Slowly and Steadily Towards Spellbinding Stories: This Year’s Slow Pitch Projects

Out of as many as 91 submissions from around the world, eight developing projects have been selected for four days of growth  through an intensive yet relaxed mentoring process. Without the pressure of public pitches, participants enter a space founded on dialogue, exchange, and a carefully guided creative process. The program is led by experienced mentors — Marc Isaacs, Vanja Jambrović, Lucie Kon, and Cecilia Lidin — who approach each project with dedication and the attention it deserves.

The selected projects authentically explore a range of compelling topics and proffer a broad spectrum of perspectives. These works range from a meditation on death in director Andris Gauja's Beautiful Death, which questions the meaning of a “good death” through encounters with scientists and medical professionals, to an intimate portrait of faith, addiction, and the need for salvation within an evangelical rehabilitation community in producer Sorcha Bacon's Hell Has No Fire Escape. The lineup also includes Here Before Us Stands a Man by director Igor Vrtačnik, which reconstructs photographs by a famous Austro-Hungarian photographer to transport us to the last century.

Croatian filmmakers are strongly represented as well. In The Square of Silence, screenwriter and filmmaker Ines Mrenica commences a personal search for truth that follows her husband’s confrontation with his mother's tragic death during rocket attacks on Zagreb. Meanwhile, director Marina Petković Liker employs her Through the Process to address the consequences of war trauma among the residents of Vitez.

The program also includes an ecofeminist perspective on environmental resistance in Transformation Stories from Akbelen Forest by director Selen Çatalyürekli, an intimate story of parenthood and identity in Turning the Tide by director Louise Rechenbach, and a multigenerational story of resistance in Kosovo in director Elena Avdija's Warriors' Whisper.

Participants will also compete for several valuable awards: mentorship support from Impronta Films, participation in Ji.hlava New Visions, access to the MEDIMED Doc Market pitch, accreditation for Nebulae at Doclisboa, and a residency award from Rab Film Festival.

Once again, the Slow Pitch Program demonstrates that there is an alternative to our fast-paced industry: a space where ideas can mature at their own pace and projects can receive the deserved attention. And judging by the past successes of its participants, it seems that this slower pace can go a long way.