Short Film News (SFN) - Sunny Side of the Doc, the French market for documentaries announced a series of six 52-minute documentaries retracing the history of the Soviet bloc, will be presented at the 6th Co-production Rendez-Vous in Sofia.

The program is a pitch for the Arte project, "Adieu Comrade", and according to Pierrette Ominetti, director of the channel's creative documentaries unit "Arte's three main offices - in Germany, France and its headquarters in Strasbourg - are going to work on it in partnership, despite the fact that each normally concentrates on their own programs."

The Sofia Rendez-Vous is also an opportunity to find the workforce for this major project (lasting at least 18 months), which needs to be opened up to East European countries," says Ominetti. "We are going to need to identify eye-witnesses, including common people, locate archives, and make contact with film crews. We are also looking for a writer and a director from a former Eastern Bloc country. We’re going to have to build partnerships, which go without saying."

Although Arte's international relations department has been working closely with certain east European countries for several years, particularly Romania, the channel’s creative documentaries unit does not have a strategy or a framework plan for this part of Europe.

Sofia Rendez-Vous will run March 11-14.