The Verzió International Human Rights Film Festival ended last weekend with physical screenings in Budapest, Pécs, Debrecen, Kecskemét, Szeged, and Szombathely, as well as a countrywide online viewing, all in all attracting around 20,000 viewers.
The festival is over, but the work continues; we are happy to share the good news that a new international network was launched and Verzió is among the founding partners.
Verzió International Human Rights Film Festival (Budapest, Hungary), Fipadoc International Documentary Film Festival (Biarritz, France), and Biografilm festival (Bologna, Italy) are launching a new network, Places to B – Biarritz, Bologna, Budapest.
The three festivals, all with female leadership, share an interest in contemporary European creative documentary films, and are committed to managing their activities transparently and to support each other in producing sustainable and diverse international film festival events.
Places to B is designed as a forthright platform for festival teams to discuss festival planning, joint awards, and outreach strategies. Christine Camdessus (festival director/Fipadoc), Leena Pasanen (artistic director/Biografilm), and Stefano Tealdi (pitching expert, head of studies/Biografilm) are supporting Verzió’s DocLab and pitching workshop by participating in the selection process, tutoring projects, and moderating the public pitching session. The winning Verzió DocLab project will be invited to pitch at Bio to B – Industry Days during Biografilm festival in June. Furthermore, one of the projects pitched at Bio to B – Industry Days will be awarded with travel, accommodation, and free access to Fipadoc’s Industry Days.
Verzió DocLaB is the first of the network’s joint activities, and will be followed by a pitching forum, which will take place during the Verzió IHRDFF, with tutors from partner festivals. Thanks to this collaboration, internationally-renowned experts will be in Budapest to extend their support to documentary filmmakers at the most critical juncture in post-production—before their films are released to the festival circuit and beyond.
Oksana Sarkisova, Director of Verzió, emphasizes that the network serves multiple communities: “We are starting the new network to exchange our know-how and best practices, which will benefit not only the participating festivals, but also emerging documentary talents and our audiences. By running eco-conscious and gender-balanced events, we create platforms where filmmakers and audiences can interact in an open, safe, and creative environment.”
Places to B is an open network that invites other festivals willing to commit to transparency and cooperation for producing vivid, diverse, and eco-friendly cultural activities.