Verzió DocLab is an international documentary post-production development workshop for directors, producers and editors, organized during Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Budapest at the Central European University of Budapest.

"Verzio DocLab is a very unique workshop in Europe, hand designed for documentary projects. Good mood guaranteed, test it, you will love it!"

Verzió DocLab is focusing on story development and editing with the goal to create a supportive international platform for documentary filmmakers and creative professionals.

The 10th edition of Verzió DocLab is a 5-day editing workshop and pitch forum for directors, editors and producers organised during the 22nd Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Budapest on November 8-12, 2025.

The workshop seeks to define, develop and strengthen the key narrative elements of the film projects. During the 5-day intensive programme, you will be working in groups, have one-on-one meetings, and receive individual tutoring.

Verzió DocLab is powered by our DOC AROUND EUROPE and as part of that collaboration we are looking for projects with directors or producers from or based in the following countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Spain, France, Hungary. In solidarity with filmmakers from Ukraine and Georgia, the 9th Verzió DocLab also welcomes applications from these countries. Verzió DocLab is looking for projects by first- or second-time feature directors!

With the guidance of international mentors you will work on your documentary project’s story and edit a selected scene that you will present at the end of the workshop in front of an audience of festival programmers, sales agents and producers.

"Verzio DocLab was an absolute gem of an experience. I really feel my project advanced significantly and I was able to expand my networking opportunities!"

Apply Now!

Applications are open to the 10th edition of Verzió DocLab

Who should apply?
Documentary filmmakers, creative professionals working on their first or second feature project based or from the following countries: Spain, Luxemburg, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine, France, Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia, Romania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Turkey, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Portugal, Finland.

Max. 3 participants per project, directors, editors or producers. Directors can also be editors of their projects. (You can also apply and attend without producers, but we advise you to secure a producer attached to the project by the time of the workshop.)

In order to apply, please submit:

  • a link to the selected 1 or 2 scenes you aim to work with during the workshop with English subtitles (max. 20 mins)
  • three high-resolution stills from your film
  • a short, max. 150-word synopsis
  • a film treatment (if you already have one)
  • BIO of the applicants and contact details (max. 300 words each)
  • a high-resolution portrait photo of the applicant
  • link to previous film(s) (if applicable)
  • short introduction of the partners, producers, company and their contacts (if applicable)
  • a financing plan

Provide the above via a Google Drive/Dropbox link. Provide all passwords to all of your links. (We can not select projects without accessing them.)

PARTICIPATION FEE

The participation fee for one person per project is 200 euros. The fee covers mentoring, travel and accommodation costs and lunches during the workshop.

In solidarity with Ukraine, Verzió DocLab offers Ukrainian projects participation for free, this support covers travel, accommodation costs and lunches during the workshop.

As part of Verzió DocLab’s commitment to supporting Hungarian stories and filmmakers, Hungarian projects’ participation is 50 EUR for one person per project. This support covers mentoring and lunches during the workshop.

Many countries support such training costs. We advise participants to apply for scholarships through their national film funds.

 

Submit your application

 

Deadline: 31 August, 2025 CET Midnight

If you have any questions, write to doclab@verzio.org with the subject matter Verzió DocLab.

Mentors Throughout the Years

Flóra Erdélyi Editor (Hungary)
Michael Seeber Director, Scriptwriter, Dramaturg, Producer (Austria)
Tue Steen Müller Documentary Consultant and Critic (Denmark)
Jesper Jack Producer / Verzió DocLab mentor (Denmark)
Anna Kis Director and Editor, DocLab Mentor (Hungary)
Réka Lemhényi Film Editor (Hungary)
Brigitta Bacskai Film Editor (Hungary)
Diana Toucedo Editor, Director, Producer (Spain)
Stefano Tealdi Director and producer, Stefilm (Italy)
Leena Pasanen Festival director, Biografilm Festival (Italy)
Christine Camdessus Managing & Artistic director, FIPADOC (France)
Jeremy Braverman
Thomas Ernst
Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga
Moniek Wester Keegstra
Flóra Erdélyi Editor (Hungary)

Flóra Erdélyi is a freelance film editor based in Budapest, Hungary. She has been working on several short and feature fiction - The Flower of the Apple Tree by Dóra Szűcs, Now is Now 2019 by Péter Szajki, Patthelyzet by Dóra Szűcs, animations - North by Bente Lohne, and feature length documentaries - Hi Sári! by Sári Haragonics, Hatchery by Máté Fuchs, Howling Like We Do by Asia Dér, The Missing Tale by Klára Trencsényi.

She received her Motion Picture Editor BA degree at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest in 2011. Apart from that she also studied at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and at ELTE Institute of Art In Film theory and film history.

Her most recent project is Hi Sári by Sári Haragonics. She is also known for the HBO film, Her Mothers by Sári Haragonics and Asia Dér for which she won Best Editing at the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival in 2021. She is a member of MADOKE - the Hungarian Documentary Association, and HSE - Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors.

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Michael Seeber Director, Scriptwriter, Dramaturg, Producer (Austria)

Since 1990, Michael has produced over 45 documentaries, TV doc series and feature films, among them internationally successful and highly-awarded films, such as Luna Papa (Bakhtiar Khoudojnazarov), Bella Martha (Sandra Nettelbeck), The Venice Syndrome (Andreas Pichler), Everyday Rebellion (The Riahi Brothers) and A Good American (Friedrich Moser, Executive Producer Oliver Stone). He wrote the scripts for several documentaries (i.e. Food Design, Hot Spot, BEER!, ÒRAIN – Beethoven), and directed TV documentaries. From 2009–2020 Michael worked as a tutor and adviser for the European MEDIA training program for script development SOURCES 2. Since 2018 he has concentrated almost exclusively on his work as a director and writer for his own documentaries. His awards include the Theodor Koerner Award for Literature (1987) and the Austrian Film Award for Best Documentary (2013).

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Tue Steen Müller Documentary Consultant and Critic (Denmark)

Tue Steen Müller has worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. He is the co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU, and EDN (European Documentary Network). From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). Since 2006, he has been a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays UA, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF, as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DocsBarcelona, Message2Man in St. Petersburg, and DOKLeipzig. He teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano, Italy, and writes reviews at www.filmkommentaren.dk. He received several awards for his contribution to the European documentary culture.

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Jesper Jack Producer / Verzió DocLab mentor (Denmark)

Jesper Jack is an award-winning producer and the co- founder of House of Real, a prominent collective of non-fiction filmmakers in Scandinavia. He also served as the international editor at Op-Docs at The New York Times from 2021 to 2023. Jesper is an alumnus of prestigious programs such as EAVE, Screen Leaders, and Doc Campus. He is a regular guest professor at NYU Tisch, and a lecturer at the National Film School of Denmark. Between 2009 and 2011, he held the position of documentary film consultant at the Danish Film Institute. During his tenure, he commissioned over 30 films, including the Academy Award-nominated The Act of Killing and the Tribeca Film Festival Best Documentary winner, Democrats. Moreover, Jesper is currently pursuing training as a psychotherapist, driven by a vision to enhance mental health in the documentary field.

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Anna Kis Director and Editor, DocLab Mentor (Hungary)

Anna Kis started her filmmaking career in 2002. After a decade of teaching, translation, and journalism, and a PhD course in Renaissance and Baroque English Literature at ELTE, she graduated at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, as a director and film editor. She was the student of Péter Gothár and Ildikó Enyedi. Ever since she has been active as an editor and story editor of shorts (eg.: First Love by Ildikó Enyedi), documentaries and concert shows for TV. She has directed shorts and observational documentaries which have won several Best Documentary awards in Hungarian festivals (Home Paradise, Not About Family). Recently she has been active as the story editor of Fairy Garden by Gergő Somogyvári, shooting her own feature-length documentary Practices in Harmony (working title), co-directing and editing 80 Angry Journalists by András Földes and editing a personal documentary by Diana Groó.

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Réka Lemhényi Film Editor (Hungary)

Réka is a Budapest-based editor with over two-decade-long experience in film and television. Some of her most important projects include work with famous directors, among them with Oscar winner István Szabó or Jerzy Skolimowski. She has received numerous recognitions for her work such as, among others, the Best Editors Awards of Hungary, Best Critics Award or PO-land Academy Award. She obtained her Master's degree at University of Theatre and Film Arts Hungary, and she also has a degree in Theater Science at the Pannon University Hungary. She has been doing education and mentoring work since 2015 at the University of Theater and Film Arts Budapest, Free SZFE Budapest, Sapientia Film University Cluj and Budapest Metropolitan Film University. She was a juror of international juries and a member of the selector committee for international documentary workshops.

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Brigitta Bacskai Film Editor (Hungary)

Brigitta got her Film and Motion Pictures Editing degree at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in 2014. She continued her master's studies in Norway, at the Norwegian Film School. She has attended several master courses and seminars, such as Norman Hollyn's editing workshop in Prague, Monika Willi's masterclass in Copenhagen, Chris Dickens' masterclass in London, and completed Robert McKee's story seminar in Ireland, in 2016.

She has been working as an editor since 2008. During this time, she has edited numerous works of fiction, animations, and documentaries. Her first feature project won the Gamechanger award at SXSW Film Festival. A short animation, Balcony, won the Jury Prize at the Annecy Festival, and Traub Viktoria's Mermaids and Rhinos received the Hungarian Film Critics Award. Her most recent documentary, Too Close, was screened in the Documentary Competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. She teaches editing and dramaturgy for animation and motion picture students, and is a member of HSE, the Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors.

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Diana Toucedo Editor, Director, Producer (Spain)

Diana Toucedo, is a Spanish filmmaker and editor based in Barcelona and Amsterdam. She stands at the intersection of film and research. Her work has been selected for film festivals, such as the Berlinale, IDFA, San Sebastian International Film Festival, Nara International Film Festival, Sao Paulo International Film Festival, FIDBA, Pesaro, DocLisboa, Visions du Réel, and others, and museums, like CCCB and the Centre Pompidou. Diana has edited more than 25 feature films to date, which have premiered and won awards at IDFA, Rotterdam, Cannes Semaine de la Critique, Moscow International FF, etc. She has also edited series for Netflix, HBO and Movistar. Diana currently combines her profession with teaching at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and is core-teacher in the Master of Film at the Netherlands Film Academy. She is also pursuing a PhD in Practice-based Communication, exploring how moving images address identities, memories, historical crystallizations and social tensions.

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Stefano Tealdi Director and producer, Stefilm (Italy)

Stefano Tealdi established Stefilm in Torino, Italy, in 1985. He develops, produces and/or directs drama and documentary film features and series. Stefilm’s recent productions include: Exemplary Behaviour (winner of Dok Leipzig Golden Dove, Fipresci and Interreligious Award, 2019), My Home, in Libya (Locarno FF 2018); The Strange Sound of Happiness (Special Mention Next Masters DOKLeipzig 2017); Char, No Man’s Island (Berlinale Forum 2013). He tutors for Biennale Cinema & VR College Venice, Cannes Film Market, Documentary Campus, La Fabrique - Les Cinemas du Monde, Films de 3 Continents – Produire au Sud, New Chinese Film Talents, Ouaga Film Lab, Scuola Holden, TFL-Torino Film Lab, ZagrebDox Pro, and ZELIG Film School/ESoDoc.

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Leena Pasanen Festival director, Biografilm Festival (Italy)

Leena Pasanen started her career as a journalist in print media. In 1993, she joined the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, where she worked as a reporter, political commentator, TV presenter and the head of documentaries for YLE TV1. In 2000 she was appointed the Head of Programs responsible for cultural, factual and fiction programs in YLE Teema. She stayed with the channel until November 2005, when she started working as the Director of the European Documentary Network (EDN) in Copenhagen, Denmark. From 2011 to 2014, she led the Finnish Institute in Budapest, Hungary and served as cultural attaché at the Finnish Embassy in Budapest. From 2015 to 2019, she was based in Leipzig, Germany, working as Managing and Festival Director of DOK Leipzig. In January 2020, she took over the direction of Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy. She has been a regular expert, tutor and lecturer at several training programs, for example: EDN, Discovery Campus, EURODOC and Television Business School. She has been a board member of IDFA Forum and served as a jury member at several international festivals, such as Sundance and IDFA.

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Christine Camdessus Managing & Artistic director, FIPADOC (France)

In 2001, after working as a lawyer-in-firm and a film finance banker, Christine Camdessus launched her production company, ALEGRIA PRODUCTIONS. They have produced more than 60 creative documentaries, distributed throughout most of the world, including: Pakistan Zindabad, The Vatican's Lost War?, Five Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi (Sundance Director’s Prize 2012, Oscar Nomination 2013, International Emmy Award 2013), Divided Korea, The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev, Erdogan, the Making of a Sultan, One Day in Tehran, and Forman versus Forman (selected in Cannes Classics in May 2019). Christine is chairwoman of NIPKOW’s jury (Berlin). She was vice-president of USPA (the leading TV producers union in France) from 2014 to 2018. In June 2018, Christine was appointed Managing & Artistic director of FIPADOC.

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Jeremy Braverman

Jeremy Braverman is the Media and Visual Education Specialist at Central European University. He teaches courses in documentary filmmaking in various departments at CEU, and oversees the library’s Mirabaud Media Lab. As a filmmaker, his short films have played in festivals across the US, and he is currently collaborating on documentary films with faculty from CEU and ELTE. Prior to joining CEU, Jeremy spent 15 years teaching filmmaking in the US, and worked in the independent film industries in Chicago and Pittsburgh. He earned his MFA in Film & Video from Columbia College Chicago. In the 1990s, he worked as a freelance translator and television personality in Budapest, Hungary.

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Thomas Ernst

Thomas Ernst is a freelance film editor and author. Through joining each project at a very early stage he co-creates the workflow and concept of the production together with the director and d.o.p - from the development of the story to the screening of the finished film. HBO Europe documentaries like Invisible Strings, Overdose, Stream Of Love and ULTRA are on his long credit list. The film Drifter won the “First Appearance Award” at IDFA 2014. For The Queen of Silence Tom won the German Kamerapreis for Best Editing 2015. He is consulting and lecturing for international workshops as Docu Rough Cut Boutique, ESoDoc, and EDN.

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Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga

Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga studied filmmaking at UC Berkeley (USA) as a Fulbright scholar. Her Screw Your Courage won awards at several US film festivals and was broadcast on public TV. She worked for the New York Times Television as a video-journalist and later directed documentaries Once They Were Neighbours, Synagogue for Sale, and Mr. Mom, which were screened internationally and broadcast on public TV. She taught documentary ethics at the international masters program, DocNomads. Currently she is D.L.A. candidate at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest.

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Moniek Wester Keegstra

Moniek Wester Keegstra is an independent documentary (web)filmmaker, editor, interview trainer and film coach. She worked with NGOs Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam Novib and Amnesty International. Her Gaza, Gabbers, Graffity co-produced by Amnesty International was nominated for the Prix d’Europe. Moniek was involved as filmmaker and creator of the online platform 26,000 Faces with short film portraits about asylum seekers in the Netherlands. She is co-creator of the online Lifeboat Project.

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Team

Péter Becz DocLab Coordinator
Director, Editor, Producer
Péter Becz DocLab Coordinator
Director, Editor, Producer

Péter is a producer, director and editor working with documentaries and narrative projects based in Budapest. His Danish-Hungarian co-production short, I Miss You, Marius (2022) received the Audience Award for the Best International Documentary at the 2022 Friss Hús Budapest International Short Film Festival and the Honorable Award by the Student Jury at Prague Science Film Festival, also got selected for Kinedok Hungary and Czechia and is distributed by 444’s Jeti Mozi on YouTube. His short film Love 1.0 won the Best Love Film award at the 68th Independent Film Festival of Hungary in 2023. Currently developing his own fiction and documentary projects as a director while producing Réka Pinczés’ first feature debut documentary Steps of Domonkos, which was pitched at the 75th Berlinale.

Péter received an MA in documentary filmmaking at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest and has completed an MA in Film and Media at the University of Copenhagen.

Besides making films and working with commercials, Peter is actively mentoring and creating support systems for other filmmakers. As the Creative Director at Verzió DocLab, he selects, mentors and connects projects with the international industry. He has been a mentor at FAMU and he is a guest teacher at Krogerup Højskole, teaching documentary in a danish-hungarian field trip. Since 2022 he is an elected board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association an independent collective of filmmakers representing and safeguarding the interest of all who are involved in the making of documentary films and art in Hungary. Peter was the program manager of the Hungarian Regional workshop of dok.incubator. In 2023 Péter was an invited jury member at Finale Pilzen FF.

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Hanna Kádár DocLab Coordinator
Documentary Film Director
Hanna Kádár DocLab Coordinator
Director

Hanna Sára Kádár is a Brussels-based director, festival and workshop organizer from Hungary. She graduated in 2022 from VSMU in Bratislava with a master's in documentary filmmaking. She’s been co-organizing Verzió Doclab since 2022 and previously, she was part of the production team at DokIncubator and Verzió Vienna. In 2023, she was a jury member for the Young European Stories Section at FIPADOC. In her films, she explores family dynamics and the connection between generations.

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Enikő Gyureskó Festival Director
Enikő Gyureskó Festival Director

Enikő Gyureskó has a BA in Liberal Arts (major in Art History, minor in Philosophy) and an MA degree in Design and Art Management. She has over 20 years of experience in project coordination gained in the cultural and civic sphere. Since 2016, she has been a key figure at the VERZIÓ International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, one of the most prominent film festivals in Hungary, member of the Human Rights Film Network and the Doc Around Europe festival network. She has first served as Festival Coordinator; from 2021 as Managing Director, and since 2024 as Festival Director. Since 2020 she is part of the KineDok team, Europe’s largest documentary film club network, and since 2022 she is a board-member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association. Member of the Documentary Association Europe. She has served on juries for the competition programs of the One World Prague and DOK.fest München film festivals, and she regularly takes part in industry talks where she shares her professional experience from audience development and film programming to funding cultural and civic initiatives. She is passionate about visual arts and music since early childhood, devoted to partaking in actions that aim at enhancing the awareness about geopolitics, and the social discourse about cultural politics, and human rights protection.

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Fanni Somlyai Head of Programming
Fanni Somlyai Head of Programming

Fanni Somlyai studied Liberal Arts with a specialization in film at the University of Pécs, Art Therapy at the John Wesley College, Intercultural Psychology and Education at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, and holds a master’s degree in Film Studies from ELTE. In 2017, she worked for the RomArchive project at the Romedia Foundation. In 2018, she joined Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival where she has since taken on different duties. Since 2024, she is the Head of Programming at Verzió. Besides overseeing the programming of the festival, she also works on educational programs (UniVerzió, Young Critics workshop), year-round activities and grants writing. As a critic, she has published essays and reviews in Metropolis, filmszem, filmhu, Filmvilág, and the Verzió Blog.

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