In light of the recent vote in the European Parliament to postpone the vote on its position on the Copyright Directive, European authors call upon MEPs to maintain their strong support on authors’ rights.

Competition Program - Short Film is one of the most exciting sections of the Sarajevo Film Festival. Limited only by running time, short film is one of the least restrictive art forms that allows its consumers to have several different cinematic experiences in a relatively short time. The program aims to introduce aspiring regional filmmakers and their short films to wider audiences and film professionals.

CALL FOR PROJECTS!

Baltic Event Co-Production Market and POWR Baltic Stories Exchange 
November 26-30, 2018, Tallinn
Entry deadline: September 3, 2018

The Call for Projects for Baltic Event Co-Production Market and POWR Baltic Stories Exchange is now open!

Baltic Event Co-Production Market (November 27-30), presenting the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award in the amount of 20 000 Euros, provides a perfect opportunity to find financiers, co-producers and sales agents for your project during an intensive two days of pre-arranged one-on-one meetings. Projects from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Russia, Georgia and Ukraine, plus projects from Italy, our 2018 Focus Country, are eligible for submission. Projects from other countries looking for co-production partners or service providers in these countries are also accepted. 

POWR Baltic Stories Exchange (November 26-30) trains writers to deliver a good pitch and find a producer at the public project presentation as well as get industry feedback through pre-arranged POWR Meetings with carefully selected Baltic Event participants. Six screenplays in the early stages of development from the Nordic and Baltic countries as well as Italy, BE Focus Country, will be selected. The workshop is organised by Baltic Event in collaboration with the region’s Creative Europe MEDIA Desks and TorinoFilmLab.

This year, POWR is partnering up with IN FOCUS, a Finnish initiative aimed at female filmmakers that provides an incubator to support four film- or TV projects to cross the bridge from script to production stage. The initiative is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. IN FOCUS will pitch their projects in collaboration with POWR.

Baltic Event, the largest international co-production market in North-Eastern Europe taking place in collaboration with Industry@Tallinn of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, returns with some exciting innovations for its 17th edition – we will provide lectures on newest market strategies, financing methods, and VOD distribution, to our Co-Production Market projects, and continue offering seminars on the possibilities of new technologies and (digital) distribution, aiming to eventually offer a separate segment of our market for multiplatform projects as per the needs of the industry. To bring added value, a marketing professional will evaluate the applications on marketing and audience outreach strategies, followed by one-on-one meetings for 4-6 participating projects.

Since 2002, Baltic Event has showcased around 550 film projects, many of which have reached the silver screens across the globe and enjoyed successful festival runs. We are honoured to have had our projects selected to Cannes, Berlinale, Venice, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw, Cairo, Tribeca, etc. and earn Golden Globes and Oscars nominations.

Baltic Event also hosts Baltic and International Works in Progress as well as the script competition Script Pool Tallinn, the calls for which will be opened in July, and host a market corner for short films from the Baltics.

For additional information, please visit  website.
For online submission, please start here.
For submission to POWR Baltic Stories Exchange, please find detailed information at the Project Entrysection of website.
The submission deadline is September 3, 2018.

For the past couple of weeks there has been news in the press about various international film festivals undergoing changes. The most notable example comes from Berlin, with Locarno’s artistic director Carlo Chatrian set to replace Berlinale’s outgoing director Dieter Kosslick in 2020. As Vilnius Film Festival Kino Pavasaris prepares for its 24^th outing, we would like to announce that Mantė Valiūnaitė will be taking over our senior programmer duties. 

Film curator Valiūnaitė has been with Kino Pavasaris for five years as a programmer and has worked as the senior programmer for Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Inconvenient Films for four years. She oversaw numerous film projects for Meno Avilys, an NGO specializing in film education and preservation, including Slow Viewing: The Dialogue Between Márta Mészáros and Margarethe von Trotta and Luminous Shadows: Selected Installations & Film Retrospective of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Valiūnaitė graduated from Vilnius University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and received her MA in Film Studies from King's College London.

The programming team will once again welcome Aistė Račaitytė, who has been part of the Vilnius Film Festival for six years. She received her bachelor’s degree in Film Theory from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and MA in Film Curating from Birkbeck, University of London. She worked as a programme assistant at the British Film Institute and curated several retrospectives in Lithuania, including Slow Viewing: The Dialogue Between Márta Mészáros and Margarethe von Trotta. Račaitytė reviews films, international festivals and oversees the films distributed by Kino Pavasaris Distribution.

Film critic Gediminas Kukta and our Head of Communication and film journalist Dovilė Raustytė will also join the festival’s programming team.

Kukta spent four years working as one of the programmers for the Vilnius International Short Film Festival and was a member of the selection committee for the competition programme New Baltic Cinema at the European Film Forum Scanorama. He has worked for the creative communication agency Autoriai for five years. Kukta received his bachelor’s degree in Lithuanian Philology and master’s degree in Intermediate Literature Studies from Vilnius University.

Santa Lingevičiūtė, who has been part of the programming team for many years, will seek new challenges outside of the festival for the time being. Edvinas Pukšta will also take on a new role as a Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival programmer but will stay with Kino Pavasaris as a consultant to share his remarkable experience with the new team.

“Vilnius Film Festival employs the best experts in their respective fields and their decision to accept international job opportunities is a natural process. Their positions have been filled with equally qualified and determined individuals. Examples from Berlinale and other festivals prove this to be the case. Understandable changes in personnel ensure continuous steady growth and innovative decisions, which are things Kino Pavasaris is well known for.

It’s not easy to part with long-time members of the team – we are immensely thankful for their input.  Edvinas and Santa have contributed a great deal to shaping the festival and creating the backbone of our excellent film programme. I am pleased that Edvinas will continue to share his experience with us, and I’m sure we’ll see others during new projects,” said Vilnius Film Festival’s executive director Algirdas Ramaška.

The organizers have already acquired the Palme d‘Or and Golden Bear winners for their 2019 festival, proving this year’s programme to be every bit as excellent and ambitious as ever.

Vilnius Film Festival will return March 21–April 4, 2019.

Altogether, as the representatives of the Czech documentary film community, we demand an immediate release of our colleague, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was arrested by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation on 10 May 2014 and brought to Moscow to face what Amnesty International described as “an unfair trial in a military court.”

On May 14, 2018 Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years in jail, announced an indefinite hunger strike demanding the release of all 64 Ukrainian political prisoners convicted in Russia, denouncing their torture and restrictions in the access to a lawyer and medical care. After 46 days of a hunger strike, Oleg’s kidneys and heart are collapsing.

As Oleg himself stated, “A big betrayal sometimes begins with a small act of cowardice.” In front of an imminent risk of a death of an innocent filmmaker, we urge the political representatives and legal authorities all across the Europe for a strong personal engagement in the matter of Oleg Sentsov.

We firmly believe in the free artistic and political expression as essential and basic values of any society. As documentary and film institutions, we cannot stress enough the vital work documentary filmmakers do, while bringing up stories of violations of freedom and justice.

According to the film by award-winning Russian director Askold Kurov The Trial: The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov, it was indeed Oleg Sentsov’s critical filmmaking and political actions that stood in the background of his indictment. Thanks to the courtesy of its producer Marx Film, film’s co-producers Czech Television and Message Film, and the Rise and Shine world sales, the film is available on Vimeo (HERE with English subtitles).

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

    •    Write to your foreign minister

    •    Add your name to the letter of the European Film Academy by sending them an e-mail

    •    Donate for the coverage of legal expenses and to support Oleg’s young children.

    European Film Academy e.V. 

    IBAN: DE69 1005 0000 0190 3335 70  

    BIC/SWIFT: BELADEBEXXX 

    Reason for payment: Donation for Oleg Sentsov

 

Audiovisual Producers' Association (APA)

Czech Film Center

Doc Alliance Films

dok.incubator

Institute of Documentary Film

Ji.hlava IDFF

Karlovy Vary IFF

One World IDFF

The Mute, Monument and A Coach Daughter’s among 25 projects in Poland’s most important industry showcase.

The 2018 edition of Polish Days will take place July 30 – August 1 during the 18^th New Horizons International Film Festival (July 26 - August 5, 2018). This year's event will feature 5 completed films, 9 as part of a presentation of works in progress and 11 projects in development.

Full list of selected films:

Completed films:

A Coach's Daughter (Łukasz Grzegorzek)
Monument (Jagoda Szelc)
White Cube (Wojciech Pustoła)
Hurrah, We Are Still Alive (Agnieszka Polska)
The Mute (Bartosz Konopka)

Works in progress:

Fisheye (Michał Szcześniak), Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa), Simple Things (Grzegorz Zariczny), Marygoround (Daria Woszek), Wind Up (Tomek Tryzna), Dear Ones (Grzegorz Jaroszuk), Unpromised Land (Jacek Borcuch), Used Up (Małgorzata Imielska), Dark, Almost Night (Borys Lankosz)

Pitchings:

It was nowhere (Anka i Wilhelm Sasnal), 9:17 PM Incident (Tomasz Wolski), Her/His (Anna Kazejak), The storm before the calm, (Marcin Bortkiewicz), In Between (Piotr J. Lewandowski), Broad Peak, (Leszek Dawid), I never cry, (Piotr Domalewski), Patagonia, (Agnieszka Zwiefka), The In-Between, (Bartosz M. Kowalski), The Horse Tail, (Justyna Łuczaj-Salej), Ilusion (Marta Minorowicz)

Over 200 professionals from Poland and abroad have already confirmed their participation, including programmers from numerous international festivals, sales agents, distributors and film producers.

As part of the event, industry representatives from around the world attend closed screenings to learn about the latest Polish films at every stage of production: they watch completed films and fragments at the post-production stage, and they also listen to pitchings about projects in production. Polish Days is an excellent opportunity for producers and filmmakers to promote their projects and to find foreign partners. During the selection process, the organizers choose the most interesting films currently being made in the Polish market. Projects presented in past years included, among others, Silent Night, Panic Attack!, The Fastest, Spoor, The Last Family, The Birds Are Singing in Kigali, All These Sleepless Nights, Warsaw '44, Papusza, Floating Skyscrapers and Congress.

Organized since 2013 in cooperation with the Polish Film Institute, Polish Days is the most important industry event at the New Horizons International Film Festival.

Polish Days is co-organized by the Polish Film Institute. Event partners include the Wrocław Film Commission, the Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, the Łódź Film Commission, the Krakow Film Commission, the Podkarpackie Film Commission, Warmia - Masuria Film Fund, Coloroffon and Aeroplan Studios, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, EAVE . Media partners include Film Pro, Film New Europe and Film & TV Kamera.

The festival spot of the 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF has been premiered today in the Thermal Hotel in Karlovy Vary. Its author is the renowned French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. The Ji.hlava IDFF’s spot was officially released during the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

“And even if nothing turned out how we’d hoped, it would not have changed what we’d hoped for,” says Godard in the festival spot.

“This year’s festival spot created by Jean-Luc Godard follows in the line of outstanding works made for the festival by such figures as Godfrey Reggio, Jan Němec and Jóhann Jóhannsson. The festival spot comes in the format of a short film, an intimate haiku. Even within the framework of this minute-long minimalist format, Jean-Luc Godard remained loyal to his signature method of layering meanings and references. Each new viewing opens up new interpretations,” says Marek Hovorka, the director of the Ji.hlava IDFF.

“Godard sets filmmaking in the context of the history of arts, works with references to popular works of fine arts. At the same time, it shows how inseparable the work is from the author and how important role inner authenticity plays in terms of authorship. Flipping through photos in Godard’s cell phone, the history of arts spontaneously alternates with his own memories, selfies and the perspective of a dog that gives the human position a different angle,” adds Hovorka.

The oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard, who started his filmmaking career in the 1950s, is considered one of the cornerstones of world cinema. With such renowned titles as Breathless, Pierot Le Fou and Alphaville. His latest film Le Livre d'image produced this year won him the very first awarded Special Palm Dor in Cannes. “The form of this award clearly attests to Godard’s outstanding talent. Although this world-renowned filmmakers has already turned 87, he introduced a film that the jury of the main Cannes competition had no clue how to categorise. However, they were so struck by the film that – unfortunately to Godard’s detriment – created a special category,“ says Hovorka.

The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival is one of the most prominent European festivals focusing on documentary cinema and the largest event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira described the event as the “Mecca of documentary filmmaking”. The festival programme traditionally offers over one hundred films shown in their world, international or European premiere. The festival’s pivotal competition sections include the main competition Opus Bonum, section dedicated to filmmaking debuts First Lights, Fascinations focusing on contemporary experimental film and Eastern European competition Between the Seas, this year extended with an additional student category. The Ji.hlava IDFF is a co-founder of the pan-European festival network Doc Alliance and the VOD portal – DAFilms.com.

The 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF will take place on October 25–30 2018.