Audio-Visual Pitching Lab

We are delighted to continue for the fifth consecutive year and expand the Visio-Pitching Lab as part of the Festival’s initiatives aimed at professionals in the film community.

The Head Moderator for the Lab this year, as well, is Claudia Schreiner, who is internationally renowned with vast experience in the film industry. She heads the Masterschool at Documentary Campus based in Berlin and Munich. She studied History in Cologne, Germany, and New York City, holding a master’s degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Cologne.

The Jury Lab for is comprised from students from the Festival’s network of collaborating film schools: Flore Vallery-Radot, Dorin Filimon, Nikos Κihem and Μelis Terlemez.

Each project presentation lasts 15 minutes: 7 minutes for idea presentation, 7 minutes for questions and discussion with the panel of experts, and 1 minute for Jury’s statement. The Lab will take place on Wednesday, August 28th, and Thursday, August 29th, 2024. The aim is to provide young European and non-European filmmakers the opportunity to present their core ideas to a group of experienced professionals in the international television and film industry.

The Pitching Lab of the Beyond Borders | International Documentary Festival of Kastellorizo constitutes the only domestic audiovisual lab conducted remotely, thus enabling every interested individual to overcome any transportation and cost obstacles, making access to knowledge and learning a borderless and unrestricted path.

All participants will receive professional feedback on how to transform an idea into a refined work. They will have the opportunity to incorporate their idea into a “presentation package” that can be presented to anyone and everyone in the documentary community, including television stations.

Additionally, starting this year, Filmiki Productions, one of the leading production companies in Greece, in collaboration with Beyond Borders, will offer as a prize to the best project selected by the Lab’s Jury, a mentoring cycle with personalized funding and development advice valued at 1,500 euros.

This Years Participants

Apollo on Earth by Radek Ševčík

A documentary opera about one WWII bombing which points out the ever-present threat of fascism and conformism not just in Slovak’s society.

Big in Gazi Baba by Pauline Blanchet

A 14-year-old wrestling champion, Sadije is the only girl in her Skopje club and
the only Albanian on the Macedonian national team. Facing significant cultural
and social obstacles, how will she forge her identity in an environment that
tests both her gender and her ethnic background?

Doomed to dream – A Palestinian Theatre in Resistance by Muallem Ashtar

In this documentary, I follow my mother, Iman Aoun, a renowned Palestinian theatre
artist, as she struggles to maintain her theatre and artistry under occupation.
Through our mother-daughter bond, the film conveys messages of perseverance and
hope in the midst of an uncertain future. It delves into the archives of the
Ashtar Theatre, illustrating its 33-year history and the evolving hopes and
struggles against harsh censorship. Through artistic scenes incorporating
aerial silk, a performance element I use, I aim to create a counter-atmosphere
in choreographed scenes that highlight art as a bubble of hope and comfort in a
world ruled by chaos.

Dolphin Society by Vicky Markolefa

Dolphin Society uncovers the unique and undocumented phenomenon of dolphin interspecies
communities in the Corinthian Gulf, blending science, history, and mythology to
explore the art of coexistence

Everything we need is above the Earth by Elena Kollatou and Leonidas Toumpanos

In the region of Epirus, in the Municipality of Zitsa, Energean Company plans to
extract natural gas using the method of fracking. The documentary investigates
the way in which the local community organizes itself in order to prevent the
degradation of the area.

Let Them Hug by Kate Boylan-Ascione

This feature-length documentary chronicles the journey of a tumultuous 2020 campaign
to free refugees held indefinitely in an inner-city Australian hotel, set in motion by a group of young, defiant locals and a Somali family who ask if they can just hug.

Menes-Take 5 by Rola Shamas

An animated documentary about Menes, a one-year-old white stork, who sets off on his
migration journey from Hungary to the Lake Victoria basin in East Africa. Equipped with a GPS tracking device for scientific migration research, he is arrested in Egypt on charges of espionage.

The Rabbi’s Wife by Charlotte Peters

A documentary about a woman’s harrowing journey from the confines of an
ultra-Orthodox community in Montreal, where she endured an abusive marriage and
the loss of her first child, to her transformation into a resilient psychiatric
nurse specialising in somatic therapy.

Reminiscing Kanat by Nilüfer Neslihan Arslan

The documentary traces the tumultuous 11-year odyssey of Kanat Güner, revered as a
pioneering figure in Turkey’s underground literary scene, through the streets
of Istanbul and the mystery surrounding her death.

Who killed Zackie Oh ? by Sophia Farantatou

LGBTQI+ activist Zak Kostopoulos was beaten to death by two men and the police in
central Athens. The trial that followed the murder, marked by Zak’s absence,
paints a picture of a society corrupted by neo-fascism and homophobia. Sophia
Farantatou is a childhood friend of Zak and with her own archive of him, she
will create a parallel world in which we will really know who Zak was and the
role that his queer identity played in this murder.

The Winged by Ines Perot

On the distant island of the apocalypse, a man unable to walk is teaching pigeons to fly.
Valandis has a congenital deformity that prevents him from walking properly. He
gets around the island on a quad bike that is bigger than he is. He is
passionate about carrier pigeons. Some are destined for international pigeon
races, others end up in the local pigeon soup.

Yaya by Aspasia Kazeli

The film traces my grandmother’s stories back to her youth in Samos – now well versed in
life, but then a sprout; an athlete, a girl whose choices seem dispossessed by
unequal values.