Description
DOK. Restart is a project, which, through the clever shaping of documentary films in the late stage of production, helps gain a wider audience and shows them new possibilities on the digitalized market. Poland has a strong documentary tradition, but like many other East European countries it still has problems to express this potential and sell it internationally. Every year Wajda School experiences talented filmmakers with a potential to speak to a worldwide audience, but after completing the school only few manage to break onto the international scene. Therefore, the school’s long-term goal is to support promising filmmakers internationally. With DOK. Restart we aim to bring into Poland the newest knowledge about the fast changing documentary market, and the revolution in film distribution along with audience behavior catalyzed by fast growing digital media. Scandinavian countries with a clever system of film support are leading this development. The Norwegian Film Institute and the Icelandic Film Centre, are the most important film institutions from the donor countries. The aim of the project is to transfer the best know-how about film distribution, audience targeting and clever film marketing, to Polish film professionals. In open competition six most promising Polish documentary projects will be selected and through the theoretical conference and the four-day practical workshop their teams will make a clever strategy for strong content and a wide film release. The most promising participant projects will be invited for a follow-up session at the DOK Leipzig festival to meet key potential film buyers.
Summary of project results
DOK. Restart was a project, which, through the clever shaping of documentary films in the late stage of production, helped gain a wider audience and shows them new possibilities on the digitalized market. Poland has a strong documentary tradition, but like many other East European countries it still has problems to express this potential and sell it internationally. Every year Wajda School experiences talented filmmakers with a potential to speak to a worldwide audience, but after completing the school only few manage to break onto the international scene. Therefore, the school’s long-term goal is to support promising filmmakers internationally. DOK. Restart aimed to bring into Poland the newest knowledge about the fast changing documentary market, and the revolution in film distribution along with audience behavior catalyzed by fast growing digital media. Scandinavian countries with a clever system of film support are leading this development. The Norwegian Film Institute and the Icelandic Film Centre, are the most important film institutions from the donor countries. The aim of the project was to transfer the best know-how about film distribution, audience targeting and clever film marketing, to Polish film professionals. In open competition most promising Polish documentary projects were selected and through the theoretical conference and the four-day practical workshop their teams made a clever strategy for strong content and a wide film release. The most promising participant projects were invited for a follow-up session at the DOK Leipzig festival to meet key potential film buyers.
Summary of bilateral results
The Norwegian Film Institute and the Icelandic Film Centre, are the most important film institutions from the donor countries. The cooperation on practical film issues created a real relationship between the artists, experts, and participants. Giving the Polish filmmakers the tools to express themselves, enabled dialogue between Poland and the rest of Europe and helped Europe itself to understand its diversity and the variety of its own identity. The project aimed to bridge the gap between Polish film industry and their most advanced, Scandinavian colleagues, in order to make Polish cinematography more competitive in the reality of the global economy.