Docu Rough Cut
NO PLACE FOR YOU IN OUR TOWN
Dir. Nikolay Stefanov
Bulgaria
Docu Rough Cut Boutique
Archive 2023
In the last thirteen years, Docu RCB became the leading regional program for documentaries in post-production coming from South East Europe and the Caucuses. Created by the Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center, the platform is organized in three working modules, culminating with a special presentation of the projects within CineLink Industry Days at Sarajevo Film Festival.
Since 2022, we have expanded our eligible countries by including Ukraine. Last year we also began a new collaboration with EFM Toolbox program, which promotes diversity and access to filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds. To celebrate this, we are happy to present the new selection for 2023 at a special event during Berlinale.
The interest in the workshop has grown tremendously and we received projects from many countries in the region, even from those with a very small cinema production. The selection process was one of the hardest ones in these last thirteen years of our program. The high quality of the narratives and outstanding singular cinematic voices in the received submissions gave the selection committee long hours of watching, discussing, and interviewing the applicants.
In the end, we reached our decision and are happy to announce the new five documentary projects’ teams, which will join us in the next months to work extensively on their cuts and final stages before premiering.
Statement from Rada Sesic and Martichka Bozhilova, directors of Docu RCB:
We remain faithful to our primary standpoint to have creative, author-driven, and ambitious documentaries from the region and to support their exciting endeavors.
We believe that these five remarkable, out-of-the-box upcoming films will bring into the limelight important narratives that are bursting with the necessity to be shared with the rest of the world. Interestingly, in most selected projects, we follow the events for a decade or even longer, starting from intimate, strongly personal, and moving towards universal and internationally relevant.
A few directors are making feature-length debuts, and all five are trying hard to work within their refined cinematic handwriting. Out of five projects, four are directed or co-directed by female authors.
Having great respect for the projects and being honored by the trust of their makers to work within our Rough Cut Boutique modules, we look eagerly forward to welcoming them in three different cities, starting from Sofia, where the Balkan Documentary Center is based, and ending with a great finale with a presentation to a big group of relevant decision-makers at CineLink during Sarajevo Film Festival in August.
Selected projects:
Your Life Without Me
Director: Anna Rubi
Producer: Áron Szentpéteri
Editor: Júlia Hack
Production Company: Somnus Film
Co-producer: Annika Hellström, Erika Malmgren
Co-production company (Sweden): Cinenic Film
Country: Hungary, Sweden
ON & OFF ALICE (working title)
Director: Isabela von Tent
Producer: Irina Malcea-Candea
Editor: Letitia Stefanescu
Production Company: Luna Film
Country: Romania
Part of Society
Director: Rati Tsiteladze
Producer: Olga Slusareva
Editor: Rati Tsiteladze
Production Company: ArtWay Film
Country: Georgia
PAVILION 6
Director: Goran Dević
Producer: Hrvoje Osvadić
Editor: Vanja Siruček
Production Company: Petnaesta umjetnost
Country: Croatia
Dad’s Lullaby
Director: Lesia Diak
Producer: Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan, Lesia Diak
Editor: Andrei Gorgan, Lesia Diak
Production Company: “Filmways”, Romania
Country: Ukraine, Romania
Docu Rough Cut Boutique is co-funded by Creative Europe MEDIA program of the EU with the support of Bulgarian National Film Center.
Editing session, Sofia '23
Dimitra Kouzi is an award-winning filmmaker, creative producer, journalist, and audience developer. Since 2013, she has led audience campaigns for European documentaries (La Chana, Nowhere to Hide, Siberian Love, Communion, Reconciliation, Radiograph of a Family, The Balcony Movie). She is an audience producer and tutor at BDC Discoveries, Doku Rough Cut Boutique, and Sarajevo’s Docu Rough Cut Boutique pitching workshop, working to support filmmakers in developing their projects and reaching audiences effectively.
Rada Šešić is a festival programmer, film director, critic, and lecturer originally from the former Yugoslavia, now based in Utrecht, Netherlands. She has collaborated with IDFA Amsterdam for over 15 years and has led the Documentary Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival for 13 years. She co-heads the Docu Rough Cut Boutique and works with the Doha Film Fund and the Trieste Film Festival’s Last Stop Trieste platform. Rada also teaches at the Netherlands Film Academy and mentors at numerous international workshops across Europe and Asia.
Ilian Metev, originally trained as a classical violinist, grew up between Bulgaria and Germany before graduating from the UK’s National Film and Television School in 2008. His debut feature, Sofia’s Last Ambulance (2012), offers an intimate look at three Bulgarian medics and premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, earning a Camera d’Or nomination and the Visionary Award. His second feature, 3/4 (2017), premiered at Locarno and won the Golden Leopard. His films have been widely broadcast, theatrically released, and recognized with 45 awards, including a showcase at MoMA in New York.
Ivo Trajkov works as a director, film editor, screenwriter and story editor. He was born in Macedonia and graduated from FAMU in Prague. He has written/directed 8 feature-length films in several countries for which he received numerous awards. His last film “The Ballad of Piargy” win 123 international awards. Three of his feature films were Macedonia’s nominee for the best foreign-language film for Academy Awards. As a producer and story editor Ivo Trajkov was involved in more than 120 episodes of a critically acclaimed documentary series “Unexplained Deaths”. He works as story editor and editing supervisor for more than 30 films every year.
Noemi Schory is an independent producer and director with over 100 documentaries to her name, created for Israeli broadcasters and international co-productions. Her credits include A Film Unfinished, A Snail in the Desert, God Forbid, Israel’s Generals, The Inner Tour, and several chapters of the Tkuma series. She also produced all the historical films for the Yad Vashem museum. Noemi lectures on production at Tel Aviv University and mentors at documentary labs in Goa, Sarajevo, Budapest, and Tbilisi.
Renata Barić has extensive experience as a sports psychologist, working with numerous athletes and trainers of various sports in the field of psychological preparation. She was member of the quad scull’s training team for the London Olympic Games 2012 (silver medal), the Croatian water polo representation for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (silver medal), and was a sports psychologist of several athletes of individual sports in Rio 2016. She is the official sports psychologist of the Croatian Water Polo where she works on the psychological preparation of men’s representation, U-20 men’s water polo representation and female representation.
Docu Rough Cut
Dir. Nikolay Stefanov
Bulgaria