Hot Docs and Filmkontakt Nord have established a new initiative, docXchange, geared towards fostering professional development and offering potential financing opportunities for interactive doc projects.

The two-part program is encouraging North American and European producers working on interactive documentary projects to submit applications for consideration.

The first part of the program will be a three-day workshop held during the Hot Docs festival in Toronto, taking place from May 1-3 (the festival itself runs from April 28 to May 8). The next part of the program is a one-day financing forum taking place September 28 during the Nordisk Panorama in Aarhus, Denmark.

For the Hot Docs component, a maximum of 24 projects will be selected, and participants will be able to connect with decision-makers and professionals from North America and Europe working in cross-media documentary.

From these 24 projects, 10 will be selected to be publicly pitched at the financing forum in Aarhus, before a panel of international financiers. Individual meetings between pitchers and financiers will be arranged after the pitch session.

As for what might make the cut, organizers say the program is looking for “creative, well-researched documentary productions that have international appeal.”

The projects should also be produced with a “user-friendly, interactive digital media inventiveness,” and should currently be in development or pre-production.

Organizers also offer that projects should be submitted by teams with “proven track records in either the field of documentary or interactive digital production,” and that participants should be keen to learn in a group mentoring environment.

DocXchange is an initiative of Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Filmkontakt Nord and Århus Cross Media Initiative, and is supported by MEDIA Mundus, a program of the European Union and The Nordic Council of Ministers.

From realscreen magazine.