15 renowned film tutors, around 30 participants from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the guests from HAVC, Polish HBO, Aljazeera Balkans and Slovenian MEDIA Desk, all resided in Rijeka from 17 to 22 July, at the international workshop of creative documentary Ex Oriente Film intended for film professionals.

This residential workshops, during its 11 years of existence, became the most influential workshop for documentary films in the making for Central and Eastern Europe. The residential session in Rijeka was held following the cooperation between the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague and the Association UKUS. The latter has expanded the workshop with hybrid film (docufiction) projects that experiment with boundaries of genre and transgress the traditional views of film-making.

Along with 14 selected projects, which have been developed through a series of ExOriente Film Workshops throughout the year, 4 projects of hybrid, unauthorised film forms were also selected for the development.

The goal of the workshops was the inspiration and exchange, and overlapping of experiences and ideas, through the screenings, lectures, master classes and case studies.

Some of the screenings were opened for the public, most of them in the presence of their authors: “Resistente” (Renate Costa Perdomo, Salla Sorri, Denmark) and “Accidentes Gloriosos” (Mauro Andrizzi, Marcus Lindeenand, Argentina); “Imagining Emanuel” by Thomas Ostbyja, “Free Smetana” by Philip Remunda, “Gangster of Love” by Nebojša Slijepčević and “Winter / Miracle” by Željka Sukova and Gustavo Beck.

Lectures were also partialy opened for the public, among others the one of Martin Schweighofer, Peter Kerekeš and Patricia Drati Ronde. Broad audience was also able to see a video exhibition of Thomas A Ostbyja “Imagining Reality”.

Since the Ex Oriente Film workshop in Rijeka was accomplished successfuly, the cooperation of IDF and the Association UKUS is announced to be continued in 2014.