ZagrebDox is a documentary event initiated by Nenad Puhovski, consisting of a weeklong festival and a financing forum entitled ZagrebDox Pro. Within the five years ZagrebDox has existed, it has reached an amazing audience number of 21.000 and spawned a strong financing forum. At the forum, new documentary projects from the region are pitched to a panel of international financiers. Among the documentaries coming from the ZagrebDox Pro financing forum are Corridor #8, The Caviar Connection and Cash & Marry, which have all circulated international festivals with big success.
Besides giving filmmakers access to present their projects to potential financiers, ZagrebDox Pro has also accomplished to gather public broadcasters from the region, and created a platform for collaboration in an area which for a long time mostly has been known for conflicts.
EDN Director Line Sandsmark states the following motivation for presenting The EDN Award to Nenad Puhovski and ZagrebDox:
"What Nenad Puhovski has accomplished within the five years of ZagrebDox is quite amazing and a point of inspiration for all of us working with documentaries. Not only has he brought international film to Zagreb, he has also managed to bring documentaries from the region to an international audience through the ZagrebDox Pro financing forum. Taking into consideration that all this has been accomplished in a region which has been through struggles and internal battles, makes the achievements by Nenad Puhovski and ZagrebDox all the more admirable. For EDN it was an obvious choice for the 2009 EDN Award."
The EDN Award will be presented at a reception on Friday March 20th at 19.30 (local Greek time) at the Excelsior Bar, Electra Palace in Thessaloniki, Greece. This will happen in connectionm with EDN's Docs in Thessaloniki pitching session and the 11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - Images from the 21 Century.
About The EDN Award
This is the fifth time EDN is honouring outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture by presenting The EDN Award. Former recipients are:
2008 Institute of Documentary Film, Czech Republic
2007 Svetlana & Zoran Popovic, Magnificent 7, Serbia
2006 Jan Vrijman Fund, The Netherlands
2005 YLE Broadcasting, Finland
About European Documentary Network - EDN
EDN is a membership organisation for professionals working with documentary film and TV. EDN supports, stimulates and creates networks within the documentary sector, organizes numerous workshops, seminars and conferences and publishes DOX magazine and the EDN Financing Guide. More than 1000 members from over 60 countries have joined EDN.