East European Forum Workshop & Ex Oriente Film Final Workshop Session:
October 27 – 30, 2009 (Secondary Graphic Art School, Křížová 18, Jihlava, CZE)
East European Forum - Public Pitching Sessions:
October 31 – November 1, 2009 (Graphic Art College Hall, Křížová 18, Jihlava, CZE)
Organizer: Institute of Documentary Film
East European Forum
The ninth edition of the East European Forum is the region's largest meeting of East European documentary filmmakers with leading European commissioning editors, distributors, buyers and film fund representatives. Directors and independent producers offer their projects for co-production, pre-sale or other forms of financial support. The East European Forum is organized every year by the Institute of Documentary Film in co-operation with the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. Along with the East Silver documentary market, the Forum is the backbone of the industry section at the Jihlava IDFF. During its existence, the Forum has become a prestigious meeting place that has, since 2001, hosted 495 East European filmmakers and producers, 64 commissioning editors and dozens of international distributors, sales agents, buyers and festival programmers. This year's preparatory workshop, sidebar programme and public pitching will be attended by more than 130 documentary professionals.
Ex Oriente Film
Each year, the East European Forum follows after Ex Oriente Film, a year-long international workshop for creative documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe. At three workshop sessions that take place over the course of one year, directors and producers receive valuable assistance and advice on project development, financial strategy and international co-production from established European producers, directors, tutors, AV experts and commissioning editors. In addition to its focus on visual style, storytelling as well as on project-specific content and individual consultations, the workshop also includes lectures on various aspects of the European audiovisual market (legal and financial issues) and on the strategies of indpenedent production companies that are currently active in the European market.
Ex Oriente Film Meets East European Forum
In late October, following Ex Oriente Film's year-long programme, 14 documentary projects developed in the workshop are added to eight newly selected documentary projects. The authors of 22 films in development all attend a preparatory workshop and then present their projects at the East European Forum public pitch sessions to broadcasters, funds and distributors as they seek partners for co-production or options for pre-sale and acquisition.
TUE STEEN MÜLLER – Ex Oriente Film Head of Studies (Denmark)
Born in 1947, since 2006 freelance consultant and teacher in Danish and European documentary matters. Tue Steen Müller is responsible for the project selection, together with Andrea Prenghyová and Ivana Miloševičová he creates the workshop strategy, innovations and improvements, being an outstanding and very active figure of the documentary scene and former director of EDN, he offers his knowledge of the documentary market, and brings a large net of contacts to the Ex Oriente Film workshop network. Within the workshops, he concentrate on creating a solid but flexible frame for all the training activities and works as a head of the project content development process during individual meetings with the participants. Apart from that, he moderates most of the events and creates an important atmosphere of interaction between the participants, team and other tutors.
MARIJKE RAWIE - Head of Forum Workshop (Netherlands)
Marijke Rawie, Managing Director of ExpertDocs, was during the last 17 years Head of Art Documentary at AVRO, 1st public broadcaster in the Netherlands. In 1991 she founded the documentary slot "AVRO Close Up" which became one of the leading international co-producers and co-financers of documentaries in Europe. She started her tv-career in1974. She worked as director and producer of documentaries at various Dutch broadcasters (NOS, VARA, NCRV), before she went to AVRO. Marijke Rawie is involved in several international documentary institutions: Vice President of EBU Documentary Expert Group; Vice President of Advisery Board Discovery Campus Masterschool; Boardmember of the 1st World Congress of Arts Producers; Doc.expert EDN; Doc. expert Eurodoc. She is the founder of ExpertDocs, International Documentary Training & Consultancy, in which she combines the international documentary coproduction and (pitching) training knowledge she has acquired over the years.
MIKAEL OPSTRUP (Denmark)
1955 Born in Copenhagen, Denmark; 1976-79, Degree in Film Studies at the University of Copenhagen; 1980-88, Appointed at Danish Film Center, distribution of shorts and documentaries; 1984-94, Independent Producer and production manager of shorts & documentaries for the National Film Board of Denmark, the Danish Film Institute and Danish TV; 1995-98, Initiator and manager of the festival ”Films from the South” organized in cooperation with the Copenhagen Film Festival; 1993-98, Co-owner & Film producer at ”Manden med Cameraet”. Producer of a number of international TV series & documentaries; 1998-99, Degree at EAVE, MEDIA Programme for ‘European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs’; 1998-2002, Production adviser / Shorts and Documentaries at the Danish Film Institute; 2000- Tutor at EDN related workshops; 2002- Co-owner & Head of documentaries at Final Cut Productions. Producer of e.g., ‘The German Secret’, Joris Ivens competition IDFA 2004, Hot Docs Toronto 2005; 2005 - EDN Board member.
IIKKA VEHKALAHTI (Finland)
Commissioning Editor for YLE TV2 Documentaries, Finland since 1998. Executive Producer for Steps For The Future and Another Finland and one of the Series Producers for Why Democracy. He is a board member in Steps International, Steps India and IDFA. In YLE he has commissioned several internationally awarded documentaries like 3 Rooms Of Melancholy by Pirjo Honkasalo, Decent Factory by Thomas Balmes, Gone To The Wind by Gennadi Gorodin, Recepies for Disaster by John Webster, The Journey by Markku Lehmuskallio, Lakshmi and Me by Nishta Jain, Paradise by Elina Hirvonen, In The Shadow Of Holy Book by Arto Halonen, Northern Star by Erkko Lyytinen and Riot On ! by John Hakalax. He has been a partner in several awarded documentaries produced in Asia, Middle-East and Africa. Before YLE he directed several awarded documentaries for Epidem and Musafilm, among them Past is Present, Amal, Inam, Naila, Man from the Shadow , Daughter of a Terrorist, Our Common Future? and Tehri - Two Journeys. Among the publications the most recent is a 2008 published book “Steps By Steps”, written together with Don Edkins.
KRISTIINA PERVILÄ-ANDERSSON (Finland)
Kristiina Pervilä has been working as an independent producer since 1988. She has produced or co-produced international opera and ballet productions on stage, a wide range of creative international documentaries for cinema and tv, music productions and live performances. From 1983 until 1993 she also co-ordinated and co-produced guest performances of the Estonian Opera House, The Nikikai opera of Tokyo, the Central Opera of China of Beijing in Gothenburg, Budapest, Savonlinna, Malaga and Verona. Between 1993 and 1999 she was a free-lance producer for documentaries and in 1999 she founded Millennium Film. Millennium Film produces author led documentaries for both the Nordic and the international market. The films have been awarded at international competitions like IDFA, HotDocs, Fictions du Reel, Gothenburg, Visions du Reel and Prix Italia. Kristiina Pervilä has also been working as an analyst, expert and tutor in EDN seminars like the Balticum Forum 2001 and 2003, 12 for The Future and The Eurodoc training programme since 1999 and as a moderator in Nordisk Forum 2003.
PIETER VAN HUYSTEE (Netherlands)
Pieter van Huystee started his own production company in 1995. Since then he has produced 110 film projects, most of them documentaries, but also feature and short films and single plays. Huystee has produced works by some of the most renowned Dutch filmmakers, including Johan van der Keuken, Heddy Honigmann and Peter Delpeut, as well as more emerging talents. In 2000, Pieter van Huystee was awarded a Golden Calf, the highest distinction in the Dutch film industry, for his work as a producer.
NIELS PAGH ANDERSEN (Denmark)
Born in 1958, Niels Pagh Andersen started his career as an assistant to two of Denmark’s most important editors: Christian Hartkopp and Janus Billeskov Jansen. Since 1979 he has worked as a freelance film editor and has cut more than 250 films of widely different categories. Some examples of his award-winning work are: Dying - A Part of Living (dir. Dola Bonfils); Pathfinder (dir. Nils Gaup, Academy Award nomination); Betrayal (dir. Fredrik von Krusenstjerna, Nordic Panorama Prize 1995); The War Within (dir. John Fuegi and Jo Frances, International Documentary Association's (IDA) Best Documentary 1996); Portal to Peace (dir. Thomas Stenderup, Grand Prix, Krakow IFF 1997); Welcome to Denmark (Odense FF, Best Documentary Film 2003); The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (dir. Pirjo Honkasalo, 2004 Venice IFF, Amnesty Prize, IDFA, CPH:DOX - First Prize, PrixItalia); Everlasting Moments (dir. Jan Troell, Premiere 2008) and others. Has also worked in Italy, England, Germany, Switzerland, Fiji, Brazil, USA. Also works as a script editor; has lectured at film schools and universities around the world. Recently he received the Roos Prize awarded by the Danish Film Institute for outstanding efforts in documentary filmmaking.
ULDIS CEKULIS (Latvia)
Producer and cameraman, he created the independent production company Vides Filmu Studija (VFS) that has become the leader in the Baltic States in making documentaries and TV programmes with a focus on "man and nature" stories. He has worked on more than twenty documentaries both as a producer and cameraman. His camerawork for the documentary Upper Daugava (1994) helped the film win the Best Latvian Documentary award of the year, and in 2002 the film Wake Up! was awarded the First Prize of the Baltic Film Competition at the film festival Arsenals (Riga). Some of the documentaries he has produced such as Roof on the Moonway (2001) and Dream Land (2004) have traveled around the world. He has also worked with multimedia projects; for ten years he has been producing a weekly half-hour “environment and nature” programme for the Latvian Public TV.
