19/08/2024 - Agnė Dovydaitytė and Alexander Belinski's Lithuanian-German-Latvian co-production and Tomasz Wolski's Polish production win at the platform organised by the Ji.hlava IDFF at Sarajevo

The Docu Talents from the East winners at the Sarajevo Film Festival

Eight outstanding documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the upcoming 12 months – the Docu Talents from the East – were presented this weekend as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Projects from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine made it onto the list (read about them here).

The Docu Talent Award was granted to the most promising project. The international jury decided to give the award to the Lithuanian-German-Latvian co-production Baltic UXO by Agnė Dovydaitytė and Alexander Belinski, produced by Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė. The award is accompanied by a financial prize of $5,000 in cooperation with festival partner Current Time TV.

According to the jury, "This project looks very professional, featured beautiful cinematography, and seems to turn a hidden secret into a universal story. We can imagine the success of the planned impact campaign, connecting the film to contemporary conversations around environmentalism, militarism and the political decisions that happen without our knowledge."

The €3,000 in-kind DAFilms.com Distribution Award was bestowed upon The Big Chief by Polish director Tomasz Wolski, produced by Anna Gawlita. The award covers an international VoD release on DAFilms.com (including the Americas, Europe and Asia) for two years.

According to the jury, "This project may look back to the past, but has the potential of a great modern thriller. It places in front of us a character who many will not know, and explores his controversial life through a wealth of archive footage. The creators seem to have a great idea of their story, and the audience for this film is clear both in cinemas and online."

During the event, representatives of the Ji.hlava IDFF also revealed the names of the 2025 Emerging Producers (read them here). The programme aims to promote talented European documentary film producers and provides them with a range of networking, educational and promotional support throughout the year. Seventeen European producers will be accompanied by a producer from Canada, which is the guest country of the 2025 Emerging Producers programme. The Emerging Producers programme consists of two workshops – taking place in Jihlava in October 2024 and during the Berlinale in February 2025.