The “Let’s Doc – Documentary Ideas Lab”, a development programme organised by Andrzej Wajda Centre, should launch a more permanent demand for young audience documentaries in Poland.
Let’s Doc (3rd edition) aims at creative people who have an ambition to make documentaries about the world of children and young people. Over the course of a year, the programme supports filmmakers in developing their ideas and presenting them to the Polish and international industry in order to jointly create conditions for the production and distribution of documentaries in Poland.
During the Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival in Warsaw, 8 new projects in development were pitched to an international industry panel. “Our aim is to encourage parents and educators to use non-fiction and documentary content as a tool for education and emotional development. Let’s build together a conscious audience of tomorrow and inspire each other to a good life based on empathy, respect for other beings and faith in our ability to overcome crisis”, says Katazyna Slesicka, vice-director of the Andrzej Wajda Centre. Therefore Let’s Doc offers their participants workshops and meetings with Polish and international tutors, concluding in a pitching session.
The 8 projects pitched this year didn’t shy away from controversial topics in today’s society, such as domestic conflicts, broken families and gender diffusion. Karolina Smigiel, programme coordinator: “We have a dream that in Polish cinemas and on Polish TV, there will be Polish documentaries for children about young people whom you can meet at school, on the streets or in the yard. For this to happen, institutions and organisations that can support this process must see the potential in it and perceive this as their mission.”
In the next ECFA Journal you’ll find an interview with Karolina Smigiel, one of the driving forces behind the Polish young audience documentary movement.