… is running until this sunday, February 7th. It includes an international film festival and a pitching forum, with a variety of masterclasses, award ceremonies and professional meetings. A meeting place for professionals and a generous offer of films to an audience. It is organised by Parallel 40 with local support as well as support from the EU MEDIA Programme and many others. I am proud to be part of the organising team. Below some impressions from a hectic week.

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24 projects were presented at the 13th Pitching Forum of DOCSBarcelona February 5-6. 15 broadcasters, film funders and distributors were around the table to comment  and eventually show interest in what was verbally and visually pitched. Most of the project pitchers had been trained at a workshop during two days before the Forum. The rules of the game: 7 minutes of presentation including a trailer and 7 minutes of questions and answers from the panel, that was supplemented by a so-called Row 0 of public funders and several Spanish local broadcasters and distributors. Not to forget a couple of hundreds of observers – producers and other professionals – who were there to create documentary partnerships, which in a period of cuts in budgets all over is more necessary than ever. It is not possible to raise all funding for your feature length documentary nationally any longer, you have to co-produce internationally. This situation was very much reflected in the fact that 243 projects were submitted for the Pitching Forum. A record in the history of DOCSBarcelona.

There are many international pitching sessions. With a different touch and emphasis. DOCSBarcelona is a public forum where others go for one-to-one organised sessions: producer meets broadcaster on an individual basis. For me the public pitching is the right format – is is sharing ideas, getting a sense of the market situation, networking. It is indeed hard for the pitchers, some call it a theatre, and of course it is not possible to tell everything in 7 minutes, but it is a unique chance to invite people to take part in your film project. And the pitching is followed by one-to-one meetings.

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What were they about, the 24 film projects at the Pitching Forum – what films can you expect to be ready within the next couple of years, what were the themes and stories presented at DOCSBarcelona 2010:

The invention of the personal computer. Mister Edhi – a Pakistani equivalent of Mother Teresa. Chinese in Congo. The fate of an Uighur refugee. My father was a Colombian guerilla fighter. Swedish helpers in Africa. Hitler’s schools in South America. Copyright. Iraqis in America. Bullfighting. Hungary, a horse nation. Llorenc Barber, a composer. Tourism changed Spain. Gospel music unites. Chinese build a railway in Angola. A Russian child in an orphanage. Anacoana, a Cuban female orchestra. Children becoming soldiers in Israel. Housing in London. San Mao, a Chinese writer. Veteran table tennis. The life and death of a mountain climber. School buses buried in the desert! A detective in Bengal.

Quite a mixture! High professional level. Good trailers, with the humourous projects being the easiest to convey in a pitching session.

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A special tribute was given to the Swedish commissioning editor Vera Bonnier, who had her last pitch at DOCSBarcelona. For 34 years Bonnier has worked for SVT, the Swedish public broadcaster, and has now decided to retire. She comes from a tradition in public broadcasting where it was possible to commit to a film project and then find place for it on the programme schedule afterwards. Today it is mostly the other way around – first comes the time slot and what it requires, when it comes to theme and approach, and then the film projects have to fit in.

Vera Bonnier, however, has been enormously flexible in her way of getting films she loved scheduled on the cultural slot K-Special, that runs prime time friday night. A personal note: This is a programme that I love to watch as Danish television friday night is nothing but quiz shows and American series.

Also on this last international documentary event for Vera Bonnier, she demonstrated this unique eye for seeing the talent and bending the rules for what can be considered as ”culture”. With warmth and personality. Thank you!

www.docsbarcelona.com