Stop reading if you want to avoid a personal text that is full of emotions and warm thanks from me to the women running the IDF, Institute of Documentary Film, based in Prague with the task to promote Eastern European Documentaries. Sunday was the closing day of the Eastern European Forum where 20 exciting film projects were presented/pitched to broadcasters and film fund representatives with an audience that included sales agents and distributors from all over the world. And mind my words: excellent films are in the process of being made.

Sunday was also the last Eastern European Forum for me after years as a tutor and moderator and conductor of the Ex Oriente workshop. It has been pure pleasure and I feel both proud and humble to have been part of a promotion team that has seen one strong film after the other be developed into strong and original creative works.

Go to the website of the IDF and read all about the films coming up in a year or two. Yes, it takes time to make creative documentaries, and it takes time to raise funding for them, and many will not be able to do so, but they make the films anyway! And what a gift to the Eastern European filmmakers to have IDF. Thank you for having given me so many wonderful moments, to Andrea Prenghyova, Ivana Milosevic, Hanka Rezkova – and all the other clever and dedicated and creative people! Thanks for generosity, warmness and friendships that will last.

Photo from Jihlava taken by Bulgarian documentarian Svetoslav Draganov. Autumn and a white line leading the festivalgoers from location to location.

www.docuinter.net

I saw the winner of the section ”Czech Joy”, ”I love my Boring Life” (PHOTO) by Jan Gogola, director, but also very much esteemed dramaturg, some call him an icon of Czech documentary, who has worked with several Czech and Slovak filmmakers like Filip Remunda (”Czech Dream”), Marko Skop(”Osadne” and Peter Kerekes (”66 Seasons” and ”Cooking History”). I will wait with my review of a fascinating and original film that was shown in a version with English version, and as the text is crucial for the experience of the film. I did not get out of it what it deserves and will wait until a German voice version of the film has been made.

But the Breathless project, German-Czech, deserves to be mentioned so I took this from the website:

Breathless, Dominance of the Moment – A collection of 5 Czech-German documentary films:

As a unique example of Czech-German cooperation are five creative documentary films presented under the common name Breathless, Dominance of the Moment. Czech-German project was established to support daring creative documentary proposals and to fund and develop outstanding documentary films from the Czech Republic and Germany. In Spring 2008,

Zipp – Czech-German Cultural Projects, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, DOK Leipzig and the Prague-based Institute of Documentary Film invited filmmakers to submit innovative and artistic documentary proposals that deal with the socially relevant subjects of ‘acceleration’ and ‘time’ of today’s life.

Among its objectives, the initiative promotes creative documentary proposals that bear a distinct stamp of the author but that would otherwise have little chance of being made. Another aim is to encourage cultural dialogue between Germany and the Czech Republic and to demonstrate how relevant, versatile and established documentary filmmaking in both countries is.

Out of more than 130 submissions, the international selection committee chose six compelling proposals. Two Czech and three German documentary films have been finally produced; Jirí Konecný, endorfilm s.r.o. is the producer of the Czech entries, while Stefan Kloos, Kloos & Co. Medien GmbH supervises production of the German documentaries.

The films have been developed with the support of international experts, filmmakers and professionals from all of Europe; Miroslav Janek (Czech Republic), Peter Badel (Germany), Niels Pagh Andersen (Denmark), Susanna Helke (Finland), Clare Paterson (UK), Stephan Krumbiegel (Germany) and Catherine Rascon (France).

http://www.breathless-films.com/

The best films of the thirteenth year of the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival were announced at its closing ceremony.

In the Czech Joy category, the jury selected the film I Love my Boring Life (Mám ráda nudný ivot, Jan Gogola Jr., Czech Republic 2009) (PHOTO). Further on, the film Brain Fight (Souboj z mozkem, Jan Šípek, Czech Republic 2009) received a Special Mention.

The Opus Bonum award for the best documentary film of 2009 went to the film Bassidji (Tamadon Mehran, Iran – France – Switzerland 2009).

Further on, the jury of the Between the Seas section awarded the film The Border (Hranica, Jaroslav Vojtek, Slovakia 2009) as the best East European documentary film of 2009.

The award of the Fascinations section for the best experimental documentary film of 2009 went to the work with the title Workers Leaving the Factory (Dubai) (Ben Russell, USA 2008).

The Audience Award was presented by chief programming director Alena Müllerová on behalf of the Czech Television, going to the film Auto*mat (Martin Mareček, Czech Republic 2009).

www.docuinter.net

http://www.breathless-films.com/

The small town in Czech Republic is full of people, who are here to watch films. There is a big local, young audience. There are professionals who come from all parts of the world to buy films for their tv channels, pick up films for their festivals, filmmakers with films to be presented and discussed with the audience and filmmakers with film projects to be developed and pitched for eventual financing. Documentaries all over.

I had the chance to see a film that is not yet released: ”Katka” by Helena Trestikova, who had a huge success with her previous film, ”Réné”. That will also happen with ”Katka”, which is a touching and tough drama about a young girl over a period of 10 years where she gets into a drug addiction that she is not able to leave. Railway stations, squatted totally devastated houses, meetings with social workers, tears and violence. Katka gets pregnant, her Teresa is born, she wants to keep her child but can only do so if she gets clean. The film is on its way to theatres in Czech Republic and festival goers all over the world will meet it, I am sure.

Finnish Iikka Vehkalahti from the national broadcaster YLE presented the web-doc project that he has initiated in Finland. Lönrott it is called – small stories from Finnish people inspired by the David Lynch supported, American Interview webdoc compilation that has been written about before on this site. Vehkalahti travels the festivals right now (he will also go to Sheffield and Amsterdam) to spread out his Finnish concept to become a global series.

www.docuinter.net

http://www.negativ.cz/en/films/katka/

Documentary festival in Jihlava. Accompanied by the East European Forum that I am part of as a tutor and moderator. There will be project development and pitching of around 20 projects during the coming weekend. To a panel of another 20 broadcast and film fund representatives. A varied film festival programme and a huge digitalised market. The competence and professionalism behind the so-called industry programme comes from IDF, Institute of Documentary Film.

The East European Forum started yesterday with 3 inspirational case studies from former participants, who finished their films successfully. All three films have been written about or reviewed on this site: ”The Deconstruction of an Artist” (PHOTO) by Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis, ”The Moon inside You” by Slovak director and producer Diana Fabianova, and ”Rabbit a la Berlin” by Polish producer Anna Wydra. 1) Cekulis talked about the immense work it was to raise funding for a film about an artist, Gustav Klucis, that very few people had ever heard about – and how he and the director Peteris Krilovs fought to find the right style and rythm of a film, that now stands out as a brilliant historical art and love story.

2) Fabianova, who came into the Ex Oriente without any experience at all in film production and with just a small documentary course on her cv, gave the participants the unbelievable story about her film on menstruation – that has now been sold to 17 countries, has a life in educational circles, will be released in theatres in several countries, and will make a profit! Not usual for a creative documentary. 3) Anna Wydra, producer and creative collaborator on the 40 minute masterpiece of Bartek Konopka, German title ”Mauerhaase”, was more than enthusiastic about the fact that the film was on the shortlist of an Oscar together with 7 American productions. The nominations will be out by February 1st for a film that had a hard time to find the perfect narrative balance between rabbits and people, between wild life and history – but it did and watch out readers for the tv programmes on November 9, the 20th year date of the fall of the wall. It could very well be on your channel.

www.docuinter.net

The final pitching session of the Documentary Campus Masterschool took place in Leipzig in the building of the local broadcaster MDR, on the 13th floor with a beautiful view to the city. Only to be watched in the breaks as the showing of film clips (also called trailers, teasers, tasters, demos, pilots) was not a good match to the strong autumn sunlight of this last weekend. The room was darkened when commissioning editor Claudia Schreiner welcomed her colleagues (around 30) around the table as well as the film producers and directors present, waiting to present (pitch) their documentary projects:

Our situation ressembles the one of many of you editors in this room. We have to spend the little money we have for so many documentaries as possible, she said. In this way she characterized the poor situation for European public broadcasters, who face general cut downs in staff and money.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere in the room was as always very ”homey” as the pitchings took off under the moderation of Canadian Rudy Buttignol, who did all he could to set a good mood. Without hiding that the channels who are normally financially strong for the creative documentaries have problems. The European cultural channel arte is going more and more mainstream, and France Télévisions (hosting FR2, FR3, FR4, FR5) has for a long time been in a reconstruction phase that will bring more centralisation.

Topics on the first day were – among others – a classical British social theme on youngsters in Manchester getting into criminal affairs ruining their lives, a television programme on poker-playing, a beautiful emotional story on a Japanese woman who grew up without a mother, married a Greek man and moved to the island of Crete and a cinematic story from a faraway place in Georgia: a house, a restaurant, a barking dog, waitresses. A place where time has stopped.

Photo from film project “Soldiers of the Lord” by Michael Krass, awarded the best pitch in Leipzig.

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