GIPA DocU is the Student Documentary Film Festival featuring works by GIPA’s Journalism and Media Management School students. It takes place every year in November. GIPADocU was established in 2011 by the faculty and students of the CSJMM. In the first years of the festival, it was strongly supported by IREX and MEC. Throughout its 6 years history GIPA DocU has screened around 50 short documentaries produced within the framework of the Documentary course for MA students in Journalism and Media management. Later BA students from Audio Visual Arts also joined the festival.
The purpose of the festival is:
- To motivate students to cover important ongoing issues in depth.
- To motivate creative collaboration of students from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan while working on documentary film production;
- Give them opportunity to screen their films in the public, discuss important issues raised in the films and get feedback;
- Introduce talented students to the industry representatives;
- Give some in-depth knowledge of the new trends in documentary filmmaking by inviting prominent filmmakers with master classes;
- Promote quality literature in the field of documentary film studies by inviting prominent scholars/researchers/PHD students to present their research findings.
- To keep in touch with prominent GIPA alumni who continued documentary film production after graduation and help them to share their experience and success with current students.
The event is divided into several sections:
- Competition films
- Pitching in front of the industry representatives (10-12 projects every year)
- Best of GIPA (Screening of the 3 best films from the GIPA documentary production of recent years)
- Transmedia Projects by GIPA student Media
- GIPA alumni films (screening of the films of GIPA Alumni)
- 2-3 master classes by documentary filmmakers for students and open to public
- GIPA LAB – works in progress and best course works
