Baltic Tour: Lithuania

I have just left Vilnius, this beautiful spiritual capital of Lithuania. I had two nights at the Shakespeare Hotel, which I would like to (an exception on this blog) recommend to everyone.

Anyway, I can report to you that the Lithuanians keep their artistic quality. I have several times on this blog (use search on the site) mentioned the names of Arunas Matelis and Audrius Stonys, manyfold awarded in their own country and filmmakers who are very much esteemed internationally.

IF Lithuania still lacks a healthy and internationally open structure for funding of documentaries, and IF Lithuania has much less money available for production than the two other Baltic countries, the fact that I have recommended the selection committee at DOK Leipzig to watch 6 out of the 9 films that I saw, talks for itself. It is a country that salutes the auteur, the originality, the trust in images to tell the stories and the many layered documentaries that is what makes a creative documentary.

My host in Lithuania, a name I mention with much respect and admiration is Audrius Stonys, who makes one film per year, always related to the culture and traditions of his native country, always challenging to watch, born out of humanistic thinking. This time the title is “Four Steps”, made out of a deep fascination of super-8 mm wedding films, shot in 1961, 1972, 1983 and 2007. And of course it is not “only” about wedding traditions, it is also philosophy and literature and songs and music. I look forward to see this film for the third time!

Now I break the rule of one name per country and salute Arunas Matelis as well. He is not only the master behind “Before the flight Back to the Earth” and a series of films that we saw at the Balticum Film & TV Festival in the 90’es, but has also taken the responsability to help the completion of Audrius Mickevicius long awaited and internationally supported (YLE, Finland and MDR, Germany) film about a man and his horse, “The Year of the Horse”. A real Baltic documentary. Slooow, image born, no commentary, humour, a hymn to a life far away from the noisy metropoles. And far away from mainstream journalistic docs.

Do you read this, consultants at the Danish Film Institute? 

http://www.shakespeare.lt/ http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/default.asp?page_id=2  http://www.stonys.lt/index.asp?DL=E  Photo: Audrius Stonys

Baltic Tour: Latvia

Riga, the city where came to life so many great documentaries during Soviet times and around the fall of the empire. I was invited to teach at the Discovery Campus session that was held at the coast, 40 minutes from Riga, and did the night before a small one hour retro session where also participants from another MEDIA training programme, Esodoc, took part.

I showed, among others, a clip from Juris Podnieks masterpiece from 1991, “Homeland”, and the 1978, 30 year young film that Podnieks photographed for his master Herz Frank. Very few of (their youth excuses them) the participants knew anything about this important part of world documentary history and as always all of them were enthusiastic about “Ten Minutes Older”. The title of Frank’s film. Podnieks died in 1992, but his studio continues in his spirit under the competent leadership of his editor, Antra Cilinska, now both director and producer.

But Herz Frank is still around and I saw his new film,”Perpetual Rehearsal”, where he warm-hearted and intelligently invites the viewer into the magic world of theatre. 10 years of video diaries has been put together by Frank from his meeting with the charismatic theatre director Yevgenij Arye from the Gesher Theatre in Tel Aviv.

If Latvia still lacks directors to fully reach the quality level that had the tradition of Podnieks, Frank and Ivars Seleckis, there is much reason to praise the activities of many people around the well functioning National Film Centre and its MEDIA Desk, Lelda Ozola, the person behind the Baltic Sea Forum that now takes place every year in September in Riga.

The current most internationally active documentary name in Latvia is Uldis Cekulis. With his company, Vides Film Studio, he presented this year a handful of films of fine quality. Personally I expect most from the film about Klucis, “Deconstruction of an Artist”, that has been written about earlier on this blog, see below. But Cekulis has also a wonderful follow-up to “Dream Land” in his catalogue, one more film in the tradtition of the company – man and nature –  made by Maris Maskalans and Laila Pakalnina. “Three Men and a Fish Pond”. The first paints with the camera, the latter puts in humour and sense of situation. A happy working marriage.

http://www.vfs.lv/ http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/default.asp?page_id=2  http://www.esodoc.eu/  http://www.discovery-campus.de/v2 /Photo: Herz Frank.

Baltic Tour: Estonia

I went to Tallinn, Estonia to update my almost 20 year long love story with Baltic documentary. And to watch films for DOK Leipzig. I saw more than a dozen from last year’s Estonian documentary production at the premises of Estonian Film Foundation in the old city of the capital of Estonia.

The professional level is obvious. The Estonians have maybe more than the two other Baltic countries succeeded to establish a healthy infrastructure for – taken the size of the country into consideration – spending the public funding money for film in a sensible and often very tv-targeted way. The Film Foundation collaborates with ETV, the public broadcaster, which is quite active and has for a long time had a documentary connaisseur to support – with little money yes, as everywhere – and to take home internationally recognised films for the local adience. Her name is Marje Jurtsjenko, her documentary film consultant counterpart at the Film Foundation is Raimo Joerland.

I will mention one filmmaker name from each country I visited. The Estonian name is Jaak Kilmi, who directed the funny and original “The Art of Selling” and now as a producer stands behind two films that I think will travel the world: “Nazis and Blondes” and “The Last Russian Revolutionaries”. The first one has support from Eurimages and deals in a creative way with local film history – when Soviet films from the second world war were to be made, the actors for the nazi roles were all picked in the Baltic countries. Clips from the films, interviews, an arranged award ceremony for the films… You will get to see that film in one or another festival near you. Jaak Kilmi plays for the moment perfectly the double role as director and a European orientated producer.

http://www.kuukulgur.ee/  http://www.efsa.ee/  http://www.dokleipzig.de/  Photo: Jaak Kilmi and Jan Kaus.

Brook Lapping: The Blair Decade

This two part series is made by the famous British company Brook Lapping that has made countless high-budget series for television, broadcast all over the world. About the Vietnam war, about the crisis in the Middle East, about many other current affairs matters. The most famous series, however, was “The Death of Yugoslavia”.

“The Blair Decade” is characterised by the same journalistic approach: A lot of research has been done and characters for the film chosen after endless negociations. Top players – like Condoleeza Rice – agrees to be interviewed about Blair and his period as prime minister of England. The whole thing is put together according to chronology with the same “witnesses”, all of them close participants in the political game, to make the story unfold. There is a narrator, who links the interviewes and the archive material, that comes first of all from the news. We know as viewers how it ended, it is contemporary history that recorded what Blair did in his rise and fall (the title of another film about Blair) as prime minister and world political figure.

But it is not just putting things in the right order, and edit according to words and not images – as it is being done – it is also a documentary that offers the viewer an analysis of what went wrong and how it went wrong for Blair. It is not just telling what happened, there is a point of view. In the first part, from the very beginning, his relationship to Gordon Brown is the turning point. They wanted to change together, they chose “the great persuader”, Blair, to win the battle and settled as a strong couple until the moment where Brown thought that now it was his turn. And this is the focus of the second part. After having shown his perfect instinct for how to react in moments of importance: the death of princess Diana, the 9/11, the getting the Olympic games to London in 2012 etc. it all went wrong for Blair with his close link to George W. and the consequent decision to join the Iraq war taken without the support from the population.

UK/USA, 2007, 2 x 55 mins. Seen on DR2 20 & 27.7.08

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brian_Lapping
http://www.dr.dk/Dokumentar/tv/DR2/2008/0630123924.htm (Danish television) www.thirteen.org/pressroom/pdf/blair/TheBlairDecadeRelease.pdf

Mikael Opstrup: Den dokumentariske fortælling

DEN DOKUMENTARISKE FORTÆLLING, SAMLEDE BLOGINDLÆG / THE DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE, COLLECTED BLOGPOSTS

Skabelsen af dokumentarfilmen, sammenholdt med dokumentarprogrammet og fiktionsfilmen / English version after the Danish

AF MIKAEL OPSTRUP

Teksten her er kommet til på min insisterende opfordring. Jeg har længe vidst, at Opstrup skrev på en lang og udførlig tekst om dokumentarfilmens dramaturgi. For nogen tid siden viste han mig en kort og meget stram version. Vi blev enige om at forsøge at give den poetikkens klassiske form. Og det har Opstrup så gjort. Dette er resultatet. (Allan Berg Nielsen, 2008) 

 

DEN DOKUMENTARISKE FORTÆLLING 

1. Fiktionsfilmen er defineret af historien. Et handlingsforløb som nedfældes i manuskriptet og siden omsættes til film. Instruktørens arbejdsproces er lineær og fiktionsfilmen er dramaturgisk friktionsfri. Der er kun et handlingsforløb. Fiktionsinstruktørens bestræbelse er fortælling.

2. Dokumentarprogrammet er defineret af emnet. En begivenhedsrække, som journalisten gengiver så objektivt som muligt. Selv om objektivitet er en umulighed og skabelsen af programmet dermed modsætningsfyldt, er journalistens bestræbelse entydig og vejen mod det uopnåelige er lineær, som i fiktionsfilmen. Der er kun et handlingsforløb. Journalistens bestræbelse er gengivelse.

3. Dokumentarfilmen er defineret af både et begivenhedsforløb og en fortælling. Begivenhedsforløbet finder sted i den virkelighed dokumentarfilmen beskriver. Fortællingen er instruktørens genfortælling af begivenhedsforløbet. Der er to handlingsforløb og kernen i dokumentarfilmens dramaturgi er modsætningen mellem de to handlingsforløb, det faktuelle og det narrative. Dokumentarinstruktørens bestræbelse er genfortælling.

4. Både fiktionsfilmen og dokumentarprogrammet består ideelt set af to skarpt opdelte forløb: i fiktionsfilmen at skrive et manuskript og derpå omsætte dette til film; i dokumentarprogrammet at indsamle fakta og derpå at ordne disse begivenheder i et program; dokumentarfilmens forløb består ideelt set af en uendelig vekselvirkning mellem at skabe fortællingen, optage begivenhedsforløbet og ændre fortællingen.

5. Således har dokumentarfilmen noget til fælles med både dokumentarprogrammet og fiktionsfilmen. De to dokumentargenrer har den antagonistiske modsætning mellem virkelighed og formidling til fælles; men hvor journalistens bestræbelse vil være at minimere modsætningen, vil dokumentarinstruktørens være at uddybe den.De to filmgenrer har fortællingen til fælles, da der ingen dramaturgisk forskel er på fiktionsfilmen og dokumentarfilmen; men hvor fiktionsinstruktøren selv skaber fortællingens enkeltelementer – scenerne – må dokumentarinstruktøren beslutte, om den ene eller den anden begivenhed er bærer af enkeltscenen i den dokumentariske fortælling.

6. Dokumentarfilmens modsætning mellem det faktuelle og det narrative er antagonistisk i arbejdsmæssig henseende men komplementær i kunstnerisk forstand. Antagonisme er det forhold, at to ting er uforenelige modsætninger. At to modsætninger udelukker hinanden. Komplementaritet er det forhold, at to sider af en sag foruden at udelukke hinanden også kompletterer hinanden. At to modsætninger er hinandens forudsætninger.

7. Skabelsen af en dokumentarfilm er en antagonistisk proces. For instruktøren personligt fordi fortolkningen af virkeligheden kun bliver interessant, hvis den er resultat af en stræben mod objektivitet – velvidende at det er i fortolkningens møde med gengivelsen at dokumentarfilmen bliver til kunst. Og arbejdsmæssigt fordi vi skal formulere en fortælling på et tidspunkt, hvor vi endnu ikke kender det begivenhedsforløb, fortællingen gengiver. Det kan ikke lade sig gøre. Men det lader sig gøre. Det sker ved at transformere den antagonistiske modsætning til en komplementær.

8. Det betyder, at man hele tiden skal ændre fortællingen efter udviklingen i virkelighedsforløbet. Det vanskelige ligger i at hengive sig til den absolutte stræben, som er forudsætningen for en vellykket og forløst fortælling, velvidende at virkeligheden hele tiden vil ændre fortællingen. Konstant at stræbe mod at strukturere en virkelighedsfremstilling, som må korrigeres af virkeligheden. At kombinere absolut åbenhed med absolut beslutsomhed. At stræbe fuldt og helt mod det uopnåelige. Ja netop at finde styrken til at stræbe, fordi målet for denne stræben, er uopnåeligt.

9. Dette forhold er kernen i arbejdet med den dokumentariske fortælling. At erkende nødvendigheden af at transformere den antagonistiske modsætning mellem virkelighed og fortælling til en kreativ komplementær modsætning, er en bevidsthedsmæssig forudsætning for at skabe dokumentarisk filmkunst. At skabe det fuldendte ved at stræbe mod det umulige.

10. Dokumentarfilmen forløses kunstnerisk, når kun det ene lag – virkeligheden – er synligt som kontinuerlig fortælling. Når genfortællingen ikke fungerer harmonisk, dvs. hvis enkeltelementerne fra virkelighedsforløbet ikke er fuldstændigt sammenfaldende med scenerne i fortællingen, åbenbares dette andet lag – fortællingen – som et postulat. Derved ændres det virkelige begivenhedsforløb fra at udgøre fortællingens elementer til at blive en ny og selvstændig fortælling. Filmen får dermed to uafhængige narrative forløb, hvorved værket falder fra hinanden. Men når instruktørens fortælling går op i en højere enhed med virkeligheden, ophører den med at være til stede i tid og rum og findes blot som dramaturgisk klarhed.

11. Evnen til at arbejde kreativt forløsende med uforenelige modsætninger er en central evne hos dokumentarfilm instruktøren. (Blogpost 9. oktober 2008)

 

THE DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE 

The creation of the documentary – compared to the documentary programme and the fiction film

By Mikael Opstrup

1. Fiction is defined by the story. A course of events that is written down in the script and then converted into a film. The directors work process is linear and the fiction film is from a dramaturgic point of view frictionless. Only one course of events exists. The fiction director’s endeavour is storytelling.

2. The documentary programme is defined by the subject. A course of events that the journalist reproduces as objectively as possible. All though objectivity is an impossibility and the creation of the programme thereby antagonistic, the journalist’s effort is unambiguous and the road towards the unattainable is linear as in fiction. Only one course of events exists. The journalist’s endeavour is reproduction.

3. The documentary film is defined by both a course of events and storytelling. The course of events takes place in the reality the documentary describes. The story is the director’s retelling of the event. There are two courses of events and the core of the documentary’s dramaturgy is the contradiction between the two courses of events, the factual and the narrative. The documentary director’s endeavour is retelling.

4. Both the fiction film and the documentary programme exist ideally of two clear-cut developments: In fiction to write a script and there after to transform it into film; in the documentary programme to collect facts and there after to put the events in order in a programme. The documentary film exists ideally of en endless interaction between the creation of the story, recording of the events and changing the story.

5. Hence the documentary has things in common with both the documentary programme and the fiction film. The two documentary genres have the antagonistic contradiction between reality and presentation in common; but where as the journalist’s endeavour is to minimize the contradiction the documentary director’s endeavour is to maximize it. The two film genres has the storytelling in common; but where as the fiction director creates the story’s components – the scenes – himself, the documentary director has to decide if the one or the other event is the bearer of a scene in the documentary story.

6. The documentary film’s contradiction between the factual and the narrative is antagonistic in work-related respect but complementary in artistic respect. Antagonism is the condition that two sides of an issue are inconsistent. That two contradictions exclude each other. Complementarity is the condition that two sides of an issue besides excluding one another at the same time complement one another. That two contradictions presuppose one another.

7. The creation of a documentary is an antagonistic process. On two levels. Personally for the director because the interpretation of reality only becomes interesting if it is the result of a strive for objectivity – well aware that it is in the interpretation’s encounter with the reproduction the documentary film becomes art. Work related because we have to put forward a story at a time where we do not know the course of events, the story reproduces. This is not possible. But it is done. Done by transforming the antagonistic contradiction into a complementary paradox.

8. This means to constantly modify the narrative one has created because the perception of reality constantly changes the story. The difficulty being the devotedness towards absolute aspiration, which is the essential prerequisite for a successful and released story, well aware that reality constantly will change the story. Constantly striving to organise a presentation of reality that must be corrected by reality.  Combining absolute openness with absolute resolve. Striving body and soul to achieve the unattainable. Actually finding the strength to strive because the very goal one is striving to attain is unattainable.

9. This condition is the essence of working with the documentary story. To realise the necessity of transforming the antagonistic contradiction between reality and storytelling into a creative complementary paradox is a conscious prerequisite for the creation of documentary film art. The creation of the complete by striving towards the unattainable.

10. The documentary film is released artistically, when only one layer – reality – is visible as a continual narrative. When the retelling is not harmonious, i.e. if the single elements from the course of events are not completely convergent with the single scenes in the story, this second layer – the narrative – is revealed as a postulate. Thus the actual sequence of events is reversed from representing the elements of the narrative to becoming a new and autonomous narrative. Thus the film gets two independent courses, by which the work falls apart. But when the director’s work comes together with reality it ceases its presence in time and space and exists only as dramatic clarity.

11. The ability to work creatively releasing with inconsistent contradictions is a key ability of the documentary film director. (Blogpost 9. oktober 2008)

 

REMARK TO IB BONDEBJERG

Thanks for Ib Bondebjergs comment on my ‘Den dokumentariske fortælling’ which I guess can be translated to ‘The documentary narrative’. However it misses my approach to the matter.

First of all my view is the creators point of view, it’s an attempt to clarify the elements the documentary creator works with. It is not a genre classification. Secondly I deal with the narrative structure – not the format or the aesthetic solutions.

Making a documentary, the director needs to know whether the story is constructed by the theme or the narrative.The first one being the journalistic driven documentary program and the second the narrative driven documentary film.

By journalistic driven I mean that the next possible scene in the film is decided by the theme, the purpose being to deepen and improve the knowledge of the theme. In the narrative driven documentary the next scene is defined by the story you’re telling. Let me give an example: in ‘The Monastery’ it is just as impossible for Pernille Rose Grønkjær to include an informative scene about the roots and history of monasteries in Russia and Denmark as it is for Alistair Maclean to include a scene that describes the political role of Greece in WWII in ‘The guns of Navarone’.

The creation of this narrative documentary is what my poetic ‘The documentary narrative’ is about. A genre that is defined by the complementary conflict between re-telling reality and reconstructing it artistically.That – for the creator – contains an insoluble contradiction and it is the successful solution of the insolubleness that is the artistic core of documentary film making. And that fascinates me so much.

This point may not be so interesting from the point of view of the product – the documentary film that is finished. But from the creating point of view it is the key question.10 years as tutor at pitching workshops around Europe; 4 years as production adviser at The Danish Film Institute and 15 years as documentary producer has confronted me with an endless number of projects where the major struggle for the creators has been to find the creative narrative that is included in the actual reality the film apparently is about.This is the core of the director’s work when developing the project at the early stage and with trying to explain it to film consultants and commissioning editors.

On top of this comes HOW you choose to tell your story once you have found out WHAT the story is: do you include dramatizations; interviews; a strong narrator; poetic montage etc. But that’s another story… (Blogpost 19. november 2008)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/508/ (Ib Bondebjerg’s post)

PHOTO: MIKAEL OPSTRUP, Head of Studies, EDN (Baltic Sea Docs 2016)

Mikael Opstrup has been a dedicated documentary filmmaker since he made his first S-8mm documentary, in 1977, now hidden for the public in his cellar. Most of the 80’s Mikael worked with distribution and theatrical release of documentaries.

In 1988 he attended script writing at the DanishFilmSchool. Worked as a freelance production manager up through the 90’s and organized the film festival ‘Films from the South’ from 1995 – 1998. Made a desk-cross-over from 1998-2002, where Mikael worked as production adviser at The Danish Film Institute. Mikael started his exclusive career as tutor at EDN workshops in the same period. Attended EAVE 1998/99. 2002-2008 was a co-owner and producer at Final Cut Productions in Copenhagen. Has produced a number of international documentaries, among them The German Secret, Joris Evens Competition at IDFA 2005. An EDN Executive Committee Member from 2005 – 09, the last year as Chairman. Now serves at Head of Studies at EDN.

Mikael Opstrup, Head of Studies, EDN, Phone: +45 3313 1122. Mobile: +45 2964 8976, Fax: +45 3313 1144, Skype: mikael.opstrup, www.edn.network   

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 7

CAMERAWORK. “The French preserved the ruins of Oradour just as the Germans left it. The local cemetary held the graves of those who died, their names and photographs set in stone. I walked the length of of the village, deserted, and knew I had found the sequence that would start the series. I sent Thames’s best cameraman, Mike Fash, and the director, Hugh Raggett, to see what they could do. Raggett hired a helicopter to skim over and along what had been the main street; Fash and he filmed the square, the ruined church, and a house or two, with a painter’s eye, against the skyline, and in light that froze them in time. It cut together marvellously well. Neal Ascherson wrote words that would give the sense of universal experience I wanted, and justify our title…” (Jeremy Isaacs: Look Me In The Eye, 2006)

Still: Before the war..

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 6

NARRATION. “When the day came to record this, Olivier did it very well. Finished, he stood up in the recording booth, respleendent in red braces, and reached for an elegant brown tweed jacket. I joined him in the booth and remarked, pointedly, ‘You do realise, don’t you, that those words at the star of this are, out of the whole twenty-six hours, the very first words the viewer will hear?’ ‘Ah,’ he said, and put the jacket down. ‘I’ll do it again.’

This time we got perfection – with the letter ‘a’ in the phrase ‘Garages and barns’ pronounced more ways than you might think possible, and the ‘a’ in ‘Glâne’ unlike any other ‘a’ you ever heard.

When I listen again to Laurence Oliviers narration, the voice I hear is deft, subtle, strong, compelling. I do not believe it could have been better done…” (Jeremy Isaacs: Look Me In The Eye, 2006) 

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 5

SCRIPT. “Down this road on a summer day in 1944 the soldiers came / Nobody lives here now / They stayed only a few hours / When they had gone, a community which had lived for a thousand years was dead / This is Oradour-sur-Glâne, in France / The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together / The men were taken to garages and barns. The women and children were led down this road / And they were driven into this church / Here they heard the firing as their men were shot / Then they were killed, too / A few weeks later many of those who had  done the killing were themselves dead – in battle / They never rebuilt Oradour / Its ruins are a memorial / Its martyrdom stands for thousand upon thousand of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, in China – in a World at War…” (Neal Ascherson: Script for narrator, the very first words in the series)

Litt.: Jeremy Isaacs: Look Me In The Eye, 2006.

Jeremy Isaacs: A World at War

My co-blogger Allan Berg has for weeks followed the re-run of the classic documentary series, A World at War – on Danish television. The series is available in great dvd-editions – buy it as I will do and throw away the vhs editon of a series that also includes the most wonderful commentary text read by Sir Laurence Olivier.

DVD, UK-version http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/worldatwar/about_the_series.html

The “Genocide” chapter is written about by Jeremy Isaacs in this way:

“Hitler´s genocide against the Jews and gypsies, and the mass murder of others, is not a military subject. But I could not leave it out; not just because I’m Jewish, though that counted, but because I could not separate the evil of Nazi racial doctrine – Aryan supremacy, Untermensch subjection – from the Allied cause. Most people in Britain did not realise what Nazi racism in practice meant until the gates of concentration camps at Belsen and Buchenwald were opened by British troops in 1945. Auschwitz, Solibor, Treblinka – death camps – were worse. I wanted a programme that showed the camps in which millions perished, before the series came to the Reich’s nemesis in Berlin. Darlow and Bloomberg’s (afsnittets instruktør og dets forfatter) ‘Genocide’, clear, restrained, compassionate, tackled an almost impossible subject…”

Allan Berg refers to two other classics: Alain Resnais “Nuit et Brouillard” and Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah”. Also these two are available on dvd:

http://www.amazon.fr/Nuit-brouillard-Michel-Bouquet/dp/B00008IZCD

http://www.amazon.fr/Shoah-4-DVD-Claude-Lanzmann/dp/B00005JM8V/ref=pd_sbs_d_1/403-1042762-9344448

If you pass by France go to any Fnac shop to buy them as I have done.

East Beats West Sneak Preview

This blog has constantly – through my writing – stressed that originality and creativity in documentary filmmaking of today mostly is to be found in the Eastern part of Europe.

When it comes to films for 2008/2009 there are many pearls to expect. You can witness this at the website mentioned below (of the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film)) where 9 films are presented via a small synopsis and trailers to be watched, normally 3 minutes long.

This initiative is connected to a presentation that was held during the Karlovy Vary film festvival earlier this month. Here is a quote from the organisers text:
 
The presentation offered a selection of feature documentary films in development aimed for theatrical release, slated to open in 2008/2009. The goal of the meeting was to draw the attention of important film professionals attending the only A category festival in the region also on some of the best films in the documentary genre. We believe that the promotion of films from the very initial stages of development is one of the most efficient tools within the overall support. Each year, festival programmers, distributors, buyers and local as well as international journalists are invited to attend the event…

http://web.docuinter.net/en/net_archive.php?id=410 Still: Vit Janecek: Iveta and the Mountain.