Deadline: 8 April 2011
Open to: filmmakers from the Balkan region
Fee/Costs: no fee, accommodation and partial coverage of the travel expenses are provided
Venue: 2-7 May, Sofia, Bulgaria/ 3-6 June, Istanbul, Turkey/ 28-31 July, Prizren, Kosovo
The Balkan Documentary Center (BDC) is many things. On the outside, it is an old three-storey pharmaceutical lab in the center of Sofia that is turning into a place for distilling documentaries. It’s a house with a garden, editing rooms, a screening room, a video library, a café and a lot of space for creative ideas.
The BDC Discoveries 2011 is aimed at Balkan documentary projects with an international potential and a cross-media angle. The format is 7 teams producer+writer or director. As an exception, directors in search for producers can also be selected. The workshop is conducted in English. Participants in the workshop should be professional filmmakers who have mainly worked in their home countries before and are looking to step on the international documentary market.
Program
The workshop offers an opportunity to get an insight into the European documentary sector and get to know the development of 7 ambitious Balkan projects from the inside, looking into new ways for improving the script development, as well as business opportunities and ways of collaboration between the civil society and the documentary sector.
The focus of the training will be a continuous project development for the international documentary market. The workshop will cover both the creative and production side of development. The workshop will also have a strong focus on non-traditional financing methods for documentary, and especially collaboration opportunities between the documentary and civil society sector, regional funders and broadcasters.
The training program is viable with the main support of MEDIA Mundus and Robert Bosch Stiftung foundation.
Venues
The workshop in 2011 will start with a one-week session in Sofia. After that the participants of the workshop will have 3 months to develop their projects before the final 4-day group session within DokuFest, Prizren. Meanwhile in the middle of the period there will be an inspiration session focused on storytelling with 2 established experts invited at DOCUMENTARIST, Istanbul, who have been acquainted with the projects in advance. At the same time a local workshop with Turkish filmmakers will take place. At the follow-up session in Prizren the Best BDC Discovery Award will be given to one of the projects. In addition some of the projects will be invited to the DOK Leipzig Co-production Meeting in October 2011.
Eligibility
The eligible participants should be experienced filmmakers – directors and producers with a film project in progress from the following Balkan countries : Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey.
How to Apply
Interested candidates should send their applications no later than 8th of April to email@bdcwebsite.com
You can find Application Form HERE.