Theinaugural Britdoc festival has lined up a series ofnetworking events for documentary film-makers to meet experts outside the filmworld.

Thefestival, to be held July 26-28 at Keble College in Oxford, is presented by theChannel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation.

Thefestival has organised two "would like to meet" networking sessions toencourage collaboration between film-makers and leading figures from biomedial science and political campaigning.

Thescience event is organised with the Wellcome Trust and the campaign event is in associationwith The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

Eachsession will allow film-makers to speak directly torepresentatives from each field, with the aim of stimulating content ideas forfuture film projects.

Eachevent will follow a speed-dating model, with 20 film-makers getting fiveminutes each with 20 industry experts.

Afterthe one-on-one sessions, there will be open discussion between filmmakers andexperts followed by informal drinks.

"By encouraging and structuring deep collaboration at an early stagethrough the Would Like to Meet events we hope to inspire documentary filmmakersto work more closely with both scientists and campaigners to tackle thepressing issues of our time, for the benefit of large viewing audiences," said Jess Search, chiefexecutive of the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation. "We arevery much looking forward to seeing what new ideas are raised and developedfrom these sessions - ideas after-all are the life-blood of documentaries - andfully expect at least one documentary project to come to fruition as a directresult of the events."