“We want to derail our participants a bit,” says Ji.hlava Head of Industry Jarmila Outratová, ahead of the doc fest’s October 30 presentation of its Emerging Producers programme, “by going back to their early days… what was their motivation then, and checking if it is still out there.”
The core rationale behind the two-part Emerging Producers programme, which kicks off in Ji.hlava and concludes at Berlinale 2021, is to interconnect talented European producers (see list of participants below) with other film professionals, especially those working in documentary cinematography.
It is also designed, says the festival, to 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.
“There are many programmes which work with films and projects, but very few actually work with the people behind the films,” strresses Ji.hlava Head of Industry Jarmila Outratová. “When we select the 18 Emerging Producers each year, we are not selecting just the best producers, but most importantly those of them that have a vision, people that do not take their work just as business. We aim to create a very particular group of people, which are the reasons why the selection process takes many months. In a way, you can say that for us it is the producers that are the projects.”
The training is divided into three main parts, outlines Outratová, those of promotion, networking and navigation. But producers in attendance will be offered more in the process, the opportunity to rediscover the essence of what brought them to their production vocation in the first place.
“We want to derail our participants a bit – by going back to their early days, when they decided to become producers – what was their motivation and dreams back then, and checking if it is still out there,” she says, adding how, “as part of the programme, they get lectures by renowned producers, we arrange for them many networking opportunities, and we also help to promote them – such as by the unique personalized catalogue distributed at major film events around the world. And last, but not least – we want to initiate collaborations among our producers.”
The parade of gongs of which programme alumni can boast is impressive, such as Katja Adomeit’s Palme d’Or for The Square, co-producers Bianca Oana and Radovan Síbrt’s Berlinale Golden Bear for Touch Me Not and Ruth Reid’s Best Documentary award at Tribeca for Scheme Birds. “We believe that the programme contributed to [these], at least by a little touch,” says Outratová.
The Ji.hlava Industry chief must inevitably respond to the Covid question and how it has affected the programme in 2020. “We had to move online – at least the first session (Ji.hlava), which we prolonged for extra two days so that the programme is not too packed. We also make use of the opportunities, which digital provides.”
“The second session traditionally takes place in Berlin in February,” she continues, “where they spend almost a week together and at the end we organize a cocktail in their honour attended by the decision-makers at Berlinale.”
“They are definitely the people to keep an eye on! Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we will be all able to meet physically then,” she ends.
The Emerging Producers 2021 are (plus profiles here):
● Alice Lemaire / Belgium
● Ivan Perić / Croatia
● Marek Novák / Czech Republic
● Niklas Kullström / Finland
● Quentin Laurent / France
● Maximilian Haslberger / Germany
● Ildiko Kosztolni / Hungary
● Antonella Di Nocera / Italy
● Ieva Ūbele / Latvia
● Firat Sezgin / Netherlands
● Racha Helen Larsen / Norway
● Agnieszka Skalska / Poland
● Anda Ionescu / Romania
● Iva Plemić Divjak / Serbia
● Zora Jaurová / Slovakia
● Jorge Caballero / Spain
● Mario Adamson / Sweden
Guest country Israel / Kobi Mizrahi
