Ex Oriente Film is an international training programme for documentary professionals supporting the development and funding of creative documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe. The core of the Ex Oriente Film workshop is based on three week-long residential workshops held over 9 months. The second 2020 session runs October 19-24.
The guest tutors of the 2nd session of the Oriente Film 2020 workshop:
Joe Bini. As a film editor, Joe Bini has collaborated with Werner Herzog on twenty-seven documentaries and feature films in twenty years, including Grizzly Man (2005 and Encounters at the End of the World (2007), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Bini edited Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and American Honey (2016) with director Andrea Arnold.
Claire Aguilar has worked on many documentaries as a commissioning editor and editorial consultant, including Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman, Steve James’s The Interrupters, Frederick Wiseman’s State Legislature, The Invisible War by Kirby Dick etc. She recently exec-produced Final Account by Luke Holland, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2020. Worked at IDA and Sheffield Doc/Fest. Currently Vice President of the Board of Women Make Movies.
Sean McAllister – From his early films Working For The Enemy (1997) and The Minders (1998), Sundance Jury Prize-winning The Liberace Of Baghdad (2004) and Japan: A Story Of Love And Hate (2008) to his more recent successes, The Reluctant Revolutionary (2012), Sheffield Jury Prize winning, BAFTA nominated A Syrian Love Story (2015), and now A Northern Soul (2018) Sean’s work continues to inspire, to surprise and to fascinate audiences.
Hanna Polak is a Polish director, producer and cinematographer. For her short documentary film, The Children of Leningradsky, about a community of homeless children living in the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow, she was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. In 2014, her film Something Better To Come received the IDFA Special Jury Award, and won main prizes at several film festivals
Anaïs Clanet. Paris-based documentary sales agent Anaïs Clanet, who previously operated under the banner of Wide House, has launched a new company called Reservoir Docs. The veteran documentary sales agent is a respected figure in the international documentary scene whose recent titles have included I Am Not Your Negro and Talking About Trees.
Andrea Hock. Andrea worked in several marketing agencies in Austria and in the Public Relations department at the Cultural Secretary in Oaxaca, Mexico, before joining the Autlook team as a Festival Manager. Since 2009 Andrea is in charge of worldwide TV Sales at Autlook, together with her colleague Salma Abdalla. In her position she attends all important TV markets, festivals and pitching forums.
The lead tutors of the 2nd Ex Oriente Film 2020 workshop are documentary expert Mikael Opstrup, producer and consultant Iikka Vehkalahti, director and script editor Ivana Pauerová Miloševič and director and producer Filip Remunda.
Each year Ex Oriente selects up to 12 projects that receive assistance from a wide range of film experts, with each workshop focusing on a different segment of development. The participants are given a tailored guidance in developing the subject, narrative and the visual style of their projects, making drafts of a financing and distribution strategy, and finding international partners.
The course culminates in the pitching sessions of projects at the East Doc Forum co-production meeting, featuring the final pitching in front of Europe’s and North America’s leading commissioning editors and independent producers, distributors, buyers and film fund representatives.
The three residential Ex-Oriente Film workshops and the East Doc Forum pitching are supplemented by the Follow-Up Programme – a yearlong chain of follow-up support and additional activities for projects that have completed, or are currently completing, the Ex Oriente Film workshop.
