{mosimage}PRAGUE: Ten Czech documentary films have been selected to compete for the 2012 Pavel Koutecky Award, named for the respected Czech documentary filmmaker who died in 2006 while working on his film about the iconic Czech leader Vaclav Havel.

The only documentary in this year's selection, Sofia's Last Ambulance by Bulgarian filmmaker Ilian Metev will be presented in the Critics' Week competition in Cannes (May 17 - 25). Co-produced by Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia, the film attended the 2010 East European Forum and the 2011 Doc Launch presentation.

An Interview with Czech filmmaker Richard Komárek about the collapsing Twin Towers, lawsuits, disco lounges and patriot trucks in his documentary project Play 9/11.

Richard Komárek belongs among emerging Czech directors who are experienced in local models of Czech TV production formats. With Play 9/11, an ambitious documentary investigation of the post-9/11 world, he attended the 2012 East European Forum to look for fresh inspiration and potential co-production partners.

PLZEN: Some of the Czech Republic's leading filmmakers will be represented in the more than 20 films screening in the Finale Plzen documentary competition.

New Latvian doc project My Six Million Dollar Father - a self-made banker achieves success during the first years after the collapse of the USSR, but is then forced to flee the country in order to escape an arrest for illegal operations.

Polish Docs, an initiative organized by the Polish Film Institute and the Krakow Film Foundation, has published a report with the summary of Polish documentary releases, awards and festival screenings. In 2011, Polish documentaries were presented at more than 240 international festivals and received over 60 awards. The most successful films include Charcoal Burners by Piotr Zlotorowicz, Argentinian Lesson by Wojciech Staron, Marcin Koszalka's Declaration of Immortality, and A Piece of Summer by Marta Minorowicz.

An interview with Romanian filmmaker and producer Florin Iepan about his latest documentary project Odessa, Romania's involvement in WW2, pigeonholing, resurgence of intolerance, observational fog, Michael Moore, and more...

This year sees the first edition of East European Forum taking place in Prague within the new East Doc Platform. It also features the new selection of East European projects taking part in the Forum workshop, Public presentation and Feedback Round Tables. The pick of the final 16 has been made. Take a look at the list!

Taking place December 8 - 10, 2011, during the Tbilisi Film Festival, Pitch.Doc will for the third time provide funding opportunities for several creative documentary projects from the region of South Caucasus. Participants from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia will pitch 6 projects to international industry professionals on December 10.

The Austrian filmmaker Ivette Löcker discusses with us her latest film Night Shifts, mysterious nights, the omnipresence of non-stop operationg surveillance cameras, the intimacy of darkness and the contamination of today's life by light.