CHANGE is a collaboration between CPH:DOX, EAVE, Europe’s leading training, development, and networking organisation for producers, and IMS, promoting journalism and documentary film to reduce conflict, strengthen democracy and facilitate dialogue.

*EAVE is a professional training, project development and networking organization for audiovisual producers. Founded in 1988, our objectives are to provide professional training opportunities and to bring producers from different regions of the world together with the aim of facilitating co-production relationships. We believe that the support of independent voices, creative imagination and culturally driven companies within the global media industries is an urgent necessity in the 21st century. Through our work we aim to contribute towards the creation of strong networks of producers and to encourage the exchange of knowledge and skills which will strengthen independent production across the world.

*IMS, International Media Support, is promoting journalism and documentary film to strengthen the capacity of media to reduce conflict, strengthen democracy and facilitate dialogue. Our work is geared towards helping locally-based public interest media operating in armed conflicts, humanitarian crises and rapid political change, both positive and negative, to provide the public and “civic organizations” with public interest content they can trust and use. We work in more than 40 countries across four continents with a staff of about 170 people.

*CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world. A festival that continues to develop and expand, presenting a program that ranges from the works of major international directors to new talents, from large-scale theatrical releases to film/video works in the field between cinema and visual art. The festival’s platform for professionals, CPH:INDUSTRY, attracting 2.000+ professional delegates annually, has established itself as a fundamental European documentary marketplace, offering a wide range of activities and services connecting independent documentary film producers and filmmakers with the major international funds, broadcasters, streaming platforms, sales agents, as well as art curators, science foundations, impact bodies, traditional and alternative exhibitors, investors and philanthropists in the fields related to cinema – and beyond.

CHANGE is a tailor-made co-production training course offered by the joint partnership of CPH:DOX, EAVE and IMS for teams with documentary projects in development from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The programme will consist of three residential workshops and a presentation of the projects at CPH:FORUM 2025.

Submissions for the 2024/2025 edition are now closed.

In collaboration with EAVE and IMS, we offer a tailor-made programme taking place over three residential workshops with the aim to stimulate and qualify inter-regional co-production and to connect documentary projects to regional and international markets. Participants are tutored by regional and international experts.

The first two workshops will consist of five full days of group work, plenaries, and individual meetings; the third workshop will take place in the framework of CPH:DOX and consists of workshop days, presentation of the projects in the framework of CPH:FORUM as well as debrief of the presentation and development of strategies for the teams and projects after the workshop. Between the workshops, participants will be working on project development with specific tasks and assignments.

This call is organised in collaboration with the National Film School of Denmark and the film festivals/ organisations:

• Docudays UA – Ukraine
• MOLDOX – Moldova
• CinéDOC-Tbilisi – Georgia
• Golden Apricot – Armenia
• Northern Lights – Belarus

Programme

• Workshop 1 – DEVELOPMENT – October 28 – November 1, 2024 in Chisinau, Moldova
  We dig deep into the core of what the teams want to tell, enforce the storytelling, and focus on the ambition for each film in terms of impact, awareness, change.
• Workshop 2 – CO-PRODUCTION – January 13-17, 2025 in Tbilisi, Georgia
  We expand the participants’ knowledge of each other’s reality, production environment, financing structures. The pros and cons of co-production are used to strengthen each project, preparing them to meet the international market.
• Workshop 3 – ENCOUNTER – March 22-26, 2025 during CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Denmark
  The projects will be presented at CPH:FORUM in round-table format and encounter the international market leading to the formulation of tailored strategies for each project.

Participants

Upcoming teams – director and producer – with a documentary project in development from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine can apply and we are committed to equal opportunity to all. We focus on projects set in these countries, projects that are open for co-production, and we welcome projects in the crossing field between documentary and journalism.

The working language is English, and participants should be comfortable with reading, writing, and speaking English.

Projects

The documentary project shall:

• Demonstrate to cover topics of public interest in a professional and ethical way.
• Have an idea of how to reach intended audiences and be a call for action.
• Seek to have an impact on the public debate leading to potential social, political, or cultural change.
• Priority is given to productions focusing on issues of gender equality, marginalised groups and minorities, diversity, social change, current affairs, and human rights.

Fees & Costs

There is no participation fee as CHANGE provides tutoring, travel, lodging, and living. Participants will cover local transportation themselves.

Selection

Some of the applicants might be invited for an online interview in August 2024, to further clarify the application. Final selection will be announced in early September 2024.