The East Silver Doc Market 2007 will take place at the prestigious 11th Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival between October 23-28. The documentary film market is currently accepting submissions - the deadline is 30 June 2007. Registration is free for all eligible films which were produced in 2006–2007 and are subtitled into English. East Silver, the Jihlava festival and the East European Forum have a joint mission to promote outstanding Eastern and Central European documentaries and to improve the conditions of fllm production.
The second edition of Doku Arts, the Berlin-based documentary film festival focusing on art films, will take place in September 2007. The organisers are now accepting submissions - the deadline in June 1. The festival is a new European platform for international films on art. “While the focus lies on documentaries, there is also the chance to see films that are between fiction and documentary,” says the festival brochure. For more detailed terms of entry and festival regulations, look up the festival website at www.doku-arts.de or contact info@doku-arts.de.
Filmaka.com has announced a call for 1-3 minute films - this month’s topic is “Mistaken Identity.” Uploaded short films are juried by award-winning filmmakers including Werner Herzog, Neil LaBute, Paul Schrader and Wim Wenders.
Filmaka is a subscription-based online competition, which gives early-career filmmakers from around the world an opportunity to show their short films to industry professionals. The films are first voted on at the “entry level” (by fellow filmmakers), and then go to a jury for final selection. Submissions are accepted in 10 languages, and the annual grand prize is a feature film contract.
Narratives, documentaries, and music videos are welcome as long as the filmmaker owns rights to all content submitted. Visit http://www.filmaka.com to read the submission guidelines and terms & conditions.
MySpace launched its “MyMovie MashUp” in partnership with Vertigo Films to find the best short film director on MySpace. The winner will get to direct a feature film with a budget of over £1 million with the film scheduled for theatrical release in 2008.
Entries will be judged by a distinguished panel of filmmakers and actors who will select five finalists. The finalists then face a public vote by millions of MySpace users to decide the ultimate winner. The lucky winning director will immediately begin production on their feature film..
The deadline for submissions is 18 April, 2007.
Full details and competition rules are available at the MySpace competition page.
Organisers of the annual International Documentary Challenge will be holding the event on March 1-5 this year. The Challenge is a timed filmmaking competition in which filmmaking teams from around the world have 5 days to make a short non-fiction film of 4-8 minutes.
The final product will be presented at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in April. The film will also be sold to television, released on DVD and its creators will be promoted at festivals around the world.
The Challenge is sponsored by Hot Docs, SILVERDOCS, the International Documentary Association, the Documentary Organisation of Canada and the creators of the 48 Hour Film Project.
You can read more and register on the International Documentary Challenge website.
Of 143 presented projects, 24 have been selected for the DocsBarcelona Pitching Forum on 1-2 February. The public Pitching Sessions will be held between 10 am-2 pm on both days. Here is the distinguished jury of commissioning editors:
BBC – James Hayes (United Kingdom), ERT – Kostas Spiropoulos (Greece), Humanistische Omroep - Bert Janssens (The Netherlands), Lichtpunt – Wim Van Rompaey (Belgium), ORF – Burgl Czeitschner (Austria), SVT – Vera Bonnier (Sweden), TVC – Jordi Ambrós (Spain), TVE – Jesús González (Spain), YLE – Jenny Westergård (Finland).
Registration is now open for observer places at the forum. This registration also gives access to all the screenings of the Festival and the Xtra Activities, such as the masterclasses of Jean-Louis Comolli and Victor Kossakovsky. The deadline for registration is 25 January.
For more details see http://www.docsbarcelona.com/
