TREBON: Poland was represented by two projects at the Visegrad Animation Forum’s (VAF) first pitching session for feature-length animated films, which took place during the Anifilm festival, running through 6 May 2018.

PLZEN: The big winner of the 31st Finale Plzen film festival (running through 24 April 2018) was Slovak actor-turned-director/writer/producer Peter Bebjak. His film The Line won the Golden Kingfisher Award for best feature or animated film, and his TV project Justice won both the international jury award and the student jury award for best non-serial TV project.

PLZEN: Czech-French coproductions appear to be entering a mature stage, judging by the comments of participants discussing collaborations between the two countries. And in many cases, Czech producers are taking the lead.

PLZEN: The Estonian government has decided to give more funds for filmmaking, following the success of it’s one-off “Estonia 100” project to celebrate the country’s centennial of independence in 2018. Speaking at an Industry Days forum at the 31st Finale Plzen festival running through 24 April 2018, Estonian Film Institute director Edith Sepp said the decision was made just two weeks ago.

PLZEN: Shrinking budgets and time slots are reducing foreign programming and documentaries on Slovenia’s public broadcaster RTVS.

COTTBUS: One of the many new initiatives at this year’s edition of Connecting Cottbus, 9 – 10 November 2017, was a pitching session of projects from the MIDPOINT Feature Launch programme. The projects selected to participate included the debut feature film Inventory by Slovenian producer Vlado Bulajic for his four-year-old company December and directed by Darko Sinko.

COTTBUS: The Polish drama Speedway, directed by Dorota Kędzierzawska and produced by Arthur Reinhart for Kid Film, was one of four films seeking gap funding at Connecting Cottbus’ first Works in Progress section.

COTTBUS: The glass ceiling is budgets. That was the message coming from the first Female Producers Roundtable organised by Connecting Cottbus, 9 – 10 November 2017. For countries with larger amounts of funding, that means female producers are eliminated from consideration for large budget films.

COTTBUS: Georgian director Vano Burduli pitched his third feature film The Russian Doctor at Connecting Cottbus, which took place 9 – 10 November 2017.

COTTBUS: Macedonia, Croatia and Bulgaria are lining up to come on board Zana, a feature film from Kosovo directed by Antoneta Kastrati. The project was presented as part of the new MIDPOINT Feature Launch pitches at Connecting Cottbus on 9 – 10 November 2017.