Dragon Forum

Dragon Forum 2009 ended with success!

The last part of this year's edition – workshops and pitching, took place between 1-5 of June during  the Krakow Film Festival in the Manggha Centre of Japanese Art and Technology. 

During the two-day pitching preparatory workshop, its participants worked on the final versions of the trailers and practiced speaking in public under the watchful eyes of tutors: Simone Baumann, Marcel Łoziński, Rada Sesic, Dorota Roszkowska and Steven Seidenberg. It was the last moment, when participants could take under consideration their valuable comments on the presentation and the trailer. Participants used a specially prepared editing room. 

There also were held open lectures of the Dragon Forum: Patricia Finneran presented the history and rules of the Sundance Institute, possibilities of workshops for filmmakers and co-financing of film projects; Mikael Opstrup presented the history and rules of the EDN - European Documentary Network, possibilities of joining the network and the membership benefits were discussed.

Andrzej Wajda

Days were filled with hard work on the projects, and evenings and nights were spent at festival screenings and dinners in lovely Krakow restaurants. 

The energy, however, had to be saved for the final pitching – a meeting with the commissioning editors. Between 3-4 of June there were presented 27 film projects from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary, Russia, Germany, Slovenia, Italy and Israel. 

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Commissioning Editors

At the editorial table there sat commissioning editors and experts:
Sabine Bubeck-Paaz

Commissioning editor, ARTE ZDF, Mainz, Germany

Patricia Finneran

Senior Consultant, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute, Beverly Hills, USA

Kuba Karyś

Discovery TVN History, Warsaw, Poland

Bert Janssens

Commissioning editor, Humanist Broadcasting Foundation, Hilversum, The Netherlands

Cynthia Kane

Programming Manager ITVS Independent Television Service, San Francisco, USA

Krzysztof Koehler

TVP Kultura director, Warsaw, Poland

Maren Niemeyer

Commissioning editor, NDR/ARTE, Hamburg, Germany

Barbara Paciorkowska

Documentary and Current Reportage Department Head, TVP2, Warsaw, Poland

Barbara Pawłowska

Documentary and Current Reportage Department Head, TVP1, Warsaw, Poland

Wim van Rompaey

Commissioning editor,  Lichtpunt, Brussels, Belgium

Dr. Claudia Schreiner

Programming Director, Culture and Science, MDR/ARD, Leipzig, Germany

Anna Skonieczna

TV and Film Production Director, HBO, Warsaw, Poland

Jenny Westergard

Commissioning editor, YLE, TV FST, Helsinki, Finland

Although the projects were well received, the editors were quick to raise criticism where justified and any weak points were noted and discussed . Many projects met with great interest and co-production negotiations have already started. 

Apart from the public presentation, participants had also an opportunity to talk directly with editors  during the coordinated individual meetings.

Awards

The Sponsor of the Dragon Forum – HBO Polska awarded a special mention to 'General Barsky' a project from Israel and TV and Film Production Director at HBO, Anna Skonieczna, presented the HBO Development Award to director Amir Yatzivov and producer Yealov Mozer. 

„General Barsky”, Amir Yatziv, Yariv Mozer

The story takes place inside the split word of Yevgeniy, a Russian Israeli, who participates in international war games. It is a journey that combines simulation and reality and that poses a question about identity, nationality and the manly need to fight.

The Dragon Forum Organizers Prize went to the authors of the 'Antis' project – director Giedre Zickyte and scriptwriter Kestitus Navakas and to Jerzy Bojanowski for his project 'Zuzia’.

„Antis”, Giedre Zickyte, Kestius Navakas, Dagne Vildziunaite

Who destroyed the Soviet Union? Jeans and rock music – claims Vaclav Havel. Young filmmakers from Lithuania claim, that it was the Lithuanian rock band Antis – a New Year’s carnival, which transformed into the Singing Revolution. This version seems to be so true, that after watching this film the Soviet Union would collapse again. 

„Zuzia”, Jerzy Bojanowski, Darek Dikti

Poland in the 1970s. Three students challenge the communist government – they want to print forbidden books. They gain illegal money, buy a copier in Paris and smuggle it to Poland through London. The film is about how easy it is to change the world when you are twenty.

We would like to congratulate all the mentioned projects and we are looking forward to seeing the completed films.

The prizes were awarded during the closing ceremony of the 49 Krakow Film Festival in the Kijów cinema. In the evening there was a party closing the Festival in the Manggha Centre. 

Guests 

Among the many great guests who visited us at the pitching there were: Andrzej Wajda, founder and host of the Maggha Centre, Czech documentary filmmaker Karel Vachek, Giennadiy Kofman - the head of the DocuDays Festival in Kiev, Donata von Perfal - director of the Documentary Campus, Andrea Pregnyhova - director of the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague, Simon Ho from the Guanzhuo International Documentary Film Festival and Christine Hille from Leipzig Documentary Film Festival.
The observers were also present: directors, producers, festival organizers and journalists.

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Zakończenie

The last day of the Dragon Forum was devoted to the general evaluation of this year's edition. We would like to warmly thank all the participants, lecturers and editors for their valuable comments. Those comments showed that the Dragon Forum is an event on an increasingly higher level – it attracts outstanding filmmakers with very interesting projects, it gives a possibility to professionally develop project unders the watchful eye of great experts both at the workshops and at meetings with film professionals. At the same time, the demands of both the market and the participants are increasing – we will try to come up to these expectations organizing successive editions of the Dragon Forum. 

In the end, the participants were taken underground to the beautiful Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow. When walking through the underground chambers decorated with salt sculptures, one could recover from several days full of emotions and perhaps find inspiration for another film...

We would like to sincerely thank all those who were willing to meet us under the wings of the Dragon! 

We would also thank those who enabled us to spread those wings.  

Stay alert. Soon the Dragon will belch fire again. 

The next edition of the Dragon Forum starts already in Autumn!

Most up-to-date news always at HYPERLINK "http://www.dragonforum.pl"www.dragonforum.pl 

Organisers of the Dragon Forum: 

http://www.arkanastudio.pl/"Arkana Studio

http://www.cff.pl/"Krakow Film Foundation

 "http://www.przyszloscmediow.pl/"International Association Future of Media

Dragon Forum Partners :

  http://www.mediadesk.com.pl/"Media Program

 http://www.pisf.pl/"Polish Film Institute

 http://www.visegradfund.org/"International Visegrad Fund

  http://www.sfp.org.pl/"The Association of Polish Filmmakers

 http://www.wajdaschool.pl/"The Andrzej Wajda Masterschool of Film Directing

http://www.hbo-centraleurope.com/"HBO Central Europe

 http://www.goethe.de/ins/pl/war/plindex.htm"Goethe-Institut Warschau 

http://www.hfhrpol.waw.pl/festival/"Social Institut of Film

http://www.filmschool.lodz.pl"The National Film, Television & Theatre School - Łódź, Poland

http://www.edn.dk/"European Documentary Network

 http://www.docudays.org.ua/"Ukrainian Documentary Film Center

 http://www.civilhirado.hu/"Hungarian Society of Directors

 http://www.stopklatka.pl/"Stopklatka.pl

Jenny Westergard, Bert Janssens
and  Maren Niemeyer

Sabine Bubeck-Paaz and Wim van Rompey

Cynthia Kane

Anna Skonieczna and  Claudia Schreiner

Claudia Schreiner and Ewa Slezak

Barbara Paciorkowska and Barbara Pawłowska

Giovanni Pompili, Simone Baumann
and Alberto Fasulo

Anna Błaszczyk, Steven Seidenberg
and Łukasz Czajka

Maciej Żemojcin, Marcel Łoziński and Krzysztof Sołek

Dymytro Konovalov, Gennadij Kofmann
and Rada Sesic

Andrzej Wajda during a ceremonial financiers’ dinner in one of the Krakow restaurants, editors: Bert Janssens, Patricia Finneran, Cynthia Kane and Sabine Bubeck-Paaz.

Prizewinners:  Jerzy Bojanowski, Giedre Zickyte,
Amir Yatziv and Yariv Mozer 

Yariv Mozer, Amir Yatziv and Anna Skonieczna

Eva Rink, Donata von Perfal and Patricia Finneran 

Simon Ho, Yu Qiong and Wojtek Szczudło

Andrzej Wajda, Radim Prochazka, Karel Vachek and Dorota Roszkowska

Krzysztof Koehler and Tibor Kocsis