Yulia Kovalenko, the Programme Director of Docudays UA, attended a key meeting of the participants of the influential European documentary film festival network which Docudays UA is set to join next year and shared the focal points, plans, and inspiration.

How does the Doc Alliance network work? 

Doc Alliance is a network of several European festivals founded in 2008. At the beginning, it was a network of the festivals that initiated the alliance because they wanted to create balance on the documentary film market in Europe, because IDFA was the only one that was developing strongly at the time. So they founded the network to balance the powers in the film market and exchange experiences. Doc Alliance gradually grew into a prominent and influential organisation in its field. Today it includes Dok Leipzig from Germany, Millennium Docs Against Gravity from Poland, CPH:DOX from Copenhagen, Doclisboa from Portugal, as well as Fid Marseille and Visions Du Reel. 

Doc Alliance sees no need to constantly expand by including new participants because that would be difficult to coordinate. But in order to develop connections, bring in some fresh air, and interact outside the organisation, they invite one guest to their network every year. There is an open call which any documentary film festival can apply for. We are joining the network in 2024. In December, there was a meeting of all the participants in Marseille, where DokuFest, the guest festival of 2023, shared their thoughts about the collaboration and passed the baton to us.

Networking at the meeting in Marseille

Our meetings took place from 9 a.m. until night, one after another, with a brief coffee break. It was a several-day-long seminar with participants from the entire network, during which everyone shared their experiences of organising, priorities, problematic moments, and self-improvement practices. The main emphasis was on sustainable development and on inclusive approaches to festival events. We also discussed how we organise our programmes, how our PR and promotion works and how they can be improved; what instruments festivals use to interact with colleagues, and in particular, how to improve communication within and outside the network.

Doc Alliance Award and inviting guests

One important instrument of the Doc Alliance network’s influence and visibility is its award. Every member festival nominates two films for it: one feature and one short. It can be any European film made in the past two years. Obviously, every festival supports their national filmmaking, and that way a degree of geographic diversity is maintained among the nominees. The Jury makes their choice and presents the award to the winner at the Awards Ceremony of one of the network’s member festivals.

This is an additional opportunity to provide information support to a festival that belongs to the association. We discussed the potential possibility of organising the award ceremony during Docudays UA. Of course, it would not be an easy decision for the organisers, but it is a valuable chance for our international colleagues to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian film community.

Developing cultural diplomacy

When I was applying to join the Doc Alliance, I wrote directly that strengthening our cultural diplomacy work was Docudays UA’s most important goal for the participation in the network. It is an opportunity to talk about the advantages and needs of the Ukrainian film community, and to lobby, promote, and distribute Ukrainian films.

It is also an opportunity to present Ukrainian narratives and emphasise the need for decolonisation practices at other festivals during programming, event preparation, and while inviting guests. A kind of set of exercises, a kind of homework which we can offer our colleagues to complete. And my hope is that this will be happening in a more organic way as a part of our collaboration with the Doc Alliance. Because the main goal of the network is to exchange experience.

Shared plans

Our international colleagues are interested, they ask us about our film industry, and it is truly reassuring and inspiring. I spoke a lot about the Ukrainian film community’s current mode of living and working. I told them that despite the truly difficult situation, we are organising festivals and continuing to make films.

It is also important to realise that the colleagues present at the meeting are our old friends and partners since even before the Doc Alliance. We have already collaborated with some of them before and we plan to do it in the future. So it was more like a continuation of work conversations and discussions. But an in-person meeting is always a great opportunity to develop warm connections with colleagues. I hope that this will really produce many joint projects next year, even if we don’t set any specific dates for these projects right now.

Inspiration and support

I was very inspired by the realisation that we are not just students in the Doc Alliance but also teachers. We are an interesting promising partner who has a unique diverse background of experience which it is ready to share. It is important for us to realise our value — as a festival, as a film community, as a market which has made a great leap forward since 2014. It is really cool to feel the level of our professionalism like that in a live interaction with colleagues.

Openness and frank, friendly support from other festivals is what we could feel and what we were inspired by the most during this conversation. It was felt throughout the two days of networking. Tiredness has accumulated in the two years of the full-scale invasion, but the support of our friends and international colleagues is still enormous, and it truly gives us hope and strength.

Photo: Doc Alliance