About Documentary Campus
What is Documentary Campus e.V.?
Documentary Campus is one of the most renowned professional training initiatives in Europe dedicated to international coproductions of high-quality documentaries for a large audience.
Documentary Campus offers professionals and up-and-coming young talents in the documentary field the necessary experience and know-how to work in international terrain. Through workshops, seminars, industry events and a ten-month masterclass Documentary Campus shows the way, explaining in the most fundamental and practical terms the international standards and essential rules of the documentary film game.
The programme of Documentary Campus is flexible and reacts to current trends in the market, thereby serving the needs of the creative talents and the media industry.
Philosophy
As good old TV turns more and more into a diverse interactive media playground, the non-fiction genre is doing likewise. It is sometimes hard to keep track of all the shapes and sizes that stories from the real world can come in today. A vibrant factual broadcasting market has emerged beyond the traditional alliance between factual filmmakers and public broadcasters. In order to satisfy the ever-greater demand for content, young internationally operating companies often have to seek partnerships with broadcasters from all over the world as well as with traditional regional stations.
The variety of expectations that audiences can have when they watch non-fiction is only topped by the variety of projects which commissioning editors have in mind when they speak of factual television.
Despite being able to build on strong traditions in storytelling, a wealth of excellent filmmakers and the cultural variety of Europe, producers, authors, directors and commissioning editors from outside the USA or the UK still find it difficult to be successful in the international market. It is the aim of Documentary Campus to change that.
Funding
Documentary Campus is a non-profit organisation registered in Munich, Germany. Launched in 1998 by German media enterprises, the association was joined in 2003 by selected European non-fiction companies. It is supported and funded by the European Union's MEDIA Programme, German and European film and media foundations, private and public broadcasters, production and distribution companies, local, regional and national authorities as well as institutions active in the European documentary sector.
Aims of Documentary Campus
- to familiarise European documentary filmmakers with the opportunities in and the demands of the international non-fiction market
- to stimulate the economic and creative competitiveness of European documentary professionals on an international level
- to strengthen the audiovisual sector in Europe
- to link independent creators of documentary film with the industry and to open up work opportunities on an international level
- to encourage the thematic and artistic variety of European audiovisual works and thereby advance the development of documentary films
- to foster international contacts and to encourage networking among European documentary professionals
