One World Romania - Civil Society Pitch 5 Mentors // Selection for Civil Society Pitch 5 has ended: Meet the participants and mentors of this edition.

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CIVIL SOCIETY PITCH 5

Civil Society Pitch 5 Mentors // Selection for Civil Society Pitch 5 has ended: Meet the participants and mentors of this edition.

9 March 2023

The documentary film development program with a focus on social subjects and human rights - Civil Society Pitch 5, has completed the selection process for participants. A total of 15 NGOs and 19 filmmakers from the four partner countries have been selected to participate in a year-long series of workshops to develop new documentary film projects. The program will culminate next year with a pitch in front of a specialized audience. The most promising project will be rewarded with a prize of 4,000 euros and support in the production of the film.

Throughout the program, participants will be guided by three mentors with international experience in documentary filmmaking, whom they will meet for the first time during the first stage of Civil Society Pitch 5 on March 31st - April 2nd, 2023.

Filmmaker and activist MONA NICOARĂ was born in Communist Romania and, until 1989, dedicated her early years to becoming a poet in a small, largely underground community of young writers. She started working in film in 1997 as an Associate Producer for Children Underground (Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2001; nominated for an Oscar). She went on to make Our School (Tribeca 2011), which went on to over 70 festivals worldwide; andThe Distance Between Me and Me (Trieste 2019), which won the audience award at Films de Cannes à Bucarest and a Gopo award for best feature documentary. Mona Nicoară continued to write and publish in The Guardian, Dilema Veche and Decât o Revistă, among others.

RADU CIORNICIUC co-founded in 2012 the first independent media organization in Romania - Casa Jurnalistului casajurnalistului.ro; a community of reporters specializing in in-depth, long-form, and multimedia reporting. Since then, Radu has worked as a long-form writer and undercover investigative reporter. His research is focused on human rights, animal welfare, and environmental issues across the globe. The articles and films he has worked on have appeared in some of the biggest publications around the globe. Ciorniciuc’s debut feature documentary film, "Acasa, My Home", produced by Manifest Film, tells the story of a family that lived for two decades in the wilderness, in perfect harmony with nature, until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city. "Acasă, My Home" premiered at Sundance (2020) where it won the Special Jury Award for Cinematography. The film had an exceptional festival run, and has been selected for a nomination at the European Film Academy Awards.

OLIVER SERTIĆ is a producer and festival programmer from Croatia. Until now he produced around 30 feature and short documentaries screened at more than 300 festivals around the world. Has cooperated with numerous film festivals as a PR, programmer, producer and advisor. As a journalist he has published and edited for the press, web, radio and TV in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia. Founder of RESTART where he established programs of education, distribution, Dokukino and Restart Laboratory. Currently works as a producer, editor of the distribution department and one of tutors at School of Documentary Film. From 2007 he is programming at Liburnia Film Festival where from 2012 until 2020 served as a director. Currently living in Bucharest.

Starting this year, the projects initiated within the Civil Society Pitch program can be followed on the official Facebook page. Click here! Like and share the page to get to know the NGOs and filmmakers selected for this edition from Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, and Romania, and to stay up-to-date with the stages of their project development.

The FORUM CIVIL SOCIETY PITCH program is initiated and coordinated by the One World Romania Association, and the program partners are Balkan Documentary Center (Bulgaria), the Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Hungary) and the MOLDOX Association (Republic of Moldova), National University of Theater and Cinematographic Art "I.L. Caragiale" (Romania), Master of Anthropology SNSPA & Master of Visual and Society Studies SNSPA (România).

The FORUM CIVIL SOCIETY PITCH project* is part of a cultural project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.

*The project does not necessarily reflect the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not liable for the content of the project or for the way in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the beneficiary’s responsibility.