B2B DOC CoProduction Meetings, an international documentary co-production forum organized in cooperation with Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network (B2B Doc), was held on September 18 in the course of KYIV MEDIA WEEK 2017. By this event, KMW expanded a co-production direction and continued collaboration with B2B Doc platform.

B2B Doc is a brand new initiative from Sweden, a co-production platform for documentary filmmakers from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia. B2B Doc brings filmmakers together, inspires and empowers them to launch co-production projects with strong international potential. B2B Doc helps to develop the selected projects in the way that they compete in the European financial market for film production. This is made through seminars, workshops and pitch trainings for the filmmakers from the B2B Doc countries. B2B Doc has also a fund to support financially selected projects at the early development stage and provides travel grants to help the filmmakers attend pitching sessions, festivals and co-production forums. 

Being formally launched in 2014, B2B Doc has been in the inception period up to 2017. B2B Doc has been testing several options for establishing the well functioning co-production links between the filmmakers in our countries. The recent attempt to pitch train five Belorussian projects during the Listapad film festival in Minsk and the further pitching at Kinopavasaris film festival in Vilnius have resulted in a big success and huge interest of the international decision makers to the Belorussian projects. Being pitch trained in a right way, three of five projects have got international co-production partners and went further to the European film markets to raise production funding.

In September 2017, B2B Doc starts its activities in full scale, and the co-production event at KYIV MEDIA WEEK is the first presentation that will comprise documentary projects from almost all B2B Doc countries. These will be stories in different genres, taking place in various parts of the world, but what unites them is that they will have strong characters, fascinating story lines and actual social content.

Among the projects that were presented at B2B DOC CoProduction Meetings 2017: Mel, producer Arevik Avanesyan (Armenia); Deminers, director Silva Khnkanosian (Armenia); Mein Deutschland, director Alexander Svischenkov (Belarus)
Stalin Today, director/producer Ketevan Nozadze (Georgia); My Father is My Mother's Brother, director Vadym Ilkov, producer Daria Bassel (Ukraine); Demon, director Yegor Troyanovsky, producer Olga Beskhmelnitsyna (Ukraine); Roses, director Irena Stetsenko, producer Denys Vorontsov (Ukraine); Underwater, director Oksana Kazmina, producer Yulia Serdyukova (Ukraine)
Satanic Girls: Women on the Move, producer Anna Herza Tydlitátová (Czech Republic).

Nine international experts engaged in the judging panel of the pitching session gave their feedback on the presentations and held individual meetings with the project's representatives: Tereza Swadoschová, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czech Republic); Kristyna Balaban, Ex Oriente Film project development program (Czech Republic); Aurelian Nica, Kinetoscop / Buzz CEE IFF (Romania); Johan Seth, Indio (Sweden); Carl Pontus Hjortén, Svenska Filmstudion (Sweden); Aleksandar Govedarica, Syndicado (Canada); Anna Ferens, TVP1 (Poland); Kenan Aliyev, Current Times TV (Czech Republic). The event was moderated by Alex Shiriaieff, project manager of Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network (B2B Doc). 

Program of the event included four sections

B2B DOC CoProduction Meetings 2017 opened with the welcome speech of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Ukraine Martin Hagström (Sweden), project manager of Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network (B2B Doc) Alex Shiriaieff (Sweden) together with CEO of Media Resources Management, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Motion Picture Association Victoria Yarmoshchuk (Ukraine). 

Producer and the Chairman of the Independent Filmmakers Association Johan Seth presented the case study of the documentary project Svetlana Alexievich: The Biggest Lie is the Documentary (Sweden). The screening of the project took place in the concluding part of the event. 

During B2B DOC CoProduction Meetings two parts of the pitching session were held and followed by the individual meetings of the international experts with projects representatives.

B2B DOC CoProduction Meetings 2017 was held on September 18 at Hyatt Regency Kyiv (Ukraine)

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