March 2 - 6, 2018. Thessaloniki, Greece.

Docs in Thessaloniki is your cost effective fast track to the European and international documentary market, combining on-site and online market opportunities. In Thessaloniki you will develop your project, network with colleagues and pitch to financiers in a relaxed and constructive atmosphere. The Docs in Thessaloniki Digital Extension makes the pitched projects more accessible to financiers than ever before. And through the specially designed outreach program you will have an opportunity to find new ways of audience engagements. The deadline for submitting projects was January 5, 2018.

Docs in Thessaloniki consists of a five-day program, where 21 selected documentary projects will be developed, re-written and pitched to a panel of international financiers. For a selected group of top-projects the new outreach programme will offer you an opportunity to develop your outreach strategy, optimise distribution plans and enhance audience engagement. 

During the pitching sessions all participants pitch their projects to a panel of international financiers from leading broadcasters. Pitchers have seven minutes to present their projects. The visual material in form of a trailer or promo has to be included in these seven minutes. After the pitch the panel has seven minutes to give feedback.

The pitching session is followed by scheduled individual meetings, where the pitching teams will meet with financiers and experts. The meetings are for in-depth discussions about further development and possible future collaboration.

The panel will consist of financiers from leading broadcasters and funders. In addition we will have a group of experts on distribution and rights. We expect to have 12-15 financiers and experts present for the Docs in Thessaloniki panel. So far the follow panelists have confirmed their participation: 

• Jenny Westergard, YLE, Finland
• Madeleine Avramousis, ARTE GEIE, France
• Depi Vrettou, ERT, Greece
• Jan Rofekamp, Films Transit, Canada
• Beate Thalberg, ORF, Austria
• Flemming Hedegaard, DR, Denmark
• Krishan Arora, SBS, Australia
• Kyveli Short, Moving Docs, Greece
• Charlotte Madsen, SVT, Sweden 
• Fiona Lawson-Baker, Al Jazeera English, Qatar
• Natalia Arshavskaya, Current Time TV, Czech Republic
• Floor Koomen, EO/IKONdocs, The Netherlands
• Thierry Detaille, Visible Film, Belgium
• Hanka Kastelicová, HBO Europe, Czech Republic
• Barbara Biemann, NDR, Germany
• Philippe van Meerbeeck, VRT, Belgium
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As part of the Docs in Thessaloniki program, EDN is presenting a master class with Ben Johnson entitled:

"HOW TO REACH AND BUILD AN AUDIENCE"

Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 17:30 – 19:30 at the Pavlos Zannas Theater, 5^th floor of Olympion Cinema.  

How do you reach and build audiences in the early stages of a film production? The answer lies in aligning your marketing early on, and thinking about the wider scope of the life cycle of your production. Successful producers think further down the line of simply raising production budgets and making their films. Ben Johnson, CEO at Gruvi provides valuable insights that can help you with your digital film marketing. In a connected world of new media and distribution, traditional marketing strategies focused around the week of release for any film promotion are no longer relevant or effective. Audience behaviours are evolving. In order for your film to stand out of the crowd and to attract new audiences you need to be thinking about a new set of tools and methodologies to reach them.

With over 10 years of Digital marketing experience the presentation will focus on:

• Highlighting what’s wrong with the traditional industry thinking & the myth of the opening weekend
• Understanding the films value chain and how early stage marketing practices can help in negotiation, money raising as well as ticket sales
• Reviewing the targeting, marketing options and technologies that are available to help make the right decisions along the value chain
• Providing an understanding of how important the creative choices are in the development of the film’s actual promotional materials at the time of launch
• Reaching targeted audiences online and converting them into watching your film whether that be theatrically or online.

All this work will be based on the case studies and work from Gruvi’s free e-book Winning your Audiences: Marketing Movies in the Connected World that includes many case studies from European independent releases.

In connection with the 2018 edition of Docs in Thessaloniki EDN is offering a dedicated outreach workshop, which is tied to this pitching forum as well as Lisbon Docs. The format will create a synergy between the two events, by selecting the top projects from each forum and bring them together in this post-event session taking place as an online workshop.

Focus for the session will be how the selected project teams can handle the increased need to combine new financing methods and alternative distribution methods with more traditional public funding sources. During the workshop the selected teams will strengthen the understanding of audience building and outreach for their projects in development. Through the online workshop the participants will:

• ·    Learn about tools for audience engagement
• ·    Sharpen their distribution strategy
• ·    Get individual feedback from outreach experts
• ·    Enhanced promotion and distribution possibilities.
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The participants will benefit from these added values without adding extra travel costs and expenses for the production teams, as the seminar will take place online. The workshop is scheduled as a three-day event in early December 2018.

Ove Rishøj Jensen

Phone:

Docs in Thessaloniki is organized by EDN in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival-Images of the 21st Century.

Docs in Thessaloniki is supported by the EU program Creative Europe.