Sunny Side of the Doc announces the 2020 “Europe’s Got Talent” Grants

As the initiative was positively received in 2019, a new group of 28 emerging documentary producers and talent from Central and Eastern Europe will be invited to join the Connected Edition of Sunny Side of the Doc.

With the ongoing support from the Creative Europe’s MEDIA programme, the aim is to encourage countries who are less represented on the international market to take part, as well as to build new creative and business relationships, and help drive diversity in the stories and narratives retold.  

In order to achieve this, Sunny Side of the Doc has joined forces with key European partners active in the sector, to help identify these new voices in emerging European markets: Al Jazeera Balkans, Balkan Documentary Center, Baltic Sea Docs, Croatian Audiovisual Center, Documentary Association of Europe, Docudays UA, East Doc Platform, Emerging Producers Jihlava IDFF, Slovak Film Institut.  

It is extremely important to bring new voices and visions to the international documentary landscape, as they provide us with a deeper understanding of various topics, make us think about them and teach us how to behave. Giving these opportunities to new voices, through markets such as Sunny Side of the Doc, is absolutely fantastic as is it enables us, Broadcasters, Distributors, Film Festivals, State Funders and other Independent Producers to meet them and help them in their quest to tell the world their untold stories.  Lejla Dedic, Al Jazeera Balkans & Al Jazeera Documentary Festival 

For more than ten years Balkan Documentary Center is helping new voices from South-East Europe reach the international stage and complete their projects, despite the structural difficulties in our region. Hence, we supported the initiative of Sunny Side for grants to Central & Eastern European filmmakers, which give them access to this important market. The initiative is a big step in increasing visibility of the Balkans and will bring new developments and possibilities to filmmakers in our region. 

Martichka Bozhilova, Balkan Documentary Center 

The winners are invited to get involved in this year’s Connected Edition from June 22-25, to ignite collaborations around their on-going projects and create long-lasting coproduction ties within the entire European documentary community.