ESoDoc – European Social Documentary is the training initiative for cross-thinkers and media professionals, who want to increase impact and outreach of their documentary projects, using the power of media to encourage social change. ESoDoc's goal is to bring together filmmakers, producers, journalists, content creators, cross-media professionals, game and web designers who want to work in an interdisciplinary way by developing new storytelling skills, networking over different platforms, discovering new forms of team building, producing and financing also with the help of the crowd and new distribution strategies.The objective of ESoDoc 2015 was to train professional filmmakers to move transversally between various fields of the audiovisual industry and other sectors as well, in order to face the constant changes which characterize the modern filmmaking industry. ESoDoc participants were stimulated to be active players in these changes, capable to anticipate them and to tackle them with innovative approaches. The objective of ESoDoc was not only to provide its participants with simply hard skills, but to make them aware that – in such a rapidly changing industry – the “added value” in their profession is represented especially by their flexibility, their ability to work both in traditional and new forms of filmmaking, to adapt themselves quickly to the challenges of the changing market they have to face, to grow soft skills that they will be able to use through different approaches, to be prepared to work new creative strategies to finance their projects, to look for new synergies both within and outside the audiovisual industry, to be part of the change.ESoDoc's peculiar focus on social issues places cultural diversity inevitably at its centre. The training is conceived to promote the diversity of styles, attitudes and approaches which emerge from the vast and diverse European heritage, and opens up to further expand it to non-EU influences. Out of 199 applications received, the resulting group was formed by professionals coming from 14 different EU countries, and 1 non-EU. The variety of countries represented at the workshop gave us the chance to analyse and discuss various filmic styles, tradition, markets, production and distribution models. “Interdisciplinarity”, “team building”, “impact and outreach” were some of the keywords at the foundation of our training. As Sabine Bubeck-Paaz – ESoDoc new Head of Studies – wrote, ESoDoc 2015 was focused on “opening the spirit to new inputs and ideas, to new ways of thinking and understanding – and to new ways of working together. That’s what we all need in a time where we as media users are not only confronted with a lot of new daily information, technical possibilities and possibilities to participate in a community, but also with more and more complex political and social realities. And as media makers, we have the luxury to choose between a lot of different ways to tell our stories, linear, non-linear and in Virtual Reality. But whatever choice we will make in our use of media, it will be a choice where we think and work cross-media”.In 2015 we tackled a wide range of subjects, including, • Project development and pitching • traditional and interactive forms of storytelling• documentary productions for cinema release and for the TV sector • creative teams for cross-media productions• producing with NGO and/or broadcasters• outreach and impact• alternative financing• creating partnerships and synergiesGiven the keywords mentioned above, we looked for trainers who are actively working transversally to all or most of these subjects. To some extent, all subjects were faced by all trainers, but offering a specific point of view, approach or expertise.