The Village Doc Festival

THE VILLAGE DOC FESTIVAL is the first international documentary film festival in Milan (Italy).

Its topic is all about sustainability, in its environmental, social or economical form. The subscription is FREE of charge, with well-recognized jury and special awards!

The subscription is open, for further information, please visit our website, where you can also find our MULTILINGUAL regulation forms. http://www.thevillagedocfestival.com/

The power of video is enormous. It has the potential to speak to the audience, to get them touched by creating an overall emotional effect, which can generate outcomes in the real world. Our goal is to build up a path for changes in our society, by encouraging discussions on all levels of sustainability, which could be environmental, social or even economical ones. Even if we strongly believe in the power of films, we would like to express our visions not just on the screen, but also in the real world, in a real surrounding with a complex of serious events related to the topic. This is THE VILLAGE DOC FESTIVAL.

Entry requirements

It is an international competition with no professional or age constraints. No fee is charged for entry.

Competition overview

The competition is open to documentaries no longer than 120 minutes. All formats and techniques are permitted as long as both authorial contribution and strong narrative propensity are shown.

THE VILLAGE DOC FESTIVAL is open to documentaries focusing on:

• social, environmental and cultural aspects of sustainability, such as the valorization and preservation of natural resources, the denunciation of chronic poverty, access to water, food sovereignty, agriculture as balance among soil exploitation, rights for cultivators and respect for the environment, energy production and distribution, induced migration phenomena, urban development research, solidarity and community experiences;
• prealities objectively ignored by the media because of political opportunism, geographic distance, cultural shortsightedness, religious or state censorship

Project

In fact this is the only channel in which new ways of communication and emerging issues are getting on the surface as a shared narration. In the particular case of Italy, the documentary is one of the few areas of film production which is not fully reduced to clichés or promotional machines. Indeed, it seems that it is the only area where the edges are getting broaden, to involve new channels such as web and vulnerable such as independent film-makers, but also for giving visibility to issues, which otherwise would have been completely ignored or censored.

Thanks to private initiatives and public funding, Italy have led to remarkable results, with a radical development in cultural documentary, centers dedicated for production, meetings or promotional activities for the same issues. And especially, with an increasing involvement of young film-makers, old and new spectators from urban spaces. It should be also mentioned that documentary innovates the communication due to its free character.

Milan has not entered in this process, and this is reason why it has an enormous strategic opportunity to achieve its stylistic, economic, social and cultural issues of the documentary. Ii is a city where audiovisual and basic television and/or promotional service have confined the creativity in film school by taking away it from the practice of true documentary (which is able to tell the reality, whit complex and various skills, especially on the production plan). In Milan, the funding (and the carriers) is 99% towards the poles of attractors and their TV service, the cinemas are projecting foreign documentaries. There is not a dedicated room (not even semi-amateur), the documentary reviews are quite sporadic, and there is not a special event...

So, Milan is the real frontier: the most difficult territory, where everything has to be created and the resistance is extraordinary various. But the possibilities are not missing.

The first essential points are:

• Establishment of a documentary film festival in Milan
• Creating open space for creativity and online cooperation opportunities
• Identification of useful places and stable development of exhibitions
• Structuring of independent distribution paths

THE VILLAGE DOC FESTIVAL is the first international documentary festival in Milan.
The festival is also in the occasion to launch the routes indicated in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th points, due to its very structure and its strategic intentions of the founding group.