Pitching Lab 2025
48th Drama International Short Film Festival – 2025
Head of Pitching Lab: Barbara Dukas
Barbara Dukas is a director and educator working in theatre, documentary, and short film, both in Greece and abroad. She also works as a script consultant and pitching expert. She teaches Directing, Acting, and Screenwriting at various institutions and seminars, including the Hellenic Open University. From 2018 to 2024, she served as Artistic Director of the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Corfu. Since 2014, she has led the Pitching Lab of the Drama International Short Film Festival. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, researching dramaturgy in the context of augmented reality and emerging technologies. Head Programmer of DISFF Pitching Lab since 2014.
Mastering the Art of Pitching is a necessary process on the journey to seeing your initial idea transformed into a movie. There are no quick fixes that define a great pitch, but there is a definite path that leads to successfully communicating the crux of your idea and story.
Barbara Dukas – Head of Pitching Lab
Among many promising projects from creators with distinctive cinematic voices and a record number of submissions this year, ten proposals from around the world were selected. The final selection, made by the DISFF Pitching Lab team, reflects the intention to highlight diverse cinematic genres—from social drama to black comedy and hybrid documentary—as well as to support narratives that dare to explore complex and ever-relevant themes: identity, loss, coming of age, intergenerational relationships, the individual’s place in the machinery of history, love, and violence, all through personal and original narrative and aesthetic approaches. It also reflects our commitment to supporting creators who, through a human-centered lens, open up a dialogue with the new era ahead, raising questions about the world, the past, and human relationships, which now appear more fluid than ever.
Pitching Lab Presentation & Networking Lunch – Wednesday 10.9.2025 – 14:00-17.00 – Eleftheria Hall (1st floor).
Tutors:
Barbara Dukas
Director
Educator
Georgina Kakoudaki
Dramaturg
Director
Educator
John Stephens
Educator, Script Editor
and Consultant
Guest Tutors:
Alexandra Hroncova
Cinefila Distribution, CZ
Eroll Bilibani
Head of DokuLab at
DokuFest, freelance
producer, XK