At Berlinale 2025 Ji.hlava IDFF presented the current cohort of professionals partaking in its Emerging Producers programme, and put out the call for the next programme that will run 2025 through 2026.
Every year the festival selects 18 talented producers (17 European and one representing a guest country), to whom it provides educational, networking and promotional support. This year’s guest region will be Sub-Saharan Africa.
“As of today, the program boasts a network of over 230 alumni, creating a robust community of European documentary film producers with significant co-production potential,” write organisers.
The applications deadline for the next programme is March 31.
While the main part of the training takes place at Ji.hlava IDFF annually at the end of October, and in Berlin in February, other activities and the promotion of the Emerging Producers take place at other major film events throughout the year.
“The main objective of the programme is to interconnect talented European producers with other film professionals, especially those working in documentary cinematography,” organisers write. “The project should also provide the participants with an easy access to information in the field of audiovisual industry, deeper and wider orientation in the film market but also help them to establish contacts with producers from other countries, and thus increase the potential of future European co-production projects.”
The programme examines three core areas of production activity, Ji.hlava IDFF underlines:
- PROMOTION The programme includes personal presentations of the producers as well as an official presentation to film professionals and press at the Ji.hlava IDFF. The Emerging Producers project is accompanied by a specially tailored catalogue. By using a unique design it combines personal profiles and professional backgrounds of each of the producers. The Emerging Producers are being presented at major film events throughout the year. A reception is traditionally organised in their honour during Berlinale and we promote them as the producers worth watching in respective year also through other means, such as city lights or catalogues.
- NETWORKING A fundamental part of the Emerging Producers programme consists of various informal meetings where people get to know each other and gain easy access to contacts for future international collaborations. However, we are particular about the fact that even these informal meetings have a specific format with a reasonable purpose to fulfil the networking aim. Individual meetings with other film professionals are planned to meet the needs of each participant of the workshop. The aim is to help the producers meet the key persons in the field of audiovisual industry present at the Ji.hlava Industry Programme and at the Berlin part of the training.
- NAVIGATION In today’s times of rapid technological development and an expanding film market, it is often very hard for a starting producer to get oriented in the film market and understand how the whole mechanism works. It may take several years for a talented producer to learn how to co-operate, finance and produce their films. The Ji.hlava Industry Programme was conceived in order to represent a real entrance gate to the film industry with a focus on creative documentary film and its forms that overlap with fiction film and visual arts. It also focuses on the field of distribution and film sales with the aim of helping the producers to reach the desired results.
Among the experienced tutors that guided our Emerging Producers in the past have been Paolo Benzi, Irena Taskovski, Amra Bakšić Čamo, Heino Deckert, Luciano Barisone, Peter Jäger, Sibyl Kurz, Rebecca O’Brien, Ada Solomon, and others.
