CPH:LAB is an international talent development and training program established by CPH:DOX international documentary film festival to stimulate innovation, facilitate creative processes, and develop new low-budget financing models in filmmaking.
CPH:LAB tackles the main challenges faced by the audiovisual industry. It focuses on both creative and business aspects of film production by innovating business models and re-designing the processes of creative development. The program inspires filmmakers to create projects through partnerships and to develop new approaches to co-production.
CPH:LAB aims at establishing long-term relationships between the filmmakers and production companies with a focus on creating a European network. Majority of the participating filmmakers are invited from European countries, and a European producer will be attached to every project.
Twenty filmmakers are invited by the selection committee to collaborate on a production in pairs within a limited timeframe with support from CPH:LAB and its partners. We specifically look for filmmakers with potential and interest in exploring new approaches to creative production, those who are bridging the gap between classic auteur cinema and new entrepreneurial approaches to development and outreach.
We are focusing on young European filmmakers who have already completed at least one film with international potential. We are looking for ambitious filmmakers with a desire to understand the changing audiovisual industry, especially the changing behavior of the audience. All twenty filmmakers are carefully hand-picked in close dialogue with national European film institutes and co-production partner markets.
CPH:LAB does not have an open application call and the filmmakers are being selected by a selection committee consisting of our staff members and the partners within the European film industry.
• The selection process finalizes with inviting 20 filmmakers to participate in CPH:LAB, where 17 of them are from European countries.
• After receiving a starting production grant from CPH:LAB, the teams will have a limited time to complete the production phase of the project, which is usually less than a year.
• The participating filmmakers choose any location they prefer for the production of the film.
• Each of the ten teams is responsible for completing the post-production phase in one of the team-members countries, depending on the agreement of both parts involved in the project.
The project will be developed during the CPH:LAB workshop at CPH:DOX IFF in November 2014.