Founded in 2001 as the East European Forum, the East Doc Forum has become the region's largest and prestigious pitching forum. Over the past 17 years, the East Doc Forum has hosted more than 800 filmmakers and producers from Central and Eastern Europe and over 300 commissioning editors, independent producers, distributors, film fund representatives and festival programmers from Europe and North America.
Over 180 documentary films have been completed with the direct support of the East Doc Forum, including such internationally successful titles as Something Better to Come, Over the Limit, When the War Comes, Sofia’s Last Ambulance, Village Without Women, Ukrainian Sheriffs, The Russian Job and Brothers.
The East Doc Forum is preceded by a 5-day preparatory workshop that focuses on helping directors and producers finalize their visual material, create a strategy for its sale and distribution, work on their communication and presentation skills, as well as offer participants a series of inspiring lectures, case studies, masterclasses and panels devoted to different aspects of documentary filmmaking in an international setting.
The pinnacle of the East Doc Forum is the central pitch where 21 feature-length projects in development/early production (including 12 projects participating in the year-round Ex Oriente Film workshop) are presented to an audience of international decision makers, followed by the pitch at the East Doc Interactive for cross-media projects, and ending in feedback round tables and one-on-one meetings with decision makers.
Projects selected for the East Doc Forum become part of a year-long follow-up support programme that offers filmmakers the opportunity to continue promoting their upcoming films and search for new partners through various delegations to key European documentary film festivals and markets.
- THE SELECTED PROJECTS FOR EAST DOC FORUM 2019:
Caught in the Net (dir. Vít Klusák, Barbora Chalupová, prod. Hypermarket Film, CZ, SK)
Come With Me (dir. Mihai Dragolea, prod. Ioana Lascar / DeFilm Production, RO)
Museum of the Revolution (dir. Srđan Keča, prod. Vanja Jambrović / Restart, RS, HR)
Foyer Europe (dir. Tomáš Hlaváček, Michal Pavlásek, prod. Matěj Paclík / Breathless Films, CZ)
The New Imperium (dir. Anna Shishova-Bogolubova, prod. Vladislav Ketkovich / Ethnofund, RU)
Untitled Rastorguev Project (dir. Susanna Baranzhieva, Alexander Krylov, prod. Yevgeny Gindilis, Pavel Kostomarov, Max Tuula, Maria Gavrilova / TVINDIE, Marx Film, RU, EE)
Us and Them (dir. Sandeep Rampal Balhara, prod. Marta Chojnacka / Holy Kał Films, PL, IN)
Wika! (dir. Agnieszka Zwiefka, prod. Katarzyna Slesicka / MY WAY STUDIO, PL)
Yearbook 2020 (dir. Mária Rumanová, Martin Kollár, prod. Ivan Ostrochovský / Punkchart Films, SK)
Alice in the Land (dir. Zhanna Agalakova, Tatjana Božić, prod. Magdalena Petrović), HR, DE, USA
A Loss of Something Ever Felt (dir. Carlos Eduardo Lesmes López, prod. Liis Nimik), CO, EE, SE
Myth (dir. Daria Yurkevich, prod. Iarochenko Nicolaï / Russian Affair Production, Louis Beaudemont / Les Steppes Productions), BY, FR
Bottlemen (dir. Nemanja Vojinović, prod. Nemanja Vojinović, Marija Stojnić), RS
Inconvenient Memory (dir. Ihor Ivanko, prod. Mariia Ponomarova, Volodymyr Tykhyy), UA
In the Sweltering Sun (dir. & prod. Shorena Tevzadze), GE
Chat With Alice (dir. Isabela von Tent, prod. Irina Malcea), RO
A New Shift (dir. Jindřich Andrš, prod. Augustína Micková, Miloš Lochman), CZ - Olympic Halftime (dir. Haruna Honcoop, prod. Vít Janeček, Zuzana Piussi), CZ
The Pit (dir. Nikolay Bem, prod. Uliana Beletskaya), RU
One Dying Star (dir. Tea Lukač, prod. Danilo Bećković, Marko Paljić, Andrijana Sofranić), RS, SI
Wolves on the Borders! (dir. Martin Páv, prod. Zuzana Kučerová), CZ