“We are searching for projects with good potential to develop into international high-quality works,” dok.incubator founder Andrea Prenghyová tells BDE, having put out he call for its 2025 series of International workshops. No change there.
But this year, the workshop is opening up to all doc formats, she points out, and is no longer targeting theatrical as the core distribution outlet.
“We don’t have any specifics regarding the topic or even genre,” she underlines, even though many of the projects (all feature docs) that were developed at dok.incubator in 2024 all seem destined for high-level premieres in 2025.
“We always try to do creative films, but we are also now open to interesting documentary series and online. We are always searching for high quality creativity but our mission is to help filmmakers really fulfil their potential,” adds Prenghyová, for whom ‘sustainability’ is a key consideration.
“This strategy (of targeting theatrical release) is no longer sustainable for filmmakers. Our mission is to teach people…how to make films in a sustainable way which means they can make some profit,” she underlines.
“We want to challenge the authors, challenge the teams, challenge the editors. Let’s try something else. Let’s take one more step than what we do normally,” Prenghyová adds. “We are also asking them to work on all different aspects. Not just the cut, but also marketing, strategizing, audience communication and target groups…Through this they [workshop participants] learn a lot of new things and get new inspiration as they near the final cut. We want them to think more widely, more globally, more strategically. That’s the greatest contribution of the workshop. We get people to step out of their shadow.”
Are filmmakers resistant to the suggestions they hear at dok.incubator on alternative other formats and potential outlets for their doc projects? Hardly at all, Prenghyová stresses. “Filmmakers already get the message that they need to do something different. So for the last three years, it’s completely okay. It depends a little bit on their age of course – but that will always be part of life. I think everybody will have to adapt.”
dok.incubator successes
Over the past dozen or so years, dok.incubator has workshopped over 170 films, many of which went on to premiere at A-list festivals, with a whopping docs 14 selected for Sundance alone. (In World Cinema Documentary Competition 2020 Iryna Tsilyk’s The Earth is Blue as an Orange won the Director Award while Radu Ciorniciuc’s Acasa, My Home won Best Cinematography Award.) Two films developed at Dok.incubator have been nominated for Emmys, 6 for European Film Awards and dozens have been selected for the likes of IDFA, CPH:DOX, HotDocs and Visions du Réel, among many other festivals.
2024 was a particularly successful year for films developed at dok.incubator:
- Agent of Happiness – Sundance (WP), IDFA, Hot Docs, TiDF, Millennium Docs Against Gravity, DocsBarcelona
- A Sisters’ Tale – Locarno FF (WP), Toronto, IDFA
- We Are Inside – Visions du Réel (WP), IDFA
- Nice Ladies – Hot Docs (IP), DOK Leipzig
- Lichens Are The Way – CPH:DOX (WP), Ji.hlava IDFF
- Mina and the Radio Bandits – CPH:DOX (WP), DOK.fest München
- Just Hear Me Out – Millennium Docs Against Gravity (WP), DOK.fest München
- Fakir – DOK.fest München (WP), Millennium Docs Against Gravity, Ji.hlava IDFF
- Abortion Dream Team – Millennium Docs Against Gravity (WP)
dok.incubator 2025
The first 2025 session – titled Rough Cut – will run April 26 to May 1 in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia. The second session [Fine Cut] is scheduled for June 22-28 in Olomouc, Czech Republic. The third ‘Picture Lock’ session and preview will run in September/October, once again near Prague.
Alongside the international workshop, dok.incubator runs two six-month workshops for local projects in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“We are a long-term workshop. We are not giving one-time consultations on the films,” Prenghyová emphasises of her international event. “We are working with very high-level professionals for six months and we are staying with them until the end. They have very continuous input from us and continuous feedback from the entire international group during the development. And they receive guidance from so many [experts], not only with editing, but with distribution, communication, PR, targeting, festival strategy etc. So we really can cover the whole [trajectory] of the film.” The list of experts on hand during the workshops reads like a veritable who’s who of contemporary doc talent handhttps://dokincubator.net/people/ across all disciplines.
“We are a tailor-made workshop, with a very practical approach,” Prenghyová continues. “The films are all different, the teams are all different, and they all have different needs and requirements. These are what we try to define at the beginning of the process and agree on with each team, what for them is important.”
But attendees must be flexible, the dok.incubator boss returns to her main theme. “We are here for the creative documentary community. And if this community is transforming, we have to do the same. And if the market is transforming, we have to do the same. It would be very stupid to stay rigid.”
“A core criterion within the participant is flexibility, and a willingness to listen and to see what can be done from a tangible perspective with the material they have,” Prenghyová signs off.
