European Documentary Network (EDN) – stimulating networks and knowledge within the documentary sector.

EDN is an independent non-profit membership organization set up in 1996 with the purpose to support and stimulate the documentary sector in Europe and beyond, to represent the documentarists’ views and interests to policy- and decision-makers active in the sector, to encourage dialogue and collaboration between its members and to facilitate global networking between documentary professionals from all continents.

EDN strives to improve respect for the documentary and for the people working within the genre worldwide. EDN aims to help secure their independence, ensure that societies allocate sufficient means for the development and production of documentaries and assert its influence where and when this is not the case.

EDN is a network of ‘professionals for professionals’, who are active in all aspects of the documentary field. Its membership includes amongst others producers, directors, editors, distributors, broadcasters, and film institutions. The organization works in the common interest of its members and for the global development and promotion of the documentary. Although rooted in the independent European documentary scene the organization’s membership is open to individuals and institutions from outside Europe. Presently EDN has members in more than 60 countries. 

EDN believes that the documentary film is a cultural good of important value, able to educate, move and entertain people in various ways in all cultures. The organization acknowledges that documentaries can be made for different purposes and in different formats and does not exclusively promote one special format. EDN supports the documentary film as a vehicle for the artistic expression of an individual’s subjective truth.

EDN distributes knowledge and contacts to its members and other interested parties. Currently this is done through workshops and conferences, at fairs, at festivals, in resource publications like The EDN Financing Guide and via the EDN website, providing a networking tool for individual members, online pitching sessions between members and commissioning editors and up-to-date financing information as well as The EDN Co-Production Guide.

To achieve these goals EDN focuses its activities on:

Networking, training, information services, promotion, research and analysis