The Prague-based rough-cut training workshop dok.incubator has announced its final selection of 8 documentaries for 2023.
The programme will gather project teams from Europe, Iran, and Bhutan to work together with international editors, producers, and sales representatives. For the upcoming eight months their goal is to sharpen their film’s cut, shape its dramaturgy, and create marketing strategy, preparing each film for festival premiere in 2024.
“Every year we see that the current social and political situation is imprinted into the films that apply for our workshop. I believe we brought up fresh and diverse perspectives and that this year’s selection carries many important messages of the contemporary world,” says Andrea Prenghyova, the dok.incubator CEO.
The 2023 dok.incubator selection
- 5 Pills Away (Poland). Director: Karolina Domagalska. Editor: Laura Pawela. Producer: Anna Stylinska. In October 2020, the Polish government introduced an almost total abortion ban causing a huge response of Polish women. As a result, abortion hotline became the symbol of the revolution which means a turning point for Natalia, Karolina, Justyna and Kinga who take over the responsibility of the state to provide access to safe abortion. But before they realize, they become the enemies of the state, their lives and safety are being put at risk. The pressure becomes unbearable. Will they persevere?
- Agent of Happiness (Bhutan, Hungary). Directors: Arun Bhattarai & Dorottya Zurbo. Editor: Peter Sass. Producer: Noemi Veronika Szakonyi. Happiness agents travel door to door to measure the happiness index of the Bhutan society. They collect this data for the Center for Gross National Happiness, a development philosophy, an abstract science that became Bhutan’s top global brand. The film is a poetic road movie following a happiness agent Amber. He measures how happy people are, but deep inside he is hopelessly sad.
- Nice Ladies (Netherlands, Ukraine). Director: Mariia Ponomarova. Editor: Annelotte Medema. Producer: Rogier Kramer. Nice Ladies is a documentary about a group of aging cheerleaders from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Despite self-doubt, unrealistic beauty standards and different labels, they still claim the spotlight and find fulfillment in the sport. However, when the Russian invasion happens nothing remains the same. Will the Nice Ladies be able to reunite, succeed to preserve unity and find a common language despite the scars of war?
- Racing Hearts (Sweden). Director: Milla Bergh. Editor: Dominika Daubenbüchel. Producer: Martin Bergh. 1962. Swedish race car driver Ewy Rosqvist and her co-driver Ursula Wirth are signed as Mercedes-Benz first female competitive drivers. They travel to Argentina to participate in the infamous, dangerous race Gran Premio. 284 cars had entered the race, and never before had a woman participated. Ewy and Ursula face mistrust and protests simply for being women in a male dominated sport. Despite that, they win all six stages of the almost 5000 km long race, and rewrite motorsport history.
- The Eternal War (Finland, Polamd) Editor: Waltteri Vanhanen. Producer: Pertti Veijalainen. A documentary study of the minds of people changed and duped by propaganda.
- Zun: A Octopus Under My Skin (Iran) Director, editor: Leila Amini. Producer: Afsaneh Salari. Me and my sister Nasreen were born into a religious family. She had an arranged marriage during which she never dared to express her desire of becoming a singer. Turning 40 with two kids and an unavailable husband, she decided to fill the void surrounding her by bringing radical change in her life inevitably leading to divorce. After the separation, Nasreen pursues singing more seriously. But as singing solo is forbidden for women in Iran, the true difficulties of her journey have just begun.
- Mina and the Radfio Bandirs (Norway) Director: Kari Anne Moe. Editor: Karsten Meinich. Producer: Gudmundur Gunnarsson. At the beginning of 2000, Mina Hadjian entered the spotlight in Norway and became the most popular radio-host as the star of her show MINA. A few years later she became too controversial, and was fired. Searching for something new, she was offered a job at a radio-studio in Halden Prison and took the chance. To this day, she built prison-radio in 6 different prisons in Norway giving the freedom of speech to those who lost the freedom to move.
- Just Hear Me Out (Poland) Director: Malgorzata Imielska. Editor: Marcin Szymanski. Producer: Adrianna Redzia 19-year-old Gosia has spent her entire adolescence in a secure ward, receiving treatment for full-blown, drug-resistant paranoid schizophrenia. But now, for the first time she is leaving care and returning to her home in Bialystok, Poland hoping to study at university in Warsaw. Gosia wants to prove wrong everyone who labeled her as crazy. At the same time, she is battling to keep the voices in her head from taking control of her.
The 2023 timetable runs as follows:
- 1st session: Rough Cut, April 2023. During the first session the participants and their tutors are looking for the “DNA” of each film. In editing rooms they focus on storytelling and start asking basic marketing questions.
- 2nd session: Fine Cut, June 2023. The second session is about finding the right direction of the film. Participants have a chance to test their current rough cuts on important decision makers and discuss their distribution possibilities with them.
- 3rd session & preview: Picture Lock, October 2023. During the third session the editing of the films is finalised and the rest of the session is dedicated to marketing and preparations of the official presentation of participating projects within the industry at the dok.incubator preview.
Based in Prague, the dok.incubator think-tank was launched in 2010 to strengthen the creative doc industry by “bringing new impulses and top-class know-how including the use of the new media and internet platforms to the international community of filmmakers.”
As project director Andrea Prenghyová observed tpo Business Doc Europe later 2022, maintaining the drive and impetus of a project can be taxing for the filmmaking team. As a release date or festival deadline approaches, the pressure only increases, which can have severe effects on the health and quality of the end product.
The initiative grew out of a conversation that Prenghyová had with the then director of DOK Leipzig, Claas Danielsen, when the latter observed how so many more films could have been considered for selection had they not been rushed, if only the filmmakers had more time and guidance to elevate then from the status of ‘good’ to something closer to ‘exceptional.’
“If they [filmmakers] would stay longer in the editing room, if they would support more the overlap of the film, if they would also show something more about the second character,” remembered Prenghyová of the pair’s observations. “We were thinking it was such a pity. They’re searching for the story for so long and at the end of the day they’re in big pressure to finish. They have the deadlines, but they have no money and they also are losing the ‘distance.’ They’re losing this initial energy, and so we wanted to make a workshop which gives them back this first energy and this first passion they have for the film, and to maximize the potential of the material that they have.”
During the past 10 years dok.incubator worked with more than 150 films, many of them premiering at A-list festivals. 12 films were selected for Sundance competitions, 2 were nominated for Emmy, 5 for European Film Award and almost 30 of them were screened at IDFA. Films from dok.incubator workshops are also regularly selected for CPH:DOX, HotDocs, Visions du Réel, or Krakow Film Festival.
