF, Institute of Documentary Film. As usual with a fine atmosphere at the Komedie Theatre, unpretentious professionalism, all projects were presented without any discussion afterwards, that happened later that afternoon and this morning in round table discussions with the participation of broadcasters, sales agents, distributors, festival programmers, producers…
I watched and listened to the projects and established my own point system with 10 and 9 in the top. 6 out of 18 qualified:
BUCHAREST DELTA
Romania/France, director Eva Pervolovici
First person film, cinematic trailer that gives an idea of what the film will look like. ”An abandoned land…a political prison, a natural park, a roma settlement… past and present”
PROVINCIAL TOWN OF E (PHOTO)
Russia, director Dmitry Bogolubov
Logline: Ghosts of the heroic soviet past don’t allow provincial town of E to live in the present… Trailer with excellent cinematography… if they can avoid the clichés, pay respect to the people with no pointing fingers at them… The project received 3 of the 9 awards.
MERCEDES PRINCIPLE
Russia, director Alina Rudnitskaya
Docu comedy by one of the most talented Russian directors, character-driven, women who are looking for ”a prosperous man”. Proff. Trailer.
THE SMUGGLER
Latvia, director Ivars Zviedris
The man behind ”Documentarian”, a true documentarian, director/cameraman, showed a trailer AND a small scene, hilarious, with a man being questioned by the border police. In Borderland between Russia and Latvia. Received the DocsBarcelona award.
THE LABUDOVIC FILES
Serbia/ France, director Mila Turajlic
Fine trailer and presentation, will be an interesting historical documentary, ”an archival road trip with cameraman Labudovic, Tito’s cameraman, cinemic eye of the Algerian revolution…”
GOD OVERESTIMATED ME
Bulgaria/ Sweden, director Yulian Tabakov
A hand reaching out for a cup or water on a table, an old woman’s voice, a horse and its carriage in a landscape that looks like a dump – a director’s aesthetic choice for the presentation of his film. Great.
Looking forward to seeing these films completed as well as the others of the 18, which were maybe not so interesting at a first glance. The question that comes up for me is what kind of trailers should be made – the ones that present the topic or the ones that are the film in terms of style, handwriting, l´écriture as the French call it.
