The second of the three TV Launch workshops wrapped up on Tuesday, April 25, with tours of the Barrandov Studio and UPP, both partners of the program.

Besides the intensive program for the participants, the Workshop 2, kindly hosted by the Finale Plzen FF, offered several lectures for the industry guests of the festival and brought several experienced European and international names: tutors Maggie Murphy (Ally McBeal, Veronica Mars, Houdini & Doyle), Gabor Krigler (Golden Life), Rumle Hammerich (The Bridge, Borgen, Taxi), Steve Matthews (The Borgias, Love/Hate, Wasteland), Jacqueline de Goeij(Domino, The Banker) and experts Anna Katharina Brehm (SerienCamp Conference), Gaia Tridente (MIA TV Market) and Ed Waller (C21 Media).

The six attending projects coming from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece and Serbia were focusing on their pilot scripts, discussed their season arcs and were introduced to the channels and options of presenting their projects to a future partner. The program ran April 19 - 26, 2018.

Read more about the program of Workshop 2 at our website, where you can find out more about the projects, participants and tutors.

MIDPOINT TV Launch is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Film Fund, Slovak Audiovisual Fund, International Visegrad Fund, Audiovisual Producers' Association, and presented in collaboration with HBO Europe, Finale Plzen, Sarajevo Film Festival – CineLink Industry Days, CHARACTER – Film Development Association, Serial Eyes, C21 Media, Barrandov Studio & AMU.

European Film Promotion (EFP) and its member organisations are delighted to announce theEuropean Film Promotion (EFP) and its member organisations are delighted to announce the2018 line-up for EFP PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE. 20 of the most promising, up-and-comingEuropean producers have been selected to take part in EFP's high-profile networking platform atthe Cannes Film Festival (May 8 - 19, 2018). During the five-day event between May 10 - 14, the
exclusive group will take part in a tailor-made programme in order to foster international co-productions, intensify the exchange of experiences and help create new professional networks.
EFP's longstanding programme is financially backed by the Creative Europe – MEDIAProgramme of the European Union and the participating EFP member organisations.

Fabian Massah - Germany

Fabian founded his company with Marc Malze, a fellow graduate from Berlin's DFFB, in 2004 and has has (co-)produced several award-winning films including Men On The Bridge, Atlantic, All Of A Sudden and Oblivion Verses which premiered in Venice and Toronto in 2017. His most recent production, Johannes Schaff's Symphony Of Now, will be released in summer 2018. Fabian has also worked for many years on producing commercials and is a board member of the German Film Producers Association.

Peter Badač - Slovakia

A graduate of the film schools in Bratislava and Prague, Peter set up his own company BFILM in 2010 and has produced several shorts, including the animated short Pandas which was one of the winners in the Cinéfondation Selection competition at Cannes in 2013. In 2017, his production of Tereza Nvotová's debut Filthy premiered in Rotterdam, while the co-production of Jan Speckenbach's Freedom screened in Locarno. Peter is currently developing Magda H., a biopic of the wife of the former Czechoslovakian president Gustáv Husák.

Radovan Síbrt - Czech Republic

Prague-based Pink was established in 2009 to produce author-driven documentaries and fiction films for the international market. Radovan served as a co-producer on Alexandru Belc's documentary Cinema, Mon Amour and Adina Pintilie's Berlinale Golden Bear-winning fiction debut Touch Me Not. He also produced Jan Gebert's first feature documentary When The War Comes (opening film Berlinale Panorama Dokumente 2018) and is developing Iranian director Mohammadreza Farzad's new documentary Don't Gaze Long Into The Abyss. Radovan also directs documentaries (On Decency and The Tap Tap).

Veselka Kiryakova - Bulgaria

Veselka has worked with director Milko Lazarov since his award-winning feature debut Alienation which premiered in the Venice Days sidebar in 2013. She also produced and edited Lazarov's second feature Ága which premiered 'out of competition' at this year's Berlinale. In 2016 she additionally served as a co-producer on Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's award-winning film Glory. Veselka is now developing new projects by Grigor Antonov (Dora, based on an idea by Milko Lazarov), Dimitar Sardzhev (Son) and Nikolay Vasilev (Driver).

David Herdies - Sweden

David founded Momento Film in 2011 as an independent platform for new talents with challenging and brave film projects and has produced several award-winning shorts and documentaries. In 2014, he moved into fiction film production with Simón Mesa Soto's short Madre competing in Cannes in 2016. He is currently working on a slate of fiction and documentary projects such as Soto's feature debut Amparo and the drama Madame Luna written by Suha Arraf. David was also the co-producer of Tinatin Kajrishvili's Berlinale Panorama 2018 title Horizon.

                                                                                                                         

Katrin Renz - Switzerland

Katrin has been working as a producer for tellfilm since 2007 and founded its German branch with Stefan Jäger and Oliver Schütte in Berlin in 2013. A year later, she became a shareholder at tellfilm in Zurich and has successfully produced several films for the cinema. These include Jäger's Big & Little, Greg Zglinski's Berlinale Forum title Animals, and Lisa Brühlmann's Swiss Film Award winner Blue My Mind which had its world premiere in San Sebastian's New Directors sidebar in 2017.

                                                                                          

Nicolas Anthomé - France

Nicolas has produced more than 50 shorts, fiction films and documentaries since launching Bathysphere in 2006 to promote films with an artistic vision by such filmmakers as Guillaume Brac, Emmanuel Gras and Arthur Harari. Gras' feature documentary Makala won the Grand Prix at the 2017 Critics' Week in Cannes, while Brac's July Tales screened 'out of competition' at the Locarno Festival the same year. Nicolas also served as producer on Abel Ferrara's documentary Alive In France and Berni Goldblat's multi-award-winning Wallay.

Luisa Romeo - Spain

Luisa co-founded Galicia-based Frida Films in 2009 to produce quality auteur films with commercial potential and worldwide relevance. Her productions to date have included David Valero's feature documentary The Incredibles and Adan Aliaga's Spanish-Argentinian co-production El Eternauta's Wife as well as Nely Reguera's Maria and Everybody Else. Luisa and director Juanjo Giménez pitched his second fiction feature project Three at the Berlinale Co-Production Market 2018.

Oliver Sertić – Croatia

Oliver is a documentary producer and festival programmer who also has a background in journalism and events organisation. To date, he has produced around 30 feature and short documentaries and experimental films including Bojana Burnać's My Life Without Air, Damian Nenadić's observational documentary Days Of Madness and Igor Bezinovic's The Blockade. Oliver is also the founder of the RESTART organisation where he established Restart Laboratory, Dokukino and Restart Label.

Åshild Ramborg – Norway

Åshild graduated in Film Production from The Norwegian Film School in Lillehammer. She joined Maipo Film in 2009 after having produced several acclaimed short films. Her first feature was Anne Sewitsky's Homesick in 2015, and she has then produced Mikkel Brænne Sandemose's family adventure The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King which became a huge box-office hit in Norway in 2017. Sandemose is working on a sequel, The Ash Lad: In Search Of The Golden Castle.

Marco Alessi – Italy

After beginning his career as a screenwriter for cinema and TV, Marco set up Dugong, a Rome-based production company committed to the development of cinema on the blurred line between fiction and documentary, in 2010. His productions include Stefano Savona’s Davide di Donatello-winning documentary Tahrir, Liberation Square  and Yuri Ancarani's Locarno Special Jury Prize winner The Challenge. Alessi collaborated again with Savona on his feature-length animated documentary Samouni Road which was selected for Cannes' Directors' Fortnight in 2018.

Birgitta Björnsdottir – Iceland

After graduating with a MA in Filmmaking from the London Film School in 2009, Birgitta started working for the Icelandic production company Zik Zak Filmworks. In 2011, she co-founded Vintage Pictures and has since produced such films as Ása Helga Hjörleifsdottir's award-winning film The Swan and Benedikt Erlingsson's second feature Woman At War which premiered in Cannes' Critics' Week in 2018. Birgitta is now at the development and financing stage on Hjörleifsdottir's next feature A Reply To Helga's Letter.

Per Damgaard Hansen – Denmark

Per co-founded his production company Masterplan Pictures after graduating from the National Film School of Denmark in 2013. He produced internationally acclaimed short films before seeing his first feature film, Hlynur Palmason's Winter Brothers, premiering in Locarno's main competition in 2017 and going on to win more than 20 awards, including a Danish Academy Award for Best Film. Per is currently nearing completion on Carl Marott's The Blue Orchid and in production on Simon Staho's latest as-yet-untitled feature.

Aija Berzina – Latvia

A graduate of Ebeltoft's European Film College and the Latvian Academy of Culture, Aija founded Tasse Film with Alisa Gelze in 2011. Her first feature production, Renārs Vimba's Mellow Mud, premiered at the Berlinale's Generation14plus in 2016. Aija, who has headed up Latvia's Film Producers Association since 2013, is currently in postproduction on Mihael Idov's The Humorist and Juris Kursietis' Oleg in co-production with Lithuania's fellow PRODUCER ON THE MOVE Lukas Trimonis.

Frank Hoeve - The Netherlands

Frank had worked as a producer for several years before founding BALDR Film with Katja Draaijer in 2012. Since then, he has produced a number of award-winning films such as Morgan Knibbe’s Those Who Feel The Fire Burning, Brothers by Bram Schouw and, most recently, Ubiquity by Bregtje van der Haak. Frank is currently co-producing films by Alex Piperno, Alice Furtado and Janus Metz and raising the finance for Kaweh Modiri's Mitra which received the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at CineMart in 2018.

                                                                      

Lukas Trimonis – Lithuania

A graduate from the Baltic Film and Media School in Estonia and the UK's National Film & Television School, Lukas set up his company iN SCRiPT in 2013 and produced Egle’s Vertelyte’s feature debut feature Miracle which premiered in Toronto in 2017. Fascinated by well-crafted scripts and strong characters, he is currently working on two co-productions: Juris Kursietis' second feature Oleg (with Latvian POM Aija Berzina) and Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoi's feature documentary I’ll Stand By You.

Rok Sečen - Slovenia

After graduating from university, Rok initially worked as an advisor to the general secretary at the Ministry of Education before becoming a producer in 2012. He produced Sonja Prosenc's award-winning and critically acclaimed debut The Tree, which was Slovenia's Oscar entry in 2016, and continued the collaboration by producing her History of Love and developing the dark comedy drama Redemption. In addition, Rok is working with the Bosnian director Ines Tanović on her next feature Son.

Biljana Tutorov – Serbia

Working as a producer, director and film curator, Biljana studied Art History, Film Anthropology and Drama in Belgium and France. Her debut feature documentary When Pigs Come premiered in 2017 and she is now in postproduction on her next directorial effort Paper Boats Floating Into The Fragrant Night. True to her mission of producing new talents and strong voices from the region, Biljana is currently working with Croatian filmmaker Jure Pavlović on two projects (Mater and Lost Dream Team).

Miia Haavisto – Finland

Miia is a trained lawyer with a BA in Documentary Film Directing. In addition to producing, she was the CEO for two production companies - Helsinki-filmi and Elokuvaosakeyhtiö Suomi 2017 - before setting up her own company Tekele Productions in 2018. During her time at Helsinki-filmi, she produced such films as Pixadores, Headfirst, Gold Digger, Tom Of Finland and Miami, and then worked with producers Aku Louhimies and Mikko Tehunen on The Unknown Soldier in 2017.

Esko Rips – Estonia

As one of the founders of NAFTA Films, Esko has been producing films, TV series and commercials since 2007. His first feature film production was Margus Pasju's family adventure Secret Society Of Souptown in 2015, which has since become Estonia's most watched family film of all time. He is now developing a Souptown spin-off TV series, the political thriller Anti-Lebanon, a documentary about the birth of Skype and Ingomar Vihmar's family comedy Totally Boss as well as working again with Pasju on the spy thriller O2.

The Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival aka HÕFF announces its full line-up of 27 feature-length and 15 short films, with a focus on horror from Flanders.

The festival opens with the international premiere of the post-apocalyptic, high school-themed Rock Steady Row that arrives straight from Slamdance Festival, where it won the best film and audience favourite awards. Other films that arrive after a successful run at international festivals includes the UK-produced Ghost Stories, the Venice-premiering documentary biopic of a cannibal Caniba, the critically acclaimed Austrian-German historic witch horror Hagazussa - Heathen’s Curse and the Vietnamese KFC that screened at Rotterdam.

Adding geographic spice to the selection is the European premiere of Evil Spirit, made in the blossoming small film industry of Yakutia, officially called the Sakha Republic (part of the Russian Federation), that has been of interest to several big festivals such as Berlin and Busan in recent years.

In focus: Flemish Horror
As a continuation of the Black Nights Film Festival’s (PÖFF) popular Flemish focus, HÕFF takes a look at the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium and its rich horror film tradition. The introduction to the focus comes in the form of the documentary Forgotten Scares: An In-depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema, that was born out of a reaction: four years ago when the festival favourite Cub (also in HÕFF’s programme) by Jonas Govaerts was released, the local press called it the first Flemish horror film. This angered critic Steve De Roover so much that he made this documentary as a retort.

The film will be presented by the grand old man of Flemish horror Harry Kümel, whose 1971 vampire film Daughters of Darkness also screens at HÕFF. That film marked the local awakening of the horror industry and is still regarded as the most well-known Flemish genre film; the lead, a lesbian vampire, is played by the well-known actress and feminist Delphine Seyrig.

Other gems that will be screened in the programme are the gory B-category comedy/splatter Rabid Grannies (1988) and the widely hated (and equally loved) sexploitation/action flick Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy (1990).

Freak programme
The festival’s freak programme is headed by the unofficial international premiere of the cult film Bat Pussy that has been dubbed as the world’ first anti-porno film and the worst pornographic film of all time. The films origins are shrouded in mystery with its production and initial release believed to date back to the beginning of the 1970’s. The film was discovered again in the 90’s and after digital restoration saw a limited release. It has gradually become part of the trash film gold fund.

The film in which a heroine named Bat Pussy tries to save Gotham City from falling into promiscuity is forbidden for under 18-year-olds. “It is a cult classic that will warm the hearts of all true freaks; it could also be called an erotic or anti-erotic version of The Room,” said the head of HÕFF’s programme Helmut Jänes.

Other picks in the freak programme include the European premiere of the Argentinian Malvineitor set during the Falkland’s war, the sequel to the popular Japanese neo-cyberpunk hit Kudoku: Meatball Machine 2, the mockumentary about the fictional Japanese action film superstar Top Knot Detective. 

Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival is organised by the team at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

The 13th edition of HÕFF takes place between the 27th and 29th of April.

goEast – Festival of central and eastern European film officially opened an exhibition of the eight nominees of the Open Frame Award on Thursday, April 21 at Museum Wiesbaden. The exhibition is fully dedicated to VR/360  projects from central and eastern Europe as well as the Rhine-Main region.

One week in advance to the festival the Open Frame Award VR exhibition started in one of the most recognizable cinema venues of Germany: Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, where it was experienced by over 600 visitors in six days.

A three-member jury, consisting of Julia Leeb (filmmaker, VR expert and photographer from Munich), Philipp Mehler (Producer of Lichter Film Festival VR program) and Simon Ofenloch (film editor ARTE/ARTE fiction on ZDF) will determine the winner of the award, which is endowed with 5,000 euros in prize money presented by the BHF BANK Foundation and the Adolf- and Luisa Haeuser Foundation. The Open Frame Award is part of the East-West Talent Lab, sponsored by Kulturfonds Frankfurt Rhein Main.

The selection includes four interactive projects and four spherical 360  films made in absolutely different genres and techniques. One of the goals of the award is to acquaint visitors with the diversity of the technical and creative approaches as well as to present the works from central and eastern European countries to a broader audience. goEast partnered with Berlin based company INVR as well as with Samsung Germany to deliver the unique VR experience-

Curator of the Award Georgy Molodtsov: „For the most of the visitors in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden it was the first time they tried VR. That's important that this experience was about creative use of the new technology usally recognised for its gaming and bussiness application.“ Major film festivals like Cannes, Berlinale, Sundance and others are adding VR to their programs. goEast with its Open Frame Award is one of the few events that evaluates and awards creative VR projects. 

With this fresh start of Open Frame Award, known for its interest in experimental forms, there is a big hope to make goEast film festival a launching pad for central and eastern European VR creators and help them get recognition in the international market.

The exhibition is still on display April 22nd to 25th during regular working hours of Museum Wiesbaden (Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 2)

Find more information about the OFA on https://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/de/sektionen/Open%20Frame%20Award

The 2^nd edition of the Warsaw Kids Film Forum, an international pitching forum for films and series for young viewers, will be held on 26-28 September 2018 in Warsaw during The Kids Film Festival. Submission of projects that want to take part in the Pitching (in the Development or Work-in-Progress phase) or at the Script Exchange is open until 31 May.

The Warsaw Kids Film Forum brings together representatives of the film industry from countries producing a lot of high-quality movies and series with film makers from countries where production is just gaining momentum.

At the Forum you can:

• present your project and find a co-producer, distributor, sales agent or television partner,
• meet representatives of film institutes and regional funds,
• consult the project being developed with professional script advisors in individual meetings,
• learn the latest trends in the market of production for young viewers
• win one of the best pitching prizes (incl. participation in The Financing Forum for Kids Content 2019 in Malmö, or at the EAVE Producers Workshop 2018 in Luxembourg, as well as the possibility to conduct production and post-production services in the Audiovisual Technology Center in Wrocław for a total amount of PLN 160,000 ).

The three-day program of the Warsaw Kids Film Forum consists of a first day of conferences, the so-called Inspiration Day, used to present case studies for the most interesting co-productions for children – animation, live action or documentaries, dedicated to a cross media approach to telling stories, building a marketing campaign or analysing the European production market for children. The second and third day of the Forum are dedicated to pitching of 28 qualified projects (series and full-length films – live action, animated and documentary) and individual meetings of Forum participants with representatives of the Polish and foreign film industry. A novelty in this year's program will be the Script Exchange reuniting screenwriters and directors with producers, and the Producers' Meeting aimed at starting co-production.

Over 80 projects from 25 countries submitted in 2017 and over 200 participants in the Forum – including representatives of sales agents Sola Media, Global Screen, Canal + television, NRK, YLE, NDR and Netherland Film Funds, as well as the Polish Film Institute, indicate the growing need to establish contacts between developed film industries and new emerging markets. Only in Poland, in the last 3 years, the first productions for young viewers that have achieved commercial success have been created, as well as an allocation by the Polish Film Institute dedicated to the family audience was given its own category, to which approx. 50 projects were submitted just in the first year.

Submission of projects for Pitching and the Script Exchange is open until 31 May. The registration form and a list of required attachments is available at www.warsawkidsff.pl.

Observer registration starts on 4 June and lasts until 16 September.