The Ex Ori­ente Film work­shops took place in Warsaw from 28 June to 4 July. They were aimed at doc­u­ment­ary film makers from Central-​Eastern Europe. Tak­ing part were dir­ect­ors and pro­du­cers whose pro­jects are at the devel­op­ment stage or in pro­duc­tion and oth­ers who are look­ing for fin­an­cial sup­port or are plan­ning inter­na­tional dis­tri­bu­tion. They are cur­rently organ­ised by the Insti­tute of Doc­u­ment­ary Film and this year one of the ses­sions took place in Poland for the first time.

For each edi­tion of Ex Ori­ente the organ­isers select 14 film pro­jects by means of a com­pet­i­tion, and then invite the dir­ector and pro­du­cer of each of them to take part in the work­shops. Each ses­sion con­sists of a the­or­et­ical and a prac­tical part and focuses on a dif­fer­ent issue, which is dis­cussed dur­ing joint ses­sions and dur­ing indi­vidual con­sulta­tions. The first stage of the work is ded­ic­ated to dis­cuss­ing sub­mit­ted screen­plays, estab­lish­ing what fur­ther work is neces­sary, and also pre­dict­ing the pro­jects’ mar­ket poten­tial. Dur­ing the meet­ings of the second ses­sion, par­ti­cipants present their tutors with pro­gress they have made, con­sult with them about pos­sible changes, and also dis­cuss gen­eral aspects of doc­u­ment­ary film pro­duc­tion, plan­ning the mar­ket strategy for their pro­jects at the same time. The third ses­sion of each edi­tion takes place dur­ing the Jih­lava Inter­na­tional Doc­u­ment­ary Film Fest­ival and is focussed on the issue of mar­ket­ing. The par­ti­cipants present their pro­jects at the mar­ket run­ning par­al­lel to the festival.

In the seven-​year his­tory of the Ex Ori­ente work­shops, sev­eral pro­jects were com­pleted which are now well respec­ted and have won numer­ous awards. They include Bartek Konopka’s RAB­BIT Ŕ LA BER­LIN: win­ner of a Golden Hobby– Horse at Krakow Film Fest­ival, an award-​winner at Toronto’s Hot Docs and nom­in­ated for an Oscar in 2010; Beata Dzianowicz’s KITES, win­ner of the Crit­ics Week Award at Loc­arno; and Juraj Lehotsky’s BLIND LOVES, win­ner of the Prize of the Inter­na­tional Con­fed­er­a­tion of Art­house Cinemas at Cannes.

The Czechs’ Pol­ish part­ner dur­ing the organ­isa­tion of the Pol­ish ses­sion was the pro­duc­tion com­pany Eureka Media, owned by Krzysztof Kop­czyński. It was the second meet­ing of par­ti­cipants of this year’s Ex Ori­ente and focussed on film pro­duc­tion. Among the thir­teen tutors and experts invited were: Mar­ijke Rawie – Expert and con­sult­ant, the Neth­er­lands; Helge Albers – Pro­du­cer at Fly­ing Moon Filmproduk­tion, Ger­many; Stefan Rüll – Advisor and legal expert, Ger­many; Rada Šešić – Expert, con­sult­ant and fest­ival pro­gram­mer, the Netherlands/​Croatia; Filip Remunda – Dir­ector and pro­du­cer, the Czech Repub­lic; Jes­per Osmund – Film editor, Den­mark; Leena Pas­sanen – Editor, Fin­land; Adam Gee – Com­mis­sion­ing editor for Chan­nel 4, United King­dom; Georg Tschurtschenthaler – Exec­ut­ive pro­du­cer at Gebreuder Beetz Filmproduk­tion, Germany.

Lec­tures and sem­inars were mainly organ­ised in two par­al­lel blocks: for pro­du­cers and dir­ect­ors. Stefan Rüll opened the pro­duc­tion ses­sion with a lec­ture on the legal aspects of inter­na­tional co-​productions. Other top­ics from that block dealt with budget­ing and included: the issue of co-​productions with broad­casters, plan­ning the budget of a co-​production between pro­duc­tion com­pan­ies, and the func­tion­ing of a film budget with regard to the fin­an­cial plan. It is extremely import­ant to note that the meet­ings were not only the­or­et­ical over­views but also took the form of indi­vidual con­sulta­tions, where actual pro­jects were worked on. A great deal of interest was shown in the lec­ture “Fest­ival Selector” presen­ted to the dir­ect­ors’ group by Rada Šešić, who talked about fest­ival policy, about how a selector’s taste influ­ences their choices, annual film fest­ivals, com­pet­i­tion and non-​competition pro­grammes and the chan­ging fields of interest among fest­ival pro­gram­mers. The par­ti­cip­at­ing dir­ect­ors also took part in a writ­ing ses­sion entitled “I am my char­ac­ter!”, as well as one about edit­ing trail­ers which was pre­ceded by a lec­ture by Jes­per Osmund. Apart from the main blocks of ses­sions, indi­vidual con­sulta­tions took place in par­al­lel, where par­ti­cipants presen­ted their tutors with new mater­ial, dis­cuss­ing the dir­ec­tion in which their own pro­jects should develop.

31 per­man­ent par­ti­cipants took part in this year’s Ex Ori­ente, from 11 coun­tries, namely Bos­nia, Croa­tia, the Czech Repub­lic, Latvia, Ger­many, Rus­sia and Romania. Among that group there were also 3 pro­duc­tions from Poland and 2 Pol­ish co-​productions with the United King­dom and Rus­sia. The work­shops’ organ­iser, Andrea Pren­ghy­ová and pro­gramme dir­ector Ivana Milošević, in an inter­view given to the Pol­ish Film Insti­tute, stressed the fact that every year one third of all qual­i­fy­ing pro­jects come from Poland. A 13-​person group of Pol­ish film­makers, spe­cially selec­ted by the organ­izers, also took part in the Warsaw meet­ing. They took part in some of the lec­tures and sem­inars and dur­ing indi­vidual con­sulta­tions dis­cussed pro­jects they had earlier submitted.

In addi­tion to the work­shops, there were even­ing screen­ings in Rejs Cinema, includ­ing the Pol­ish premiere of Jan Tenhaven’s AUTUMN GOLD, win­ner of Hot Docs 2010, and the first open screen­ing of Vit Klusák and Filip Remunda’s CZECH PEACE. Also invited to the meet­ings were film­makers who had taken part in pre­vi­ous edi­tions of Ex Ori­ente: Anna Wydra and Bartek Konopka, who – after a screen­ing of their pro­ject RAB­BIT Ŕ LA BER­LIN – dis­cussed the vari­ous stages of work on the film, from the first ideas developed dur­ing the work­shops to a 2010 Oscar nom­in­a­tion. Then Sła­womir Sikora of Warsaw Uni­ver­sity gave an intro­duc­tion before a screen­ing of Beata Dzianowicz’s KITES, which fin­ished with a meet­ing with Dzi­anow­icz and the pro­du­cer, Krzysztof Kop­czyński. There was also a spe­cial screen­ing of one more film developed dur­ing an earlier edi­tion of Ex Ori­ente, namely PLANET KIRSAN by Mag­dalena Pięta. It is the last film in the pro­ject “Russia-​Poland. A Fresh Look” organ­ised by Eureka Media and the Adam Mick­iewicz Insti­tute. Its star is Kirsan Ily­umzhinov, pres­id­ent of the Repub­lic of Kalmykia. Ily­umzhinov, who is also the pres­id­ent of the World Chess Fed­er­a­tion, FIDE, has intro­duced chess as a com­puls­ory school sub­ject. For this reason the film is also the story of the Kalmykia’s chil­dren, whose lives have changed sig­ni­fic­antly as a res­ult of their president’s decree. There was a dis­cus­sion with Mag­dalena Pięta and pro­du­cer Krzysztof Kop­czyński after the screening.

The next ses­sion of this year’s Ex Ori­ente edi­tion will take place in Octo­ber, dur­ing the Inter­na­tional Doc­u­ment­ary Film Fest­ival in Jih­lava. It will be ded­ic­ated to devel­op­ing the mar­ket­ing strategy of spe­cific pro­jects, which will be presen­ted to TV com­mis­sion­ing edit­ors, dis­trib­ut­ors, rep­res­ent­at­ives of insti­tu­tions that fin­ance doc­u­ment­ary films and the view­ing pub­lic, dur­ing pitch­ing ses­sions. The work­shops’ organ­isers stress that the main aim is to sup­port the ini­ti­at­ives of young film­makers from East­ern Europe, and in par­tic­u­lar encour­aging pro­du­cers to be act­ive at every stage of the work on a doc­u­ment­ary, mak­ing pre­cise plans, being pre­pared to take decisions and also cre­at­ing a mar­ket strategy early in the process.

Unfor­tu­nately, ses­sions of this type are still a rare occur­rence in the Pol­ish Film Industry. For that reason the pres­ti­gi­ous work­shops of the Warsaw ses­sion have undoubtedly strengthened the pos­i­tion of Pol­ish doc­u­ment­ar­ies on the inter­na­tional mar­ket. Also, the screen­ings and accom­pa­ny­ing dis­cus­sions in Eng­lish cre­ated an excel­lent oppor­tun­ity for an exchange of per­spect­ives between European doc­u­ment­ary makers.

The Warsaw ses­sion of Ex Ori­ente Film 2010 was organ­ised by the Insti­tute of Doc­u­ment­ary Films, Prague (www​.dok​web​.net) and Eureka Media (www​.eureka​me​dia​.info), with the help of Media Desk Pol­ska, the Pol­ish Film­makers Asso­ci­ation and the Insti­tute of Eth­no­logy and Cul­tural Anthro­po­logy, Uni­ver­sity of Warsaw. The pro­ject was co-​financed by the Pol­ish Film Insti­tute.

The com­plete inter­view with Andrea Pren­ghy­ová and Ivana Milošević con­duc­ted by Marta Sikor­ska can be found on the Pol­ish Film Institute’s web­site at www​.pisf​.pl. (17.08.2010)