Nine outstanding documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the upcoming 12 months – the Docu Talents from the East – were presented yesterday as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Projects from Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine made it to the final selection of Docu Talents from the East 2022.

The Docu Talent Award was granted to the most promising project. The international jury selected a personal story from contemporary Ukraine Dad’s Lullaby, directed and produced by Lesia Diak. The award is accompanied with financial prize 5,000 USD, in cooperation with the festival’s partner Current Time TV. The jury gave the following statement, “A heartfelt depiction of a life under impossible circumstances. Such a personal story is a valuable way to understand the scars of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.”

The 3,000 EUR in-kind DAFilms.com Distribution Award was awarded to an archive-constructed film about unofficial history told from the women's perspective Between Revolutions [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Vlad Petri
scheda film] by Romanian director Vlad Petri and produced by Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan. The award covers international VOD release on DAFilms.com (including Americas, Europe, Asia) for two years. The jury stated, “A true international co-production, it uses a unique method of letter-reading to express a friendship that survives revolutions, regimes and time itself; and has relevance to a world that needs female solidarity as much as ever today.”

“All of the selected films do not only explore the phenomena of our day-and-age, but also ask questions about how our choices shape our own future – whether as an individual, a particular social group or an entire society,” said Marek Hovorka, director of the Ji.hlava IDFF, organiser of the initiative.

Representatives of the Ji.hlava IDFF also presented the results of this year’s East West Index – an exclusive survey among key European documentary film festivals, which focuses on figures representing individual regions. “While Eastern European festivals screen almost half of the European films produced in Western Europe, the reverse is only 15% - less than one in six European films screened by Western European festivals is from the Eastern European region,”, commented Hovorka, which has been conducting the annual survey since 2019. Read the full survey here.

The festival also unveiled the names of the 2023 Emerging Producers, 17 European producers who will be accompanied by a producer from Qatar, which is the guest country of the year. As usual, Cineuropa will publish interviews with each participant by the end of the programme. Check the full list of participants here.

Lastly, here is the full list of the projects which participated at the Docu Talents from the East programme:

What's To Be Done? [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Goran Dević
scheda film] - Goran Dević (Croatia)
Producer: Hrvoje Osvadić
Production company: Petnaesta umjetnost

World Between Us [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] - Marie Dvořáková (Czech Republic/Slovakia/USA)
Producers: Pavel Berčík, Marie Dvořáková, HBO Europe, PubRes
Production company: Evolution Films

Yoyogi - Max Golomidov (Estonia/Japan)
Producers: Volia Chajkouskaya, Ivo Felt
Production company: Allfilm

Street Poets - Edyta Adamczak, Michał Mądracki (Poland)
Producer: Edyta Adamczak
Production company: MML studio

Between Revolutions [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Vlad Petri
scheda film] - Vlad Petri (Romania/Iran/Croatia/Qatar)
Producer: Elena Martín
Production company: Activ Docs

The Boundaries of Fidelity - Diana Fabiánová (Slovakia/Czech Republic)
Producer: Silvia Panáková
Production company: Dayhey

Dad's Lullaby - Lesia Diak (Ukraine)
Producer: Lesia Diak

You Know it's Going to Be about War (working title) - Olha Tsybulska (Norway/Ukraine) (medium-length film)
Producer: John Emil Richardsen
Production company: Montevideo Tromsø AS

Tomorrow - Khosro Khosravi (Hungary/Portugal/Belgium/Iran)
Producer: Khosro Khosravi
Production company: DocNomads