“In a lot of the countries that we represent, there is a harsh political and social situation, and people don’t have many opportunities to meet”
– We spoke to the programme director about this year’s edition of the market, the event’s distribution service and its aims for the future
Veronika Janatková, the new programme director at the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF) and East Doc Platform (EDP), spoke to us about the industry event, which took place from 19-25 March in Prague.
Cineuropa: This is your first year as programme director at East Doc Platform. How would you weigh up this edition?
Veronika Janatková: I started in September, so I’m still learning. But I have been involved in documentaries for many years, so it feels like home. I think we managed to have a catalogue of projects that are very strong, and which reflect the time we live in and the way people are thinking about the world around them. There’s actually a kind of imprint made by our region through these films. At the same time, in a lot of the countries that we represent, there is a harsh political and social situation, and people don’t have many opportunities to meet, because the funding is decreasing. I’m very happy that we managed to invite people to meet and talk face to face.
What makes East Doc Market a worthwhile event to attend?
East Doc Market brings together filmmakers from the entire Central Eastern European region; it’s a big part of Europe. So, you can encounter stories from a really large segment of the industry. We also cover a broad range of project stages, and we look into what the market needs and how to support filmmakers. At one point, we added the market for projects that are not only in development or in production, but also at a later stage. We help them connect with festival selectors, and maybe help them find a post-production house or a sales agent. Also, this is the third year that we’ve done a short pitch together with our partner Millennium Docs Against Gravity, because for the short documentary format, there are not so many industry events, so we partnered up to try to develop this new model. I think it needs to stay alive as a format.
Considering the 14 projects selected for this year’s edition of the market [see the news], what trends have you observed in the production of documentaries today?
What I’ve noticed is that people used to talk about tales of heroes and success stories, and now I feel more and more that there is a certain courage to also share stories of fragility and vulnerability. I believe it’s closer to the lived experience of all of us. And I appreciate this courage to be able to share these kinds of stories. I had the privilege to see almost 300 applications for the East Doc Platform, and you really sense a kind of imprint of time and space, and how people are reflecting this.
This year’s Silver Eye Award was handed to Inside, a short film [see the news]. The winner benefits from a distribution service through the East Doc Caravan. How does it work?
East Doc Caravan is our distribution service that helps filmmakers bring their movies to the world through festivals. We come up with a tailored strategy for each movie and support the filmmakers in creating proper promotional material. The institute has been active for 25 years, so we know the programmers, we know their choices and their preferences, and we can target the festivals more precisely, but also, through the fact that we are representing the filmmakers, they will get more attention through our support. We have decided to work with shorts as well as features, and for some topics and styles, short films are indeed more appropriate.
Inside talks about the choices women can or cannot make when it comes to abortion. And for the style that the director chose, that was the proper format. But as well as the strategy and positioning, we also send at least 80 submissions to festivals on behalf of the filmmaker. So, also thanks to my experience as producer, I believe this is very valuable.
What is East Doc Market’s general aim for the future?
I’d like to find a way to link up with other segments of civil society – not only with people from our documentary world, but also to make more alliances with folks from journalism and from the NGO sector, and to think in a more cross-cutting way. Because I think that for each and every topic that we’ve seen in films here, there are people in many other sectors who are already working with them.
The second thing I would like to do is to introduce residencies for filmmakers. They would be for filmmakers from countries that are being torn apart by war or run by authoritarian regimes, or for people facing job insecurity. I think there are not enough residencies for them, and it would be great if we could introduce one. It would be challenging for funding reasons, but it would be great to offer at least short-term residencies to have the luxury of offering peace of mind and space to focus only on the film.
At a time of deepfakes and AI, what is the role of documentary filmmaking?
It’s a time of deepfakes, but also a time where the people in power are trying to shift what history was, and to manipulate the way events are remembered and recorded. And I feel that, by making documentaries, we can kind of freeze time and make sure that memories, positions or statements are recorded and will stay that way. So, if somebody tries to rewrite history, we will have films to show how it was perceived from the filmmaker’s position, and I think that’s important.
