Online Agora
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival is now live in 16 countries! For the first time, a film festival presents its pitching forum live and online.
The Festival may be postponed (new dates will be announced soon), but the festival staff is working feverishly for the completion of the events of the Agora Doc Market, with the aim to support new filmmakers and boost production in Southeast Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern regions.
Overall, 40 directors, producers, representatives from TV channels and festival programmers from 16 countries, participated in the impressive online presentation of the 12 projects of the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum.
Twelve documentary projects at an early stage of development are looking for funding, co-production, distribution, or/and festival premiere. Film professionals are evaluating the projects and on Thursday, March 12 they will announce the awards and the cash prizes.
An online platform connected live the participants with the film professionals, with two large screens in the Festival offices in Thessaloniki and Athens broadcasting the exciting image.
In the next two days, Docs in Progress will take place in the same manner, with the participation of 11 documentary projects.
In his greeting, the internationally acclaimed film consultant and Thessaloniki Pitching Forum project manager, Ove Rishoj Jensen, said that the online global interface offers new possibilities and prospects to the film community, although he noted that it is sad the action couldn’t take place in Thessaloniki.
These are the projects participating in the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum:
BARK OF A STARVING DOG (working title)
Direction Ketevani Kapanadze, Production Ana Tsimintia, This Street Hurts Me, Georgia
BOYLESQUE
Direction Bogna Kowalczyk, Production Tomasz Morawski, Katarzyna Kuczyńska, Haka Films, Poland
DEAD SEA GUARDIANS
Direction Ido Glass, Yoav Kleinman, Production Kleinman & Glass, Co-production Linda Goldstein Knowlton, Israel, USA
EXILE(S)
Direction Giorgos Iliopoulos, Production Sofia Exarchou, Greece
EXPEDITION 49
Direction Alisa Kovalenko, Co-author Stephane Siohan, Production Stephane Siohan, East Roads Films, Co-production Valery Kalmykov, Trueman Production, Ukraine, France
KARAOKE NATION
Direction Einari Paakkanen, Production Marianne Mäkelä, Napafilms, Co-production Stina Gardell, Mantaray Film & Stefan Kloos, Kloos & Co, Finland, Sweden In collaboration with MFI
LP
Direction Luca Lancise, Production Simone Catania, Michele Fornasero, Indyca, Italy
MACHIAS 5AM
Direction Pauline Lietar, Production Jennifer Deschamps, Little Big Story, France
MIGHTY AFRIN
Direction Angelos Rallis, Production Maria del Mar Rodriguez, Angelos Rallis, AR Productions, Co-production Birgit Kemner, Manny Films, Greece, France
THE STATE OF ISRAEL VS HANEEN ZOABI
Direction Noa Ben Hagai, Production Osnat Trabelsi, Trabelsi Productions, Co-production Paul Cadieux, Filmoption International, Israel, Canada
A STEADY JOB
Direction Mattia Colombo, Gianluca Matarrese, Production Giovanni Donfrancesco, Altara Films, Co-production Jasmina Sijercic, Bocalupo Films, Italy, France
STRANDHZA
Direction Pepa Hristova, Production Julia Cöllen, Karsten Krause, Fünferfilm, Co-production Martichka Bozhilova, Agitprop, Germany, Bulgaria
The Agora Doc Market presents the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum Award (2,000 euro), the ERT – Thessaloniki Pitching Forum Award (2,000 euro) to a Greek project, the Mediterranean Film Institute Award (MFI Script2Film Workshop), that offers a DocLab scholarship worth 2,500 euro, as well as accommodation in Nisyros and Rhodes islands where the MFI takes place). Further awards are: the DAE - Documentary Association of Europe Award (Consultation and free membership), the Aylon Productions Digital Services Award (Digitization by Aylon Productions) and the Beldocs Award (Accommodation and Accreditation for the next International Documentary Festival Beldocs).
The awards of the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum and Docs in Progress will be announced on Thursday, March 12, 2020.
