A slate of documentary editors, executives and filmmakers from around the world will descend on Tel Aviv next month to take their pick of the best documentaries coming out of Israel today.
The four-day CoPro Screen Market will include pitching forums, screenings and one-on-one meetings that enable Israeli filmmakers access to some of the most influential figures in the global documentary world. The ultimate goal of the event, CoPro says, is to “connect between international investors and Israeli documentary filmmakers.”
Among those participating in the event are Diego Buñuel, the director of original documentaries at Netflix; Andrew Blackwell, the supervising editor of Op-Docs at The New York Times; and Anne Grolleron, a commissioning editor at the European culture channel ARTE.
This is the 21st year that the screen market will be taking place in Israel under the auspices of the CoPro – Documentary and Animation Marketing Foundation. And the foundation counts several success stories from its market events, including 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers, both of which were nominated for best documentary feature at the Academy Awards.
“Thanks to the establishment of the CoPro Foundation and the ongoing activity of its now dearly departed founding director Orna Yarmut, the field of documentary filmmaking in Israel has completely changed,” said Osnat Eden, the current CEO of CoPro. “Orna identified the local potential and the need to facilitate co-productions. She worked endlessly to promote Israeli documentary creation, which thanks to her, became globally renowned.”
Close to five dozen professionals in the global documentary world will take part in the event, including representatives from networks in Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Finland, Japan, Austria and more. The industry panels being held throughout the event include discussions on “The Business of Film Distribution,” as well as “The Evolution of Docs in the New TV Era” and “Netflix: The Streaming Service That Changed the World.”