For Belgian distributor Thierry Detaille of Visible Film, that means picking up films in production as a coproducer. His slate of upcoming CEE films includes the Polish/French/Belgian doc USSR: The Disintegration (with Polish producer TVP1) directed by Anete Gourdon, scheduled for a 25 December 2016 release. He told FNE he picked up an African film about Soviet propaganda in Africa at the Baltic Sea Forum. Detaille added, “We’re starting our festival distribution strategy now for the Serbian/Belgian documentary The Promise directed by Zeljko Mirkovic,“ produced by Optimistic Film. “We come in when films are 50-60% financed,” he said.

At panel held as part of the festival’s industry section, Ina Rossow from German film company Deckert Distribution said, “It’s harder to sell films now,” noting an increase in sales agents and films, against a decrease in time slots allocated for documentaries. Donatien Prada from France’s Java Films underscored the point, saying that his company used to concentrate on TV docs and sales but recently added a focus on festivals for creative documentary distribution. Bosnian born London sales agent Irena Taskovski of Taskovski Films was scouting films at Jihlava, landing Jihlava prize winner Normal Autistic Film (Mimesis Film) directed by Miroslav Janek.

Czech distributor and exhibitor Ivo Andrle of Aerofilms commented that the industry has become more fragmented. “We were never in video, but VOD has been a cash generator for the company,” he said. Between 20-30% of the films Aerofilms buys each year are documentaries, with these acquisitions made without thinking of the financial return. For that, Andrle’s arthouse cinema needs to screen mainstream films.