Beyond Borders celebrates its tenth edition with a raft of parallel events
- The Kastellorizo-based documentary festival is presenting an expanded programme that includes its Audiovisual Pitching Lab, the Co-Production Forum, and a range of training and outreach initiatives
A series of parallel activities will enrich the tenth Beyond Borders Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival, running from 24-31 August. These include the sixth Audiovisual Pitching Lab, the second edition of the Co-Production Forum, titled "Meet Your Co-Producer in Kastellorizo", and a new, special event in collaboration with the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece.
The Audiovisual Pitching Lab returns for its sixth year. It remains Greece’s only fully remote pitching platform for documentary projects and has now become a cornerstone of the festival’s industry-orientated efforts. The two-day lab, taking place online from 27-28 August, allows selected emerging filmmakers from across the globe to present their concepts to an international panel of experts. This year’s lab will be moderated once again by Dr Claudia Schreiner, former head of Masterschool at Documentary Campus in Berlin and Munich.
As part of the festival’s wider collaboration with film schools, the selection jury comprises students from its academic network: Sofia Y Silva (Venezuela), Spyros Betsis (Greece), Ana-Stefana Pop (Romania) and Haluk Laman (Turkey). Selected participants will receive feedback on how to transform an idea into a fully realised project. They will also learn to develop a comprehensive pitch package, designed for presentation to the documentary and media community. The winning project, chosen by the lab jury, will receive a post-production prize, a professional colour-grading package for its final cut, worth €3,000, offered by award-winning colourist Dimitris Karteris. The lab will also be broadcast live on the festival’s YouTube channel.
The second edition of the Beyond Borders Co-Production Forum, “Meet Your Co-Producer in Kastellorizo,” returns with 15 senior-level professionals – directors, screenwriters, producers and executive producers – who will present their work and share case studies on completed films. In both in-person and online sessions, each participant will mentor at least one selected project. The forum is once again focused on the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Asia Minor (up to Iran), supporting underrepresented voices and encouraging meaningful co-productions from this wider region.
The tenth edition also features an enhanced academic and educational component. The festival’s Film School Network continues to expand, now including 14 partner institutions across Southeastern and Central Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. These include the Stavrakos Film School and Aristotle University (Greece), Łódź Film School (Poland), NATFA (Bulgaria), the Beirut Film Institute (Lebanon), the Munich Film School (Germany), the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (Serbia) and the Escuela Nacional de Cine (Venezuela), among others. The partnership enables students to participate in various festival activities, from the pitching jury and programming teams to the μicro-competition.
Finally, a new initiative this year is the special industry-focused event hosted in collaboration with the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece. The event will present the Audiovisual Sector Outreach Program, part of the centre’s new cultural policy tools designed to strengthen the visibility of Greek audiovisual works domestically and abroad. The programme focuses on five main pillars: supporting festivals in Greece, promoting Greek films abroad, reinforcing their distribution, enhancing outreach through the Creative Hub, and coordinated representation of Greece and its creative sector at international institutions, festivals and fairs.
Here are the selected ideas for the 2025 Audiovisual Pitching Lab:
Ona Dává, On Bere – Carson Beale (Czech Republic)
Hyrcania – Helmut Dosantos (Mexico)
The Mouflon Project – Lorenzo Faggi (Italy)
Power in Differences – Fridoon Joinda (Greece/Afghanistan)
The Other Side of Meteora – Renata Kotti Domprets (Greece)
Last Shift – Ioannis Lazaridis (Greece)
Don Quixote of Masnou – Linda Osusky (Austria)
Fragments of Humanity – Maros Pulscak (Slovakia)
Veiled Village – Komeil Soheili (Iran)
My Huta – Hanna Trofimova (Ukraine)
Farafina – Koussé Yssouf (Burkina Faso)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
