Trieste, January 11th, 2018 – The eighth edition of When East Meets West kicks off in 10 days, on January 21st with an exciting double focus on the Nordic countries and South East Europe. After having revealed the pitching forum project selection, WEMW announces its new Baltic Award! Thanks to the cooperation with the three Baltic Film Institutes selected projects will compete for a cash prize of 3.000 EUR. Along with the co-production forum WEMW is proud to unveil the complete line-up of the three side sections targeting films in post-production stage.

Now in its fourth edition, Last Stop Trieste, the work in progress section run together with the Trieste Film Festival, will present 7 creative documentaries to an exclusive panel of more than 40 international sales agents, festival programmers and TV commissioning editors. All films will be in the running for the HBO Europe Award and the Flow Digital Cinema Award.

First Cut Lab, the workshop for films in editing phase, has finally selected 3 long feature fiction films from Poland, Russia and Lithuania with the main goal of fostering their artistic, sales and festival potential. To this aim, the producer/director teams invited to the lab will receive tailor-made advices from a consulting editor and international experts.

 

After the successful past editions of these two side sections, When East Meets West and Trieste Film Festival will expand their initiatives targeting projects in post-production phase and will launch in partnership with Milano Film Network a new section exclusively dedicated to long feature fiction films produced or co-produced by Italian producers. This is IT will present 6 films ready for festival premiere/international distribution and will deliver the Laser Film Award.

Alongside the pitching forum and the three side sections, WEMW will feature a rich programme including a “Coproduction Day” organized in cooperation with the Creative Europe Desks from South East European countries, Italy and the Nordic countries; “In the Spotlight”, where fund representatives from this year's spotlight territories will give a comprehensive insight into current trends in their film industries. The panel “The Road to Project and Film Marketing: Checkpoints and Pitfalls”, in cooperation with Heretic Asterisk, will shed light on the way marketing can impact a project during its all different stages: from development to delivery and distribution. EAVE will lead the session “Towards 2030: Creating New Business Models for Film”, a plenary for film professionals interested in the current status of digital distribution, its future growth and how to create a strong, sustainable and dynamic European industry. Finally, EDN – European Documentary Network will host the session “Victim of Changes? Or Drivers of Innovation?”, where a number of leading voices from public service broadcasters will discuss how they see the future for public media in the digital age.

The 7 documentaries presented at Last Stop Trieste, the 3 long feature fiction films chosen for First Cut Lab and the 6 Italian films selected for This is IT are:

 

LAST STOP TRIESTE   100 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN director: Víctor Cruz producer: Fito Pochat countries: Argentina, Italy BALTIC NEW WAVE directors: Audrius Stonys, Kristine Briede producer: Uldis Cekulis countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia BEFORE FATHER GETS BACK director: Mari Gulbiani producer: Tekla Machavariani countries: Georgia, France, Germany EXEMPLARY BEHAVIOUR director: Audrius Mickevičius producer: Rasa Miškinytė, countries: Lithuania, Bulgaria, Italia	HOME GAMES director: Alisa Kovalenko producer: Stephane Siohan countries: Ukraine, France, Poland MY UNKNOWN SOLDIER director: Anna Kryvenko producer: Michal Kráčmer countries: Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia PAYING A VISIT TO FORTUNA director: Mátyás Kálmán producer: Ágnes Horváth-Szabó country: Hungary
FIRST CUT LAB CORE OF THE WORLD director: Audrius Mickevičius producers: Natalia Drozd, Sergey Selyanov countries: Russia, Lithuania SUMMER SURVIVORS director: Marija Kavtaradze producers: Marija Razgute, Klementina Remeikaite country: Lithuania	THE MUTE director: Bartosz Konopka producer: Anna Wydra countries: Poland, Belgium
This is IT CITTA’ GIARDINO director: Marco Piccarreda producers: Marco Piccarreda, Gaia Formenti country: Italy DUE PICCOLI ITALIANI director: Paolo Sassanelli producer: Tommaso Arrighi countries: Italy, Iceland MENOCCHIO director: Alberto Fasulo producer: Nadia Trevisan countries: Italy, Romania	IL RUMORE DEL SOLE director: Mirko Locatelli producers: Mirko Locatelli, Giuditta Tarantelli countries: Italy, France STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS director: Gregor Božič producers: Marina Gumzi, Igor Princic countries: Slovenia, Italy THE WORLD IS FLAT director: Matteo Carrega Bertolini producers: Matteo Carrega Bertolini, Paola Dall’Olio countries: Italy, France, Switzerland

WEMW is organized by the FVG Audiovisual Fund and the Trieste Film Festival in collaboration with EAVE, Maia Workshops, Creative Europe Desk Italy, EURIMAGES and the support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, MiBACT - Direzione Generale per il Cinema, CEI - Central European Initiative and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The 2018  East & West focus is in cooperation and with the support of all South East Europeans funds - Albanian National Center of Cinematography, Association of Filmmakers of BiH & Sarajevo Film Fund, Bulgarian National Film Center, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Film Centre of Montenegro, Film Center Serbia, Greek Film Centre, Kosovo Cinematography Center, Macedonian Film Agency, Slovenian Film Centre - and all Nordic film institutes - Danish Film Institute, Finnish Film Foundation, Icelandic Film Centre, Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute.

 

 

The VAF Třeboň (May 1 – 3, 2018, Czech Republic) is the leading pitching event for animated film in the Central and Eastern Europe. As each year, animated projects in development compete in two categories: Short Films (single film less than 20 minutes long) and Series / TV Specials (web and TV series of any format and single films over 20 min.). Within the pitching preparation, the participants will get a unique opportunity for in-depth consultation with experienced film professionals on their story concept, project development, financial plan, market or festival strategy, possible coproduction workflow separation etc.

The winners in both categories receive a traditional financial support of EUR 2,000 for further development. Besides this, the winning TV Series project gains direct access to Cartoon Forum 2018. The collaboration between the VAF and the world respected association CARTOON is extending. For the first time, a pitch for animated feature films will be organized. In this pilot edition, five VAF board members will choose the best project from their country (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia). After being pitched to different European distributors, 1:1 meetings with key representatives of the animation industry will be followed. The most promising project shall automatically advance to Cartoon Movie (Bordeaux, France).

Thanks to the cooperation with the workshop Animation Sans Frontiers (ASF), one selected director or producer will receive a scholarship in amount of EUR 1,000. Tim Leborgne, project leader of ASF will follow the pitches in both categories and choose the winner. The Sound Post-production Award will be also announced. 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 studio of Piotr Kubiak.

Submissions will remain open until 31st January 2018.

Detailed rules you can find here.
SUBMIT you project FOR FREE here.
For any questions, please write at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The VAF Třeboň 2018 is not only a pitching competition. It is the place where you can meet all the animated film industry not only from CEE. More than 150 film professionals – including producers, broadcasters, festival experts, sales agents, distributors, fund representatives and others – come to discuss visions, financing opportunities or strategies for further development. In addition, there will be a particular
emphasis to networking possibilities. The base of the well-functioning animated market is a very good knowledge of the co-production partner.

 

The VAF Třeboň 2018 is held jointly with ANIFILM – International Festival of Animated Film (May 1 – 6, 2018, Czech Republic). It also cooperates with Cartoon Forum and is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, the Czech State Cinematography Fund and co-financed by state funds and professional organizations from the Czech Republic (ASAF, Association of Czech Animation Film), Hungary (MOME ANIM, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest ), Poland (SPPA, Polish Animation Producers Association), Slovakia (APAF, Slovak Association of Animated Film Producers) and Slovenia (:D´SAF!, Slovenian Animated Film Association).