The Ex Oriente Film 2nd workshop session will begin in less than 2 weeks in Jihlava, alongside the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. Thirteen tutors and experts will work with 12 filmmaker teams from Eastern and Central Europe on their creative documentary projects. In addition to the closed workshops and individual consultations that are focused on the story development, analysis of the visual material, production, and distributional aspects of the emerging documentaries; the second Ex Oriente Film session will also offer a diverse and challenging programme that will be open to both industry professionals and to the public.
Honored guests of this year’s Ex Oriente Film in Jihlava among others include filmmaker and activist Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men, the General Delegate of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week Giona A. Nazzaro, and the marketing and distribution expert Peter Jaeger(Jaeger Creative).
The masterclass of Mike Bonanno “Using Film as a Tool of Creative Activism” will focus on the video making strategies and collaborations with journalists that can contribute to making activist actions more visible. This masterclass will reveal some of the tactics and things The Yes Men have learned earned over the twenty years of common activities. It will be preceded by the screening of their last film - The Yes Men Are Revolting (91 min, dir. Laura Nix and The Yes Men, 2014).
The renowned film critic and director of the prestigious Venice Critics Week, Giona A. Nazzaro will introduce to the audience what are the ground lines and strategies followed during the film selection process, and what different roles and tasks curators, programmers, and selectors have, in his lecture “Thinking Outside the Box- How I Work With Films.”
This year’s open programme will close with a lecture given by one of the leading marketing and distribution experts in Europe, Peter Jaeger. He will give advice how to choose the right market and festival strategy for one’s film, how to plan its distribution and promotion or how to negotiate the sales agreement.
Visitors of Jihlava IDFF with press and industry passes can look forward to other rich lectures including renowned Georgian filmmaker Salomé Jashi’s masterclass on her experiences producing and directing her latest documentary The Dazzling Light of Sunset, which was awarded as the best debut at the Visions du Reel festival. You can read an interview with her about the local media, capturing reality and transmedia projects here. A case study will be presented by German producer Gregor Streiber, who will reveal his key experience gained during more than 15 years of managing of his own producing company, Inselfilm; Ralph Wieser will give a lecture entitled “Introduction into Budgeting,” which will provide an overview into co-productions with broadcasters, co-production budget structure between production companies, film budget in relation to financial plan, and other budgeting facts; ever-important legal issues will be covered by German attorney-at-law, Stefan Rüll; and the “Production Tour of Europe” will offer a financial sources overview for creative documentary films in Europe and worldwide, while adding strategies for selecting suitable commissioning editors and proper television format, and will be presented by Mikael Opstrup (European Documentary Network), Iikka Vehkalahti (RoughCut Service) and Peter Jaeger (Jaeger Creative).
All events within the Ex Oriente Film programme except from the masterclass of Mike Bonanno will take place in Gustav Mahler hotel (Křížová 4) in Jihlava. The complete programme can be found here.
The complete list of this year's tutors, guests and observers can be found here.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Jihlava!
