Ex Oriente Film call for applications is closing on April 24, 2018. If you have documentary project in development or early production stage, you can submit it using our online application form (applying is free of charge and is only available in English). Also, if you know about interesting projects in development, do not hesitate to share our call.

Tutors
Among more than 25 tutors of this year’s edition of Ex Oriente Film, we are proud to have the General Delegate of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week Giona

A. Nazzaro (Switzerland/Italy), producer and consultant Iikka Vehkalahti (Finland), Head of Studies of the European Documentary Network Mikael Opstrup(Denmark), director and script editor Ivana Pauerová Miloševičová (Czech Republic) and director and producer Filip Remunda (Czech Republic).

Participants
The workshop is open for 12 selected documentary projects, represented bydirector-producer teams who will attend all the workshop sessions. It is designed for directors and producers coming from Europe with a special attention for Central and Eastern Europe projects (incl. EU acceding and candidate countries, Post-Soviet states and Russia) and/or for creative documentary projects dealing with stories from Central and Eastern Europe.

Workshops

The first Ex Oriente Film session will take place in Trieste (Italy) in June 17 – 23, 2018. For the first time, Ex Oriente Film will be held alongside the new training and development initiative RE-ACT. The date of RE-ACT workshop is June 19 – 21. Creative teams (director and producer) from partner countries/regions: Slovenia, Croatia and Friuli Venezia Giulia who have documentary projects in early stages of development are welcome to apply to RE-ACT until April 20, 2018. You can find more information on the website of RE-ACT workshop.

Next sessions will take place in Jihlava (October 25 – 30, 2018, within IDFF Ji.hlava) and in Prague in March 2019 (within East Doc Platform during One World IHRDFF) where the whole process culminates at the East Doc Forum co-production meeting, featuring the final pitching in front of Europe's and North America's leading commissioning editors and independent producers, distributors, buyers and film fund representatives.

MIDPOINT TV Launch 2018 – Workshop 2 is taking off

Participants from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece and Serbia will gather again from April 19 till April 24, this time in the town of Pilsen, Czech Republic. Finale Plzen Film Festival sets the frame for the second out of three residential MIDPOINT TV Launch workshops and we are happy to share the program with you.

Six TV series projects and sixteen participants have been selected to participate in this Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union supported program to develop their projects over the course of 9 months. The participants will receive an intensive one-to-one tutoring and they will participate in group feedback sessions.

MIDPOINT TV Launch is a workshop program that nurtures and trains emerging talents from the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The program provides training and tutors the participants in creating rich-in-content, compelling stories and innovative series concepts.

During the second workshop the teams will be guided by Core Tutors Maggie Murphy (USA) and Gabor Krigler (HU), as well as by Director Tutor Rumle Hammerich (DK), Producer Tutor Jacqueline de Goeij (BE) and Guest Tutor Steve Matthews (UK). We will also welcome Anna Katharina Brehm from SerienCamp Conference (GE), Gaia Tridente from MIA (IT), and Ed Wallerfrom C21 Media – Content London (UK), who will join us as experts.

 If you are at Finale Plzen Film Festival, make sure to check out the open program:

April 20 / Friday / 17.00 – 18.30

SHARED VISION – Working in the Creative Triangle / Rumle Hammerich

 April 21 / Saturday / 16.30 – 18.30

So You've Written a Great Pilot... / Steve Matthews

April 22 / Sunday / 16.00 – 17.30

Pitches, Bibles, Pilot Script – Keeping the Show Close at Heart / Jacqueline de Goeij

April 23 / Monday / 17.00 – 18.30

Looking for Partners in the Television Landscape while Keeping Everybody Happy / Jacqueline de Goeij

MIDPOINT's partner HBO Europe will grant a financial annual award to appraise the best project at the final workshop of the year. C21 Media will grant a one-year free subscription to a selected producer participant.

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Czech Projects Can Now Apply for the Script Consulting Incubator

The Czech Film Fund´s 2018 call for applications for development support of Czech feature films is now open with the deadline being set to April 25. Filmmakers can now register to the Script Consulting Incubator and also apply for financial and dramaturgical support for the first time.

Projects selected for the Script Consulting Incubator will be provided with a year-long professional script consultancy with top international experts.

The Script Consulting Incubator, which was initiated by the Czech Film Fund, aims to stimulate changes in the practices used in Czech feature film development and to help address the problem of the lack of qualified feedback for local film scripts. The program is being organized for the Czech Film Fund by the international training and networking platform MIDPOINT.

More information on what participation in the Script Consulting Incubator entails is included directly in the Czech Film Fund´s call. (Please note that the projects can be selected in the Incubator only through their application for development support at the film fund.) You can also consult the project´s website.

You can meet representatives of the Czech Film Fund and MIDPOINT at the Finale Plzen Film Festival on Monday, April 23, at 10.00 Happy Hour & Coffeewith the Script Consulting Incubator.

 

The sixth year of the international Visegrad Animation Forum for film professionals will take place on 1^st – 3^rd May. As a tradition, it will be centred on a pitching competition of animated projects now in development in two categories – short films and series / TV specials. This year's novelty is a pitching competition of upcoming animated feature films. It is organised by the Visegrad Animation Forum in cooperation with the Anifilm Festival and the newly established CEE Animation platform. This will be the first time in history that the region of Central and Eastern Europe will see a presentation of feature films that are still in development.

Feature film is a distinguished discipline in animation. Such production ventures require courage, patience, and a great deal of energy. That's why animated feature films are often eagerly awaited. Last year's animation sensation – again from the CEE region – was Loving Vincent (dir. Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, POL), which has circled the world, broken box office records and collected a number of prestigious awards – including the European Film Award or a Golden Globe nomination. At the beginning of 2018, Jan Švankmajer, a strong name in Czech animation, introduced his latest feature, Insect.

Among this year's closely watched premieres by leading Central and Eastern European filmmakers are Another Day of Life (dir. Raúl de la Fuente, ES, Damian Nenow, POL) – an adaptation of the Angola civil war report, The Fantastic Voyage of Marona – another film by the pioneer of animated features Ancy Damian (RO) about unconditional dog love or the adventures of a young boy who shrank to the size of an insect called Captain Morten and the Spider Queen (dir. Kaspar Jancis, EE).

All of these resounding names are great news for the animation industry in Central and Eastern Europe. Thanks to these individuals and their original work – and the animation tradition as well – VAF has decided to hold the first ever competition of feature-length projects that are still in the development phase from the Central and Eastern European region.

For the pilot year, projects were selected by experienced producers and national co-ordinators of the Visegrad Animation Forum. They know the film production of their countries in great detail, a fact which has enabled them to choose the most suitable representatives for this presentation.

The first one of the six competition entries is the Polish family adventure story of a Portuguese girl Fatima and the Secret Treasure, presented by one of the directors Barter Kik together with the producer Urszula Łuczak. Hungarian animation is represented by the film Helka - dir. László Nyikos. The Czech director Ondřej Pecha is presenting his feature film in progress Jack Russel the Planet Saviour (producer Miloslav Šmídmajer), inspired by the work of the famous artist Vladimír Jiránek. This year's selection will also be enriched by the first ever Macedonian animated feature film – the fantasy John Vardar vs. the Galaxy (dir.

 

Goce Cvetanovski, producer Alan Castillo). The successful co-production duo of Juraj Krasnohorsky and Martin Vandas will present a co-production short story film Of Unwanted Things and People, based on a book by Czech writer Arnošt Goldflam. The group of six is completed by the Polish Schlemiel (producer Włodzimierz Matuszewski), a story of courage and friendship in difficult times.

The international jury will consist of experienced film professionals – Moe Honan (Noah Is Gone, Moetion Films, Ireland), Manon Messiant (Tram by Michaela Pavlátová, Sacrebleu Productions, France), Marc Bonny (My Life as a Zucchini, Gebeka Films, France) or Andres Mänd (Nukufilm Studios, Estonia).

"Film makers and original projects from Central and Eastern Europe attract and enchant the whole world. We are delighted that in the past six years the Visegrad Animation Forum has become the heart of animation in the region. These two facts have enabled us to conclude a unique partnership agreement with the prestigious Cartoon Movie, a pitching and co-production forum for feature-length animated films," Anna Vášová, head of the VAF feature film section, explains.

Thus, the winning animated feature project will then proceed directly to Cartoon Movie 2019 (Bordeaux, FR), where it will compete with 60 other projects in front of more than 850 cinema professionals (distributors, sales agents, investors) from 40 countries and have a chance to gain key partners for the film. The Třeboň audience will choose a winner of the special Nespresso award from among the six competitors.

The competition will take place at the Puppet Theatre in Třeboň at 3.15 p.m. on the 2^nd May during the Anifilm Festival, which has decided to transform the Work in Progress programme section into a more formal pitching of feature films. "With the growing interest in feature-length animated films, we have decided in Anifilm to join forces with the Visegrad Animation Forum. We strongly hope that this format will prove to be the right way and encourage the encounters of professionals at the festival, as well as the proliferation of animated feature production in Central Europe," the director of the Anifilm festival Tomáš Rychecký concluded.

There will also be a ceremonial presentation by the Visegrad Animation Forum of another year of VAF New Talents – a selection of short films created by promising young authors from the Central and Eastern European region.

 

List of selected feature film projects:

1. Fatima and the Secret Treasure
   Directors: Bartek Kik, Damian Nenow (Poland)
   Executive Producers: Piotr Sikora, Jarosław Sawko, Producers: Sofia Miranda, Magdalena Bargieł, Line Producer: Urszula Łuczak (Poland)
2. Helka
   Directors: Nyikos, László, Fazekas, Csaba (Hungary)
   Producer: Csortos Szabó, Sándor (Hungary)
3. Jack Russel the Planet Rescuer
   Director: Ondřej Pecha (Czech Republic)
   Producer: Miloslav Šmídmajer (Czech Republic)
4. John Vardar vs the Galaxy
   Directors: Goce Cvetanovski, Macedonia
   Producer: Alan Castillo, Macedonia
   Coproducers: Kalin Kalinov (Bulgaria), Didier Falk (France), Per Rosendal (Denmark), Miljana Dragicevic (Croatia)
5. Of Unwanted Things and People
   Directors: David Súkup (Czech Republic), Ivana Laučíková (Slovakia), Leon Vidmar (Slovenia), Agata Gorządek (Poland)
   Producers: Martin Vandas (Czech Republic), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovakia), Kolja Saskida (Slovenia), Wojtek Leszczynski (Poland)
6. Schlemiel
   Director: vacant
   Producer: Włodzimierz Matuszewski (Poland)

Find out more about the event VAF Třeboň at http://visegradanimation.com/selected-projects/

Eleven short films in development will participate in the VAF 2018 Třeboň pitching competition. The winning short film project will receive 2,000 EUR. Thanks to the cooperation with the European Animation Development Lab Animation Sans Frontières (ASF), one selected director or producer will receive a scholarship in amount of EUR 1,500. Tim Leborgne, project leader of ASF will follow the pitches in both categories and choose the winner. The price worth EUR 1,000 will receive the best short film and will cover the sound postproduction including studio and sound engineer for 5 days. This award is offered by Polish Playade Sound Studio by Piotr Kubiak.

The jury for Short Films pitching competition:

Urszula Łuczak has been a producer at Platige Image in Poland for over eight years now. She began working at VFX Department, where she was involved in movies such as Essential Killing, Melancholy and Uwiklanie. As a production manager, she created stereoscopic scenography for spectacles such as Polita for Buffo Theatre and Pilots for Roma Theatre. She also produced animation movies for the Qatar market: Hero and the message and Heroes and the mission. Her first full feature animation movie co-produced by Platige Image called Another Day of Life – a film in which she was involved as production manager – has recently been released into festival circulation

Andres Mänd is a producer and CEO at Nukufilm Studios, Estonia. He studied theatrical directing in Estonia, animation in Russia and art management in Finland. He worked as an animator at Nukufilm (1983-1996), as the Head of Animation Departement at Volda University College, Norway (1996-2017). He has animated over 40 puppet films, including TV commercials and music videos. He has also produced the majority of the graduation films from Volda University College over the last 20 years. Andres has served in the past as judges on short or animated film festival in Norway, Cuba and Estonia.

Manon Messiant a graduate of Sciences Po Lille, has worked on notable French productions such as My Golden Days directed by Arnaud Desplechin (2015) and Elle by Paul Verhoeven (2016). She then joined Kazak Productions, where she developed  a real thirst for animated films and worked with Gabriel Harel (Yul and the Snake) and Adrien Merigeau (Artistic Director of Song of the Sea by Tom Moore), among others. Now as production manager at Sacrebleu Productions, Manon is working on several upcoming animated films directed by Rémi Chayé (Longway North), Michaela Pavlatova (Tram) and Boris Labbé (Rhizome).

Terhi Väänänen is the producer, CEO and co-founder of Pyjama Films, a Finland (Turku) based animation studio specialised in artistically ambitious 2D animation projects. The studio’s first short, Elli Vuorinen’s Sore Eyes for Infinity (2016), produced by Väänänen, has been selected for 50 international film festivals and has won eight awards, such as the Anča Award and special mention at Animafest Zagreb. Väänänen has worked in the animation field since 2009, previously as the festival director of Animatricks Animation Festival and as the project coordinator of the Turku Region animation development project.

Dario van Vree following his animation studies at the prestigious KASK academy in Belgium, Dario has been directing animation shorts and series with an eye for the weird, the incentive and the power of character performance. His work is characterized by clarity, humour and a love for paradoxes. In addition to directing at his Amsterdam-based animation studio Studio Pupil, Dario teaches animation & direction at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and is co-founder of the KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival.

Additional jury member for ASF Award in both categories Short Films and Series/TV Specials:
Tim Leborgne graduated with a Master’s degree in social psychology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. In 1999, Tim had the good fortune of returning to one of his childhood passions, animation film, by working with Corinne Jenart and Marc Vandeweyer at Cartoon AEFA for four years, during which he participated in the creation and management of the European Training Network for Animation (ETNA) and to the organisation of numerous Cartoon Masters, Cartoon Movies and Cartoon Forums. In 2003, Tim joined The Animation Workshop / VIA University College in Viborg as the director of its Professional Training and Open Workshop (artist residencies) departments.

The ten best Series / TV Specials projects will compete in a pitching contest based on concise presentations and discussion with the jury and the audience. The winning short film project will receive 2,000 EUR. The winner and the runner up (Special mention) will have direct access to Cartoon Forum 2018 without the need to undergo competitive pre-selection. Thanks to the cooperation with the European Animation Development Lab Animation Sans Frontières (ASF), one selected director or producer will receive a scholarship in amount of EUR 1,500. Tim Leborgne, project leader of ASF will follow the pitches in both categories and choose the winner.

The jury for Series / TV Specials pitching competition:

Marc Bonny was born in 1955. After some years in cultural sector, he begun directing and programming an arthouse theater. Then he had the opportunity to work for 20th Century Fox in Lyon and learned about film distribution. Some years later he created Gebeka Films, an independent distribution company specialized in high quality films for a young audience. Some examples of films

being distributed by Gebeka since 1998 : Kirikou and the Sorceress (Michel Ocelot), The Boy Who Wanted to be a Bear (Jannik Hastrup), The Three Robbers (Hayo Freitag), Brendan and the Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore), A Cat in Paris (Alain Gagnol / Jean-Loup Felicioli), The Painting (Jean-François Laguionie), Moomins on the Riviera (Xavier Picard), My Life as a Courgette (Claude Barras), Zombillénium (Arthur de Pins), Louise by the Shore (Jean-François Laguionie) and many others. On the other side, Marc Bonny is also an exhibitor through The Comoedia, a nine screens arthouse theater set in Lyon.

Maciej Chmiel graduated from History of Art at the Warsaw University, Academy of Leadership at the Warsaw Polytechnique and received an MBA from the University of Illionois. He was involved with culture on a professional level starting from 1985 when he became a manager of the punk rock band Dezerter. Results of this five-year collaboration were one record in the USA, one in France and three in Poland. It was the first CEE band to tour Japan. He continued as journalist writing articles for the largest Polish daily newspaper and as a host of his own radio and TV shows, as well as the editor of music programmes in TVP, the Polish national broadcaster. Then he established his own production company which during ten years produced a dozen of documentaries and hundreds of TV programmes. After heading TVP2 for some time, he is for the last two years Vice Head of Department of Trade and International Cooperation in TVP.

Moe Honan is CEO of Moetion Films Ltd., which she founded in October 2013 and where she works as a producer and voice director of animated feature films and TV series. Moetion Films develops and produces content for child and family audiences. Moe won the Producer of the Year 2016 award at Cartoon Movie in Lyon. Since 2000, in conjunction with many international partners based in Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, France and Canada, and with broadcasters such as NDR, WDR France 2, France 3, TVO, and the BBC, Moe has co-produced many animation projects including five award-winning animated feature films which have been distributed internationally. Most recently she completed Two By Two – Ooops! The Ark Has Gone (a.k.a. Ooops! Noah Is Gone), a 3D animated feature film co-produced with partners in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. The film was released in 2015 in the UK and Ireland. It has achieved over 4.2million EUR in box office sales and been distributed world-wide. Prior to her role as a producer, Moe worked in radio as a news presenter and arts journalist and also as a director and assistant director on documentary programmes such as Battle of the Somme and the series Battlefields for RTE and The History Channel and PBS.

Manuela Lumb started her career by helping establishing the animation Studio Film Bilder. She founded the distribution company Edition Film Bilder and was producing many prize winning short films. In 1998 she became commissioning editor at SWR and was responsible for Children’s Programme. Later she joined WDR and was commissioning editor for the “Show with the Mouse”, where she successfully produced many animation features and series and also live action. In 2008 she became Head of Children’s and Family Department at the Berlin-based studio TV Film where among others, she developed and produced the most successful German children’s brand for KiKA, “Kikaninchen”. In June 2016 she became Head of Development at MotionWorks, one of the leading animation production companies in Germany. Since April 2018 she works as an independent producer and consultant.

Éva Vass started her career in 1993 as a cultural columnist, presenter and reporter in a Regional TV in Hungary, later she moved to the Regional theater as a dramaturge. In 1997 she joined TV2 and worked first as a planner, then until 2014 as Head of Program Operations in the multichannel environment of TV2, Super TV2, Pro4, Fem3 (MTM-SBS Rt., ProSiebenSat1). She then spent a year as an editor in printed lifestyle magazine. Éva has returned back to broadcasting in 2015 – this time to MTVA, starting as Editor in Chief and working since 2016 as Director of M2 Channel. Éva has also served several times in various festival juries – at BANFF World Media Festival, Prix Jeunesse International, International Emmy Awards in Budapest and at the 10th Festival of European Animated Film and TV-Film, 2017, Kecskemét, Hungary.

Additional jury member for ASF Award in both categories Short Films and Series/TV Specials:
Tim Leborgne graduated with a Master’s degree in social psychology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. In 1999, Tim had the good fortune of returning to one of his childhood passions, animation film, by working with Corinne Jenart and Marc Vandeweyer at Cartoon AEFA for four years, during which he participated in the creation and management of the European Training Network for Animation (ETNA) and to the organisation of numerous Cartoon Masters, Cartoon Movies and Cartoon Forums. In 2003, Tim joined The Animation Workshop / VIA University College in Viborg as the director of its Professional Training and Open Workshop (artist residencies) departments.

Feature Film Projects: Pitching Competition

As this is a pilot year, we have left the selection of projects to VAF national coordinators, who know best of current production in their respective countries. The goal was to invite experienced producers who have a clear vision of their project and the condition that the project had already received some funding. After making their pitch, the teams will have a special feedback and networking meeting with experts invited by VAF - broadcasters, producers, distributors, fund members etc.

There will be two awards to compete for: firstly the Best Feature Film Pitch, the winning project will advance directly to the prestigious Cartoon Movie 2019, and secondly the Nespresso Audience Award.

The VAF Třeboň will take place May 1 – 3, 2018 within the International Festival of Animated Films Anifilm. For a full line-up of selected films visit: http://visegradanimation.com/selected-projects/

As organisations working across the European audiovisual sector, and in the context of the discussions surrounding the next Multi-annual Financial Framework, we would like to reiterate our support for the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme, a vital component of the European audiovisual landscape, and call for an ambitious budgetary proposal to ensure the continued success of the European audiovisual sector in the future.