Five new documentary projects selected for the 13th edition of Docu Rough Cut Boutique were unveiled 18 Feb at EFM. Project teams will work extensively on final stages over the following months before their festival premieres. See project details below.
“Over the last thirteen years, Docu Rough Cut Boutique became the leading regional program for documentaries in post-production coming from Southeast Europe and the Caucuses,” write organisers. “The interest in the workshop has grown tremendously and selectors have received projects from many countries in the region. The selection process was one of the hardest in these last thirteen years of the program. The high quality of the narratives and outstanding singular cinematic voices in the received submissions gave the selection committee long hours of watching, discussing, and interviewing the applicants.”
Since 2022, Docu Rough Cut Boutique has expanded its eligible countries by including Ukraine.
Created by the Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center, the programme will be organized in three working modules: Sofia (first week of April 2023), Budapest (June 2023) and Sarajevo (August 2023). The workshop programme is constructed with editing tutorials, group sessions and individual meetings with renowned documentary experts and professionals. The programme will culminate at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival where five projects will be presented to the CineLink Industry Days decision makers (funders, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters, and festival programmers) with the aim of assisting their completion and enhancing their distribution and festival presentation possibilities.
Rada Šešić and Martichka Bozhilova, directors of Docu RCB, say in a statement: “We remain faithful to our primary standpoint to have creative, author-driven, and ambitious documentaries from the region and to support their exciting endeavors.
“We believe that these five remarkable, out-of-the-box upcoming films will bring into the limelight important narratives that are bursting with the necessity to be shared with the rest of the world. Interestingly, in most selected projects, we follow the events for a decade or even longer, starting from intimate, strongly personal, and moving towards universal and internationally relevant.
“A few directors are making feature-length debuts, and all five are trying hard to work within their refined cinematic handwriting. Out of five projects, four are directed or co-directed by female authors.
“Having great respect for the projects and being honored by the trust of their makers to work within our Rough Cut Boutique modules, we look eagerly forward to welcoming them in three different cities, starting from Sofia, where the Balkan Documentary Center is based, and ending with a great finale with a presentation to a big group of relevant decision-makers at CineLink during Sarajevo Film Festival in August.”
Docu Rough Cut Boutique 2023 selections
- Your Life Without Me Director: Anna Rubi. Producer: Áron Szentpéteri. Editor: Júlia Hack. Production Company: Somnus Film. Co-producer: Annika Hellström, Erika Malmgren. Co-production company (Sweden): Cinenic Film. Country: Hungary, Sweden. Synopsis: Magdi and Ildikó must fight the state to assure the survival of their disabled children. Ordinary mothers turn into civilian rebels forcing the Hungarian care-system to secure their boys a future.
- ON & OFF ALICE (working title) Director: Isabela von Tent. Producer: Irina Malcea-Candea. Editor: Letitia Stefanescu. Production Company: Luna Film. Country: Romania. Synopsis: How to teach someone to love if no one has taught you.
- PART OF SOCIETY Director: Rati Tsiteladze. Producer: Olga Slusareva. Editor: Rati Tsiteladze. Production Company: ArtWay Film. Country: Georgia. Synopsis: Adelina, a transgender woman who has been locked away from the outside world for 11 years, finally, flees Georgia to Europe and tries to become a part of society.
- PAVILION 6 Director: Goran Dević. Producer: Hrvoje Osvadić. Editor: Vanja Siruček. Production Company: Petnaesta umjetnost. Country: Croatia. Synopsis: Through conversations of people waiting in line for a vaccine, the film attempts to answer the question of whether we still exist as a society or have turned into a group of disoriented individuals.
- Dad’s Lullaby Director: Lesia Diak. Producer: Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan, Lesia Diak. Editor: Andrei Gorgan, Lesia Diak. Production Company: “Filmways”, Romania. Country: Ukraine, Romania. Synopsis: Serhiy fought for his country in the Russian-Ukrainian war but now he fights for his family.
