The call is open to creative feature-length documentary projects and docuseries in development and early production stage, which challenge genres, formats, and media boundaries. The workshop includes 12 documentary projects represented by director-producer teams who will attend all three workshop sessions. The workshop is designed for directors and producers coming from Europe with a special focus on Central and Eastern European projects (incl. selected EU acceding and candidate countries) and/or for creative documentary projects dealing with stories from Central and Eastern Europe. The projects from other countries are welcome to apply as well (for more details, please see the list of eligible countries). The workshop also accepts observers from production and distribution companies, film institutions, televisions, film festivals, and funds.
Workshop participants will receive assistance from over 30 leading film professionals and experts, obtain key international contacts, and become a part of a network of more than 250 European professionals that have attended the Ex Oriente Film workshop in past years. Participants will be automatically included in the Follow-Up Programme, a year-long chain of additional support and mentoring activities.
Ex Oriente Film 2022 workshop’s leading tutors are producer and consultant Iikka Vehkalahti (Finland), a specialist in international project development Mikael Opstrup (Denmark), director and script editor Ivana Pauerová Miloševičová (Czech Republic) and director and producer Filip Remunda (Czech Republic).
Ex Oriente Film was established in 2003 as the very first training initiative for East European creative documentary film. In the eighteen years of its existence, more than 200 documentary projects from Eastern and Central Europe went through the Ex Oriente Film workshop, including award-winning films from key international festivals, such as A New Shift, Over the Limit, Brothers, The Domino Effect, Blind Loves, At the Edge of Russia, Rabbit a la Berlin, Village without Women and Bakhmaro.
WORKSHOP TIMELINE
1st Session: Find Your Way – Vision, Space and Storytelling,
June 18 – 22, 2022 (residential, in La Rochelle, France within the Sunny Side of the Doc)
2nd Session: Production and Story Development,
October 24 – 28, 2022 (residential, within Ji.hlava IDFF)
3rd Session & East Doc Forum: Market, Here I Am!
March 2023 (residential, in Prague, Czech Republic within East Doc Platform and One World IHRDFF)
The Ex Oriente Film program leads to the East Doc Forum pitching, where participants will present their projects to European and North American decision-makers. Additionally, participants will have an opportunity to gain a wide range of prizes and scholarships in form of direct financial support, co-production agreements, access to leading European markets, and partner training.
Have you recently finished your documentary film?
Apply for the East Silver Market 2022 specialized in Central and Eastern European documentary film. Find more information about the online application and deadline here. The East Silver Market submission is valid for Ji.hlava IDFF and the application is free of charge
