At the Young Horizons Industry Days, which took place for the first time under this new name, a number of socially engaged projects grabbed the attention. A total of 33 young audience projects were pitched for a professional expert audience.
In the wake of the new Young Horizons Docs lab, extra attention was given to the documentary genre during the Industry Days. In addition to a presentation of successful case studies (the feature documentary SHABU from the Netherlands, the Ket & Doc training programme in Belgium), the documentary projects from the lab were also given the opportunity to pitch on stage. This led to a number of compelling testimonials, which are not exactly ‘standard procedure’ for the average pitch (but that is exactly what makes Young Horizons such a valuable and charming event).
There were the pitches of EXIT TALES (Storyhouse, Belgium), a series of animated stories about child refugees seeking comfort in their imagination; WE KEEP THEM IN OUR HEARTS (True Fiction, Norway) about children who had lost a dear person; and FINDING HOME (Animadocs, Bulgaria) about climate refugees. Also more adventurous stories sometimes gave proof of an underlying social commitment, like in SISSI & CAESAR (Tres Tercios, Chile) in which the forest takes care to preserve its splendour of colours; THE MARVELOUS STORY OF AIMAR (Ceibita Films, Chile/Costa Rica) asking attention for the rights of indigenous people and THE UNREAL WORLD OF ALDA (KYK, Faroe Islands) demanding a better understanding of ADHD.
Awards came in all shapes and sizes, but for the first time an Audience Award was also handed out by moderator Maciej Jakubczyk, rewarding the hilarious pitch of the TV series THE HUGGINGTONS (Klipp og Lim, Norway) about a dysfunctional but exceptionally ‘huggable’ Viking family.
Look here for a complete overview of all the pitched projects.
Photo’s: Michał Mroczkowski