ZPP Newsletter
Warsaw, 18th November 2019
Tender for a documentary series about the beginnings of Polish capitalism
The documentary series will consist of six episodes telling the story of a whole decade of Polish entrepreneurship after the fall of communism.
By portraying individual profiles of the participants of those events, we want to show the Polish people’s path to prosperity. We are creating these series with young and foreign viewers in mind who only know the history of the beginnings of Polish capitalism from family stories or media coverage.
The documentary’s purpose is to present the realities in which the pioneers of Polish business began their careers. How Polish capitalism developed and gained experience, shaped mostly by young people who created 6 million jobs without offices or computers, with no telephones or cars, without a banking system or infrastructure to back them up. Immersed in legal chaos, with rampant corruption, unchecked inflation and lack of professional support from lawyers, financial advisors, marketing experts, not to mention the inexistence of a developed loans and credits system.
In particular, we want to introduce to larger audiences the people who started from scratch, without any experience, initial wealth, post-regime affinities or support from the remnants of the communist secret services. How family businesses rose to power in times of chaos. We plan to dedicate one episode, or alternatively several mentions, to the so-called ‘postkomuna’ (post-communist elites) in order to showcase their advantages, the importance of systems, alliances and access to money. How years later they look against the background of the entire market.
It is our ambition to distribute the film abroad in the future, therefore the idea for a narrative itself will be essential. It must not be a boring story about a dozen people – just people talking. We want each episode to have its own emotional narrative that will allow the viewers to feel the tension and risk that former bazaar vendors, traders, smugglers, first publishers of press, books, builders, transport companies, shopkeepers etc. had to face.
Furthermore, the series ought to make use of archival footage.
We ask all interested parties to submit their ideas for the docuseries script until 6th January 2020 to the following e-mail address: k.niemyjska@zpp.net.pl.
***
The series treatment description must not exceed one A4 page (2000 thousand characters). The budget for the entire project amounts to PLN 750 thousand. The process of selection of the winning project will take place in two stages: the being the selection of submitted proposals, the latter – interview.
The final selection of the script and winning authors of the documentary series will be carries out by Board members of ZPP and WEI – the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers and Warsaw Enterprise Institute, respectively.
Fot. stokpic / pixabay.com
