19th Annual Pavel Koutecký Award | February 2025, Prague

Industry history: ELBE DOCK

Both of our international film festivals - ELBE DOCK and YOUNG FILM FEST, which have merged into the BOO Festival, have a successful history of industry programs. ELBE DOCK's industry has focused primarily on aspiring filmmakers and connecting the Czech and German film industries together with the other V4 countries. We welcomed a number of international experts from screenwriting, dramaturgy, marketing, sales, film festivals, video games, new media, VR, as well as other cultural and creative industries. YOUNG FILM FEST's industry program has focused on themes related to audiovisual production for children and youth, audiovisual education and video games in the context of education in a long and systematic way.

 

2024

The FILM INN workshops, which took place as part of the Czech programme of the festival in Ústí nad Labem, dealt with the themes and environment of short filmmaking with a focus on script development and festival strategy. The workshops also included several masterclasses focused on the use of artificial intelligence in storytelling (Markus Walsch and Taç Romey), film marketing (Nicolò Gallio) and short film festival dramaturgy (Alexandra Gramatke). More information about the workshops, including their recordings, can be found HERE.

Participants of the Story editing workshop worked on script development under the guidance of experienced lecturer Anne Gensior and the Producers workshop was led by marketing strategist Nicolò Gallio.

 

About the lecturers:

Anne Gensior

International script consultant for feature and documentary films based in Berlin, workshop lecturer and mentor and consultant for funds and co-production markets. She is a long-time collaborator as a tutor with MIDPOINT Feature Launch, CineSud ScriptLab, the RACCONTI script development program and the Turkish producer workshop YAPIMLAB. She regularly appears at EAVE Workshops and also teaches screenwriting at the Kunstakademie Münster. After graduating in playwriting from HMT Leipzig in 2005, Anne also worked as a theatre dramaturg, festival curator and radio show curator before joining the team of the script development agency Script House in Berlin.

 

Nicolò Gallio

Marketing and communications consultant with experience in PR, media relations and content management for films, festivals, brands and non-profit organizations. He currently works as a consultant for TorinoFilmLab Audience Design Fund and works as a researcher and strategist at Alphapanda, a Berlin-based film marketing agency supporting writers, filmmakers and producers in feature films, documentaries and TV series. He is also a trainer for international film development initiatives and holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Bologna (Italy), where he focused on the relationship between production, consumption and critical reception of audiovisual works in offline and DIS environments.

 

Markus Walsch 

Creative media professional with expertise in the use of artificial intelligence in the creation and development of films and TV series. He has a background in journalism and digital media production and has developed numerous television, radio and online formats for public and private media. Markus has been nominated for an International Emmy Award and other awards. He also works as a coach and trainer for content marketing and AI-storytelling. Markus is always hugely enthusiastic about AI-forms, consistently researching new developments in AI and looking for ways to incorporate it into the development of films and TV series.

 

Prof. Taç Romey

Expert in storytelling, dramaturgy and film. He studied acting, directing and playwriting at Brown University in the USA, and is behind a number of TV series and films, as well as a screenwriter and director. Taç is the founder and managing director of Phantomfilm GmbH in Munich and Amsterdam, where he produced, among other things, the award-winning Amazon series "Der Lack ist ab". He is also a professor at the HFF Munich, where he teaches storytelling, character development and screenwriting. His projects have received several nominations and awards, including an International Emmy Award and the German Television Award.

 

Alexandra Gramatke 

Managing Director of Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg, distributor of short films and organiser of the annual Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. She has also curated short film programmes for festivals, Goethe Institutes and others. From 2009 to 2017 she headed the selection committee of the German competition of the Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg and was a member of many international juries for short films. She studied Slavic and German literature. After graduation she worked as a freelance translator of literature and documentary films. In 1994 she joined the Hamburg documentary filmmakers' group "thede". Here she made several films, such as "20 Violins in St. Pauli". In addition, she worked as a producer and editor.

 

Together with our guests in a round table discussion, we took a journey with a short film from the initial stages of its development to the moment when it reaches the audience and critics. We stopped at film markets, workshops, networking opportunities, festivals, cinemas, and navigated the online waters in an attempt to answer the question of where the final destination of this journey lies.

Guests:

  • Alexandra Gramatke - Managing Director of KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg and Member of the Board of Directors of AG Kurzfilm
  • Hrönn Marinósdóttir - co-founder and director of the Reykjavik International Film Festival
  • Birgitte Weinberger - Artistic Director of OFF - Odense International Film Festival
  • Nicolò Gallio - marketing and communication consultant (Alphapanda, TorinoFilmLab Audience Design Fund) 

 

International activities FILM INN

Presentation of the Czech film industry with a focus on the German film market at the Budapest Debut Film Forum (Budapest, Hungary)

Radka Hoffman, Head of Industry ELBE DOCK and Young Film Fest, presented the current situation of the Czech film industry in the context of the German film market, especially in the area of film festivals, at the Budapest Debut Film Forum.

 

Workshop at the ŻUBROFFKA International Short Film Festival (Białystok, Poland)

As part of the 18th ŻUBROFFKA International Short Film Festival in Białystok, Poland, a follow-up workshop FILM INN for filmmakers from the V4 countries took place. The workshop focused on topics related to sales, festival strategies, marketing and cooperation with a sales agent. The mentor of the workshop was sales agent Grégoire Féron from Salaud Morisset (Film Production & Distribution | Berlin - Paris).



2023

The FILM INN workshops, which took place in both festival venues - Ústí nad Labem and Dresden - were aimed at aspiring screenwriters and producers and the short films they develop. They worked intensively on their projects with the help of experienced mentors and other speakers at the festival.

The workshop program was accompanied by masterclasses on independent film distribution, the use of AI in storytelling, short film festival dramaturgy, an online webinar focused on the construction and ending of short films, as well as informal networking combined with a discussion on the state of short filmmaking in the V4 countries and Germany.

 

Lecturers and speakers:

Anne Gensior

Anne Gensensor is an international script consultant for feature and documentary films based in Berlin, a workshop lecturer and mentor, and a consultant for funds and co-production markets. She is a long-term collaborator and trainer with MIDPOINT Feature Launch, CineSud ScriptLab, RACCONTI script development program and YAPIMLAB, a Turkish producer workshop. She regularly appears at EAVE Workshops and also teaches screenwriting at the Kunstakademie Münster. After graduating in playwriting from HMT Leipzig in 2005, Anne also worked as a theatre dramaturg, festival curator and radio show curator before joining the team of the script development agency Script House in Berlin.

 

Sasha Prokopenko

Festival dramaturg, film curator and translator based in Kiev, Ukraine. For the last four years she has been the head of the programming section at the Kiev International Short Film Festival. Sasha has participated in several film festivals as a curator and jury member. She also works with the Molodist International Film Festival in Kiev and Ukraine's first LGBTQIA+ film festival Sunny Bunny. Since 2016 she has been working at KyivMusicFilm, an independent film distribution company that distributes films about art, music and culture. Among others, Sasha has worked at 100 Films in 100 Minutes (2017-2022), INTRO Film Festival about music and culture (2018-2023) and Kino Susidiv International Film Festival in Uzhhorod, Transcarpathia (2022-2023).

 

Gaia Meucci-Astley 

Independent consultant and script assessor for talent support initiatives with over 10 years of experience working with new and emerging filmmakers. From 2012 to 2021, she was the dramaturg for the Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol, curating UK and international competitions and special programmes. Prior to that, she was dramaturg of the short film programme at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. She is passionate about stories and new work and has been putting all her experience into talent development work since 2021. She has worked with organisations such as the BFI Network, Film Cymru, Focus Script at Cannes Cinéma de Demain, Torino Film Lab and LiM (Less is More).

 

Markus Walsch

Creative media professional with expertise in the use of artificial intelligence in the creation and development of films and TV series. He has a background in journalism and digital media production and has developed numerous TV, radio and online formats for public and private media. Markus has been nominated for an International Emmy Award and other awards. He also works as a coach and trainer for content marketing and AI-storytelling. Markus is always hugely enthusiastic about AI-forms, consistently researching new developments in AI and looking for ways to incorporate it into the development of films and TV series.

 

Prof. Taç Romey 

Expert in storytelling, dramaturgy and film. He studied acting, directing and playwriting at Brown University in the USA, is behind a number of TV series and films, is a screenwriter and director. Taç is the founder and managing director of Phantomfilm GmbH in Munich and Amsterdam, where he produced, among other things, the award-winning Amazon series "Der Lack ist ab". He is also a professor at the HFF Munich, where he teaches storytelling, character development and screenwriting. His projects have received several nominations and awards, including an International Emmy Award and the German Television Award.

 

Networking was linked to the German part of the ELBE DOCK IFF at GEH in Dresden. The main goal of this activity was to connect emerging producers and other filmmakers from the V4 region with their German colleagues. Thanks to the German-Visegrad context, the possibilities for cooperation could also be expanded.

The main guests of the discussion: 

  • Monica Koshka-Stein (Artistic Director of KUKI Young Short Film Festival Berlin)
  • Johanna Süß (Director of the Lichter International Film Festival in Frankfurt),
  • Krzysztof Sienkiewicz (organizer of the ŻUBROFFKA International Short Film Festival)
  • Karolína Davidová (film producer)

 

Follow-up workshop FILM INN at the ŻUBROFFKA International Short Film Festival (Białystok, Poland)

As part of the 17th ŻUBROFFKA International Short Film Festival in Bialystok, Poland, a follow-up FILM INN workshop for filmmakers from the V4 countries took place. The workshop focused on topics related to sales, festival strategies, marketing and cooperation with a sales agent. The workshop was mentored by Marcin Łuczaj from New Europe Film Sales.

 

2022

The industry programme this year took place mainly in the German part of the ELBE DOCK programme in the GEH facilities in Dresden. It included discussions and networking of creators from the V4 countries, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

 

Discussion: Creative Saxony and Ústí region

What is the role of the creative cultural industries in the recovery plan of these regions after the pandemic? What are the visions for the future? And what is the creative potential of Saxony and Usti? Discussion guests Lydia Göbel from the association Wir gestalten Dresden, Miroslav Koranda from kreativni.uk and Roman Černík from the Johan Centre for Contemporary Art and Education jointly opened up the topics of transformation and the challenges that lie ahead for both regions.

 

Discussion: Don't underestimate the young audience!

Monica Koshka-Stein from the KUKI Young Short Film Festival in Berlin, Radka Hoffman from the Young Film Fest and Berit Toepfer from Objektiv discussed the possibilities of actively involving young audiences in informal audiovisual education, as well as the importance of not underestimating young audiences and treating them as equal partners. One of the main topics of the discussion was how to work with young people in this respect.

 

2021

In the covid year we moved part of the industry programme to the online environment and part of it took place physically in the Czech part of the festival programme.

 

Online industry

The ELBE DOCK online industry programme was aimed at emerging film professionals and students from the field of audiovisual from the Czech Republic and Germany.

It focused on interdisciplinary networking and bringing together those interested not only in the world of cinema and video art, but also in digital technologies, intermedia, and multimedia. During the day-long program, participants could consult ideas and concepts for their creative projects that go beyond the realm of classical film or combine diverse narrative practices with modern technologies.

The mentor of the programme was Ondřej Moravec. Ondřej is a graduate of screenwriting at FAMU and journalism at Charles University. As a director and screenwriter, he works in the field of virtual reality and immersive experiences, as well as in the field of classical cinema. Ondřej also works as a dramaturge and shapes the program of the most interesting virtual reality events for festivals and various events. In his masterclass Tmání - the journey of the first Czech animated interactive VR film, he focused on the issue of dealing with depression in virtual reality and also presented his project Tmání and the whole process of creating an interactive VR film.

 

Another guest on the program was multimedia artist Mika Johnson. Mika's work primarily focuses on creating virtual reality experiences, but he also works with a variety of media as a director of feature films, documentaries and sound installations. In his masterclass Connecting Art and Science through Immersive Narrative, he presented four of his works that combine scientific understanding with virtual reality to reimagine the forms we find in nature and how we can interact with them. These projects include Ilios, The InfiniteLibrary, Lost Forms and Found Forms.

 

The online industry programme also included a Spotlight section consisting of short interviews with inspiring festivals and organisations in the field of audiovisual from the Czech and German environment. These included the Czech festivals Signal - a festival of digital and creative culture in Prague and Uroboros - a festival of critical and socially engaged design, the production company Daisy with Rider Productions as well as the Hertz-Lab of the Centre for Arts and Media in Karlsruhe, the Konrad Wolf Film University in Babelsberg and the Lichter Film Fest Frankfurt International.


Several workshops and masterclasses took place in the Hraničář cinema in Ústí nad Labem during the festival.

Masterclasses: 

Drone sculptures

Hungarian artist Ágnes Elöd uses a drone to create her drone sculptures. Each drone is equipped with one intense LED light source and creates various formations while flying in the night sky. These light sculptures are huge and fully three-dimensional, making them recognizable from every conceivable angle. He uses 3D editing software to design the trajectories. The color of the lights and the resulting trajectories can be animated. In her talk, she presented the artistic and technical issues involved in the creative process of modeling.


The usefulness of fiction in thinking about the future

The lecture by visual artist, digital storyteller and Slovak academic András Cséfalvay explored the possibilities of reflecting on other forms of the future with the help of new forms of narrative that view things from non-dominant positions and attempt to move away from human reason-based interpretations of the world. Such imagination is instrumental and can result in a future that is liveable. The lecture also touched on the role of new technologies and their potential role in thinking about the future without slipping into simplistic techno-optimism. Viable utopias must first be detailed in our stories.

 

Kill Memory, Kill Pain, Prepare to Live Again 

The regional identity of Central and Eastern Europe is symptomatic of a sense of fear born out of the experience of the turbulent twentieth century. In his lecture, contemporary art critic and curator Piotr Sikora reflected on how the themes of failure, lack and despair have repeatedly been reflected in the artistic production of the region. By reflecting on several artworks that explore the historical contradictions of the region, he raised several questions about the therapeutic function of art. Can we get rid of fear just by reliving our trauma in art?

 

Computer games and their inspiration from cinema

The masterclass was about the search for the boundaries between video games and cinema. Can games function in a similar way to documentaries and fictional films? To answer this, we focused on aspects of game language, specifically acting, camera work and narrative. The masterclass was led by Helena Bendová, one of the most important pioneers of game studies in the Czech Republic and co-founder of the Game Design Department at FAMU in Prague.

 

Workshops

AMONG ALGO-CHAINS / THE LURE OF SOFTWARE MAGIC

Bitcoin, NFT, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts - a new technological trend is disrupting the established frameworks and workings of things. How are contemporary artists and designers responding to this situation? And how can we speculate about this technology as users? The workshop focused on the narrative, not the technological aspects of blockchain. They also considered the implications of technological determinism and attempted to think critically about possible scenarios of a distant, technologically saturated future through design fiction. The workshop was led by Michal Kučerák - researcher, lecturer and curator with a focus on art mediation and digital projects.

 

Video games as modern blogs: game creation is for everyone

Ever since the late noughties, the gaming world has been increasingly opening up to new authors and writers who, thanks to the increasingly accessible tools for video game creation, are talking about previously neglected topics. It was the world of personal, independent games that the participants of the workshop led by Ondřej Trhoň looked at. How do game artists process mental health problems, political situations, gender or adolescence? They got to experience Bitsy and Twine, essential and free tools for easy creation of simple video games - without any programming knowledge! Ondřej Trhoň is a cultural and mostly video game journalist, lecturer at the New Media Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and involved in video game development and marketing at Charles Games.