One World Romania granted its first development award to a Romanian documentary film, born out the happy marriage between human rights activists and documentarists. The winning project was selected from three participating projects at the Civil Society Pitch competition, and was announced at the end of an intensive 3-day workshop on themes related to documentary film artistic approach, production and financing. The Project
The Invisibles (
Invi
zibilii), proposed by director Iulia Stoian, together with the organisations FILIA Centre and Funky Citizens, won the Civil Society Pitch Award amounting to EUR 4,000. The award is meant for the documentary film de
velopment and for the making of a trailer to be screened in March, 2017, at the 10th Edition of One World Romania Documentary and Human Rights International Festival.
Romania has the biggest number of unrecorded people in Europe,many of them coming from marginalisedRoma communities living in rural areas. With noaccessto education, health services or legal workplaces, these persons become invisible to authorities and pass on to future generations the same cycle of poverty, illiteracy and lack of fundamental human rights. The documentary The Invisibles will follow, through observational technique, the complicated red tape and emotional routeof Ionela Ciobanu's family from Valea Seacă (Bacău County) for the release of ID papers and for their legal recognition by the Romanian state.
The Jury made up of Mona Nicoară (documentary film director and producer), Ana Alexieva (producer with AGITPROP Bulgaria and project manager with Balkan Documentary Center) and Maarten Stoltz (programme coordinator, Movies that Matter Foundation, the Netherlands) took a unanimous decision. The granting of this development award closed the first (pilot) edition of the Civil Society Pitch project. The next edition will take place in March, 2017 withinOne World Romania Documentary and Human Rights International Festival
Civil Society Pitch Project is carried out in cooperation with Watch Docs International Film Festival of Poland, and under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Culture through the ACCES programme.
Tags: invizibilii documentar, iulia stoian, one world romania, premiul civil society pitch 2016