Forum and Ex Oriente Film 3rd workshop - October 27 - 30, 2009
East European Forum - public pitching session - October 31 – Nov 1, 2009

The Institute of Documentary Film will make this year's selection of East European Forum participants out of a record number of applications. Eighty-two projects from more than 20 countries are applying for participation. However, only the authors of eight to ten most promising projects will be chosen by the international committee and given an opportunity to pitch their documentary project to potential co-production partners representing major European and North American broadcasters at the Jihlava IDFF. The names of the selected participants will be revealed by September 30 on IDF's website.

Ten esteemed guests who will also be tutors at the workshop have already confirmed their participation at the East European Forum. These include a number of Forum veterans, such as former European Documentary Network director Tue Steen Müller from Denmark, Dutch consultant and ExpertDocs director Marijke Rawie, Danish producer Mikael Opstrup or successful Latvian producer Uldis Cekulis. Among the guests will be also Polish producer Anna Wydra whose film Rabbit à la Berlin made it into the lineup of this year's DocuWeeks that presents documentaries that qualify for Academy Award consideration.




EAST SILVER Doc Market – French Coproduction Breakfast
Jihlava, Czech Republic, October 27 - November 1, 2009
The first of three breakfasts hosted by East Silver Market will focus on the French documentary industry with special guest Catherine Le Clef. As the former head of Doc & Co and the current Senior Vice President TV and Ancillary Sales at Fortissimo Films, Catherine has started a new company, CAT&Docs which is dedicated to the promotion and sales of world class documentaries.
Catherine Le Clef will share her international sales expertise and offer advice and opportunities to the East European documentary industry. In addition, French producer Estelle Robin will offer her first-hand experience and discuss her latest documentary, the East European co-production, Village Without Woman. The possibilities of coproduction with french funding bodies and television will be presented by Benoit Gryspeerdt, an independent film producer with an extensive background in the financial and production ends of the industry.
Breakfast will take place on Friday October 30th, 2009, 9.00 - 10.00 at Secondary Graphic Art School



DOC ALLIANCE FILMS - An archive withstanding the ravages of time


Doc Alliance Films pays attention not only to contemporary films but also to vintage documentary works of the past. Thus it has the ambition to become an archive withstanding the ravages of time, preventing monumental works from getting forgotten and reviving them so that the contemporary viewer has a chance to absorb and possibly follow up their cultural heritage.
Docalliancefilms.com portal offers films by Dutch director Bert Haanstra (1916 – 1997). With “Glass”, short ‘free’ film about work of glass blowers, he became in 1959 the first Oscar winner of the Netherlands. In his nice and witty film “Zoo” from Amsterdam Zoo Artis he shows a couple of similarities can be discovered between man and animal.
Medvedkin Group united several filmmakers including Chris Marker in an attempt to document the condition of workers at factories in between 1967 and 1973. On docalliancefilms.com the series of reportages called “New Society” is available.

For more information see www.docalliancefilms.com.


JIHLAVA IDFF - Archive titbits at the 13th Jihlava IDFF
13th Jihlava IDFF, Czech Republic, October 27 – November 1, 2009

The retrospective section Translucent Beings will present almost forgotten personality of the French documentary – Georges Rouquier. Author´s method, connecting long-term documentary with mise-en-scened procedures, strongly influenced wide range of film makers in the „cinéma vérité“ tradition. For more information, click here.

One of non-competition parts of this year’s multilayered section Fascinations will be the retrospective of the Stuttgart Film und Foto exhibition from 1929. The profile will commemorate fundamental films by Man Ray, Joris Ivens, René Clair or Hans Richter. Legendary films, seldom shown on the big screen however, will be screened by Jihlava Festival in the in the best available quality. For more information, click here.