The first session of the 20th Ex Oriente Film training programme is currently taking place in La Rochelle (June 17-22) in co-operation with Sunny Side of the Doc. The 3-part programme (which travels to Ji.hlava IDFF in October before concluding in Prague in March 2023) is focused on the development and funding of creative documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe.
1st Session: Find Your Way – Vision, Space and Storytelling
June 17-22 2022 (La Rochelle, at Sunny Side of the Doc, France)
2nd Session: Production and Story Development
October 24-28, 2022 (Ji.hlava IDFF, Czech Republic)
3rd Session & East Doc Forum: Market, Here I Am!
March 24-30, 2023 (Prague, Czech Republic, within the East Doc Platform & One World IHRDFF)
Click here for information on all the projects.
Leading tutors currently at Sunny Side to oversee the programme are documentary expert Mikael Opstrup (DK), consultant and producer Iikka Vehkalahti (FI) and director and producer Filip Remunda (CZ). Among the guest tutors are director Marc Isaacs (UK), producer Heidi Fleisher (US), director and producer Aliona van der Horst (NL), producer Laura Briand (FR), director Nino Kirtadzé (FR) and sales representatives Irena Taskovski (UK), Aleksandar Govedarica (CA) and Samuel Joyce (UK).
Ex Oriente Film Manager Anna Kaslová comments: “We are excited to welcome to the 20th workshop 12 exceptional documentary projects by talented filmmakers from the CEE region, represented by director-producer teams, who will focus on development of their stories and strategy for production and financing. Partnership with Sunny Side of the Doc, major international documentary market, creates essential co-production and financing opportunities for European documentary producers from our respective regions. We are very happy to continue our co-operation, share our program and hold the first session of our training workshop residentially at La Rochelle”.
The Ex Oriente Film 2022 Workshop Open Programme continues Tuesday 21 June at La Rochelle University with:
Masterclass by Aliona van der Horst. Visual Style, Post-Memory and Working with Archival Footage (11:00 – 12:30). Aliona van der Horst will talk about her artistic approach to her latest film Turn Your Body to the Sun. A film that deals with history and memory. To search for the soul of the images of the archival footage that the film is made upon she used mixed techniques of double pass, zoom-in and colorization, instead of just showing and illustrating historical events. She experimented with the power of the faces watched very closely. She will discuss her way of combining a narrative-driven storyline with a more complex artistic vision and speak about working in the film with the concept of post-memory. This masterclass is an interactive event; participants are encouraged to formulate their specific questions regarding the making of the film.
Producer’s Lecture by Mikael Opstrup. Producing Character Driven Documentary (17:00-18:30). Last year Mikael Opstrup published his book ‘The Uncertainty,’ about developing character-driven documentary. In this lecture Mikael will share his considerations on the specifics of working with character driven documentary, with a special glance at what it means to produce it.
