EAST SILVER DOC MARKET
October 24 - 28 2007
DKO, Tolstého street 2, Jihlava, Czech Republic
For the fourth time already, East Silver, the annual Eastern European documentary market will open for you in Jihlava from the 24th to 28th of October and this year for the first time as a digital event!!! Without any costs on part of filmmakers of our countries, East Silver worked together with the Institute of Documentary Film and the team of Jihlava international documentary film festival obtaining sufficient funding from various funds throughout out the whole year and succeeded in promoting high quality documentaries from Eastern Europe as well as in making the important people watch & buy the films and come to Jihlava to meet their makers in person. So please don't hesitate and mark the extended weekend of the event in your diary. Not only it will help you promote the films you’ve produced already, but it will also open the ways of financing of your new projects for you.
What can you expect in Jihlava?
If you are a filmmaker, a festival program selector or television buyer, a film student or moviegoer, producer or distributor, you run a cinema or write about film art, you will have no problems obtaining the accreditation „Professional". Try flicking through the “Who is Who” industry catalogue which usually comes in English version, to find out when the persons that might be important to you will be in Jihlava. Go ahead and try to contact them. You can also find all of them concentrated at one place in the East Silver video library, where they may just be watching your film – and even if not, this is your opportunity to drive their attention to your film, as it’s naturally the best one! If you’re not rude, nobody will mind, they are used to it. Besides, it’s their job.
What’s the meaning of so called documentary market?
You can watch more than 370 great films from central and Eastern Europe, previews of upcoming movies and the wide selection of the festival program, which is full of surprises and documentary pralines. It's open from dusk till down – the fresh blood staff is ready to sit their backs off there from 9am to 10pm and give you advice, a nice free silver catalogue and your password to computers that you can book in advance to enjoy the movies. Or you might just want to await you professional Chance there! You can even enjoy the free coffee and water from our assistants - we understand how demanding it can be for a film professional to come home with notes about 500 viewed movies! That’s why we appreciate that they like to get a good advice from us about the selection or are glad to find the promo flyer of your film in their accreditation bags. We will gladly help you with promoting your film by distributing your flyers to targeted selection of professionals, and putting up your posters in the video library. We will invite you to presentations of Polish, Romanian, German and British producers, distributors, TV buyers and foundations representatives, which take place daily and start at 6pm. We have even prepared a little lecture on how to apply for a grant from Sun Dance Foundation. All that can be enjoyed in a pleasant informal atmosphere over a glass of wine.
What happens with your film after the festival?
East Silver is our local market, but by far it's not the only one worth participating in personally. After you complete your piece, you should look around, do your research and find out about the markets and festivals right for you, in order to make your documentary as visible as possible. There are far too many possibilities, therefore we have chosen and listed 15 the most important events in Europe and Canada for you. We will submit 30 selected documentaries to these festivals for free. If your movie is in the selection, there is no doubt that we find it more than worth seeing. After submission, we will present your movie personally in Berlin (Berlinale), Nyon (Vision du Reel), Linz (Crossing Europe), Toronto (Hot Docs), Kraków (Cracow FF), Budapest (Discop), La Rochelle (Sunny Side of the Doc), Carlsbad (IFFKV), Marseille (FID Marseille), Prizreni (DOKuFest Kosovo), Sarajevo (Sarajevo IFF), Leipzig (Leipzig IFF), Sheffield (Sheffield IDFF), Copenhagn (CPH DOX) and Amsterdam (IDFA). The TV buyers are used to receiving our catalogue, which we distribute every year to over 400 professionals worldwide. Apart from that we pay special attention to those buyers with active interest in documents from our region. We recommend films to them to suit their program structure and if they express interested in concrete films we provide them with direct contact of the distributor or producer of selected films or whoever is in charge of financial issues.
We promote and present your films to many other industry professionals personally at many international film festival and events. We are here to help you in all possible ways, so don't be afraid to ask us anything!
Miriam Šimková
East Silver Manager
Photos from the East Silver Caravan:
Miss Universe (Péter Forgács, 2006)
Who will teach me a Half of the Sign (Martin Ryšavý, 2006)
