The international documentary event EAST DOC PLATFORM takes place March 3 – 8, 2018 in Prague. The week-long event will host leading film professionals, distributors, TV and festival programmers. Filmmakers will present documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe that can win one of several prizes worth a total of EUR 35,000 for further film development.
This year’s EDP wants to open up a debate on the rise of nationalism and totalitarian tendencies in the region, as well as on the efforts to stifle critical voices in the media and independent documentary filmmaking that, in varying degrees of intensity, face and reflect on these challenges.
The theme “NEW RESISTANCE” implies the unwillingness of documentary filmmakers to suck up to totalitarian regimes or accept fascisizing symptoms (for instance, attacks on gays in Russia, university shutdown in Hungary, criminalization of abortion in Poland). Their resistance is manifested as dogged persistence with which they pursue these issues while maintaining critical thinking. They are resistant to the dangers they report on and immune to suggestions their work might be undesirable.
These issues are important on an international level as well, with similar troubling developments in the United States, the UK and across Europe. In Central and Eastern Europe, democracy is much younger and considerably more vulnerable. On the other hand, this region has a first-hand experience of totalitarian systems. We should now talk about this experience and draw on it at a time when freedom of speech is being restricted for political reasons.
While European cinema relies heavily on public funding, it is directly dependent and susceptible to any shifts in political climate. Once the authorities start restricting public funds and media, documentary filmmaking with its focus on current social issues is usually the first target. There are signals to that effect in Poland, Hungary and Russia.
We’d like to open up a debate, for instance, about the fact that the social media vox populi has propelled to power populists representing “the majority voice” and political hardliners promoting easy solutions. We’d like to invite Polish filmmakers who have lost funding because of a critical interview, Hungarian filmmakers who have moved to Portugal after making a cinéma vérité film set in a courtroom, as well as Russian filmmakers who often find themselves in personal danger.
Institute of Documentary Film - TEAM
Pavlína Kalandrová
IDF Creative Director
Pavlína Kalandrová graduated from Faculty of Arts at Palacky University in Olomouc (Theatre Studies and Czech Philology) and from Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Film and TV Production). She co-founded the production company Duracfilm where, until 2014, she produced mainly documentaries (Clouds, In Sight, The Tripoint – screened at FID Marseille, Ji.hlava IDFF, One World Prague, Shanghai IFF, Beijing IFF or Jaipur IFF), but also fiction films (short Kites or feature film Children – screened at Beijing IFF or Thessaloniki IFF). From 2014 to 2017, she was head of the Creative Europe Desk CZ – MEDIA. She is selector for the festival Finale Plzeň and member of expert commissions of the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.
Tereza Šimíková
East Doc Platform Manager
Tereza is Head of Industry of the East Doc Platform, the largest co-production market and pitching forum focused on the Central and Eastern European region, which takes place every March in Prague. After graduating with a degree in documentary filmmaking from FAMU, Prague in 2009, she directed short documentaries, including the award-winning Double Life of Saint Vitus. From 2012 to 2016, she was Program Manager of the international rough-cut workshop dok.incubator and served as the Program Director of its local workshops (DOK.Restart in Poland, DOK.SK in Slovakia and dok.elevator for Nordic producers). She serves on a number of selection committees, including the programming team of the Karlovy Vary IFF, and the IDFA Forum. As an international consultant, Tereza tailors international strategy for the grantees of Chicken and Egg Pictures, a US-based international fund and training for female documentary filmmakers. Within EDP, she is one of the selectors of interesting projects, invites renowned tutors and jury, and co-organizes open program that includes panels on alternative distribution, on TV formats, campaigns and new trends in narration.
Rebecca De Pas
Ex Oriente Film Manager
Rebecca De Pas started working for festivals in 2004, in the Bologna Film Archive. In 2009, she joined FID Marseille in the selection committee as well as co-head of the FID Lab, the international co-production platform. Beside her engagement in FID Marseille is currently in the selection committee for the Berlinale Talents, where she also advice for the participants producers and advisor for the Feature Expanded Program. In the past, she has been artistic director of the Journées Cinématographiques Dionysiennes and she collaborated with La Roche sur Yon IFF, the Orizzonti section of the Venice IFF, the Riviera Maya Film Festival and the Environmental Film Festival of Paris. She joined Ex-Oriente Film as manager in December 2017.
