East Doc Platform, the largest co-production funding and distribution platform for Central and Eastern European documentaries, was once again placed centre stage as 59 projects from the region were presented to a wide variety of movers and shakers from the global documentary industry.
As doors closed on the 2024 event, Platform Head Zdenek Blaha reflected on its importance across the global doc scene. “The East Doc Platform is a one-of-its-kind event that is focused on networking, match-making, funding, distribution, and providing the know-how and meeting space for filmmakers hailing from Central and Eastern Europe,” he explained.
“The event itself is connected with the One World Human Rights International Film Festival, our great partner, that provides many great synergies, but East Doc Platform is a stand-alone event run by the Institute of Documentary Film. Thanks to the Institute of Documentary Film, the event can rely on a broad network of contacts, collaborators, and the know-how of the European markets.”
Since its inception in 2012 (although more accurately since 2001, as it builds on the heritage of the East European Forum, now the East Doc Forum) the event has become a springboard for many European talents – both directors and producers, “Since it is linked with our own training program, Ex Oriente Film, it has helped develop and pitch over 750 titles and has welcomed over 1,500 actively participating filmmakers with their projects,” Blaha stresses. “It has an impact on distribution through programs like East Silver, or KineDok, but also on co-production thanks to the East Doc Forum and networking events within the East Doc Platform.”
With a geographical position in the heart of central Europe, a steady visitor base, market intelligence and the exchange of know-how, the East Doc Platform plays an important role for the documentary cinema in the region. The aim of the East Doc Platform is quite simple: to help filmmakers in Central and Eastern Europe develop, produce, complete and distribute their films. “Every year, we introduce around fifty projects at different stages, via pitch presentations, or one-on-one meetings. But it is not only about the event itself, we do follow-up and offer filmmakers other opportunities to promote their films over the year, either as part of various market delegations, or special offers, like the East Silver Caravan, which is a festival distribution program,” Blaha says.
Over its thirteen editions, the East Doc Platform has become an internationally recognized event that hosts yearly over a hundred industry experts and decision-makers, as well as sixty or so high-quality projects with international potential from Central and Eastern Europe, in various stages and formats such as features, shorts and series. “Yes, there have been several achievements that we are proud about, like the introduction of the program for factual series, which we launched in 2020, the focus on co-production and online matchmaking – the Co-Production Booster introduced in 2021 – or the networking activities for XR projects that were introduced way back in 2014 and are still now present and growing,” he shares.
The list of the platform’s successes is long. “Among them were films such as the Sundance winner Earth Is Blue as An Orange, the festival hit We Will Not Fade Away by Alisa Kovalenko; another Sundance selection – Pianoforte by Jakub Piatek; or the CPH:DOX winner Motherland by Alexander Mihalkovich, Hanna Badziaka, just to name a few.”
Analyzing this year’s program, Blaha states that the East Doc Platform introduced 59 projects, the majority of which were in development, or early production, as well as a significant number of projects in post-production, rough cuts and recently finished films. “Since the event combines workshops with pitching forums and market meetings, as well as a conference on distribution, the accompanying program was very broad,” Blaha notes. “The main highlight is the East Doc Forum that introduced twenty-five projects in development. This time, documentary series were also part of the program.”
He adds: “The pitch has become the culmination point of the first edition of our new Ex Oriente Series training programme that started in June 2023. Apart from the training, the main focus is on networking and matchmaking. This is not only focused on the traditional co-production meetings, or broadcasters, but one whole day was dedicated to meetings with festival selectors, sales and distributors in order to boost the distribution of selected projects. This goes hand in hand with the KineDok program of community-driven distribution that launched the manual of good practice in distribution, which is now available online for free at the East Doc Platform.”
The focus of the East Doc Platform is what differentiates it from other pitching events in the region, according to Blaha, “The whole East Doc Platform is focused on the documentary cinema coming from the region of Central and Eastern Europe.”
Finally, for him, co-operation is important not only across the region, but also in a broader European context. In that sense, collaborations with partners specifically connected with the East Doc Platform are usually in the form of project exchanges, as it is important, in Blaha’s opinion, to keep the projects circulating and to offer access to producers at different corners of Europe.
“We collaborate with different markets within the CEE region, as well as beyond, from Sunny Side of the Doc and DOK Leipzig, to Baltic Sea Docs, MIA Market, or DocsBarcelona,” he concludes. “I believe it is important to create meaningful connections across Europe. Because, as is the case in many countries in CEE, the common denominator is the lack of funding for documentary films, due to political pressure. The situation is getting worse, so one way of mitigating these obstacles is providing connections and helping support international co-productions. The more options for networking the better.”
