09/02/2015 - The fourth edition of East Doc Platform in Prague will feature novelties for both documentary filmmakers and audiences

The fourth edition of East Doc Platform, a significant documentary industry event in the Central and Eastern European region, organised by the Institute of Documentary Film in association with the One World International Human Rights Film Festival, will take place in Prague, Czech Republic, from 2-8 March 2015.

Once again, 400 guests will attend the event, including more than 70 renowned international professionals and decision makers, who will choose from some of the most promising documentary films and quality projects carefully selected from the record number of applicants.

More than 200 projects have applied for the traditional event, East European Forum. The board of experts had a tough time narrowing it down to just ten of them, but the final list is a representative sample of the topics that are important in the region right now. You can find the complete selection here.

These will be joined by 12 more projects that took part in the Ex Oriente Film 2014 workshop. Together, all the filmmakers will take part in a five-day preparatory workshop led by experienced tutors and will prepare for their public presentations. After a weekend of public project pitching, they will all attend round tables as well as individual meetings, and face industry professionals from the whole of Europe and North America in order to negotiate support for their documentaries.

Eighteen selected projects at various stages of production will be presented by their producers within the pre-arranged one-to-one meetings with important decision makers from all over the world at the popular Project Market. For example, Jo Lapping (BBC Storyville), Alex Szalat (ARTE), Magdalena Borowska (TVP1), Hanka Kastelicová (HBO Europe), Francis Kandel (Canal Plus), Lejla Dedić (Al Jazeera Balkans) and Robert Zuber (HRT) will all be present, to name just a few. You can find the complete overview of the decision makers and other guests here.

Thirty-two additional documentary projects applied for the second edition of the new Doc Tank laboratory, focused on transmedia and innovative approaches to documentaries with campaign potential. The filmmakers of the seven successful projects selected to participate in the 2015 edition will attend an intensive two-day workshop with the tutors and lecturers (Sara Bozanić, Domenico La Porta, Kilian Krug, Dionne Walker, William Uricchio, Liz Rosenthal, Mathias Noschis, Ben Kempas, Adam Sigel and Nuno Bertrando) and one day of one-on-one meetings with industry professionals focusing on the specific needs of each project.

The pleasant new aspect of the 2015 edition is the East Doc Platform Award, which comes with financial support of €7,500 for the best of all the participating projects in development.

Another surprise for the 2015 edition will be the official launch and introductory screening of an international project, KineDok, focusing on connecting documentary fans with the filmmakers via a series of screenings of thought-provoking documentaries at alternative venues in five participating countries.

Apart from the above-mentioned new features and traditional activities, East Doc Platform will offer a rich Open Industry Programme, including master classes, lectures, case studies, pitchings, networking events and screenings that no documentary enthusiast should miss. The highlights of the programme will undoubtedly be the lecture on the Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking, given by the artistic director of Kartemquin Films (Chicago, USA), Gordon Quinn; the case study on Sounds of Torture, the multi-award-winning documentary, presented by Swiss producer and sales agent Gitte Hansen; and the special screening of Normalization, accompanied by Robert Kirchhoff’s master class focusing on current social topics and dealing with the traumatic heritage of 20^th-century events in Central Europe. The detailed programme will be published soon on Dokweb.net.

If you are not presenting your project in any of the East Doc Platform events but still want to be present, have your own profile in the guest database and attend most of the programme, including free entry to the East Silver video library and all screenings of the One World Festival, you can still get your EDP Industry Pass – registration ends on 15 February.

Over the last year, a total of 183 documentaries have taken part in the activities of the Institute of Documentary Film; they were screened 529 times at 78 international film festivals and won 68 awards.