DOCS IN THESSALONIKI - PITCHING FORUM 2003
5-9 March
Hotel Minerva - Wednesday - Friday, 5-7 March 2003
Olympion II - Saturday - Sunday, 8-9 March 2003
(The two last days are open to all festival-goers)

Organized by the European Documentary Network (EDN) in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival "Images of the 21st Century" and supported by MEDIA Promotion and Eureka Audiovisual.

Approximately 24 young and experienced producers from Greece, Spain, Italy, Finland, the U.K., Switzerland, Turkey, Ireland, and the Balkan countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Slovenia and FYROM will be participating in a five-day intensive workshop of training and information.

The participants will be given a general overview of the market situation for documentaries in Western Europe and will meet with international experts and colleagues, who will help them improve and target their projects to the international market.

Each producer brings along a documentary project for the workshop. Colleague producers and experts from other European countries give feedback on the contents, the presentation and the international potential of the projects.

The main objective, however, is to prepare for pitching to a panel of European commissioning editors from a handful of countries. On the morning of Saturday and Sunday (8-9March), the projects will be pitched in public to the panellists, with individual meetings to follow in the afternoon. The commissioning editors participating are: Christian Popp (SFB, ARTE, Germany), Martin Pieper (ZDF/ARTE, Germany), Bill Binnemans (RTBF, Belgium), Helen Vlachos (ERT, Greece), Demetri Sofianopoulos (Greek Film Centre), Rada Sesic (Jan Vrijman Fund, The Netherlands), Ger van Dongen (NCRV, The Netherlands), Leena Pasanen (YLE Teema, Finland), Ronnie Griens (RVU, The Netherlands), Evangelia Andasioti (ERT, Greece), Jenny Westergard (YLE FST, Finland).

"Docs in Thessaloniki - Pitching Forum 2003" gives the independent producer a unique opportunity to present a project internationally, to meet with colleagues, and create alliances for future collaboration in Europe.

Team of tutors and organizers:
Paul Pauwels (Periscope Productions, Belgium), Stefano Tealdi (Stefilm, Italy), Nenad Puhovski (Factum, Croatia), Ike Bertels (Ike Bertels Filmproducties, The Netherlands), Cecilia Lidin (EDN, Denmark), Jakob Hogel (Danish Film Institute, Denmark), Maria Leonida (Greece), Dimitri Eipides (Thessaloniki Documentary Festival), Maria Roussi (Thessaloniki Documentary Festival), and Anita Reher (EDN).

EDN (European Documentary Network) is a membership organisation with more than 700 members from 44 countries. The aim of EDN is to support, stimulate and network the European documentary sector, which is done through individual member-service and by organising seminars/workshops/fora with a focus on co-production and other kinds of collaboration across the borders. As a member, you receive the EDN TV-guide and six issues of DOX magazine, together with access to the EDN and DOX websites.

Please contact EDN:

Tel: +45 33 13 11 22
Fax: +45 33 13 11 44
Email: edn@edn.dk
www.edn.dk

Maria Roussi
Programme Co ordinator
TDF-Images of the 21st Century
40 Paparigopoulou Str
11473 Athens, Greece
Tel:+30210 6453669
Fax:+30210 6448143