RIGA: The National Film Centre of Latvia will see a budget increase of 10 percent in 2020 and an additional increase is expected in 2021.

RIGA: The national film centres and governmental agencies from Estonia, Latvia and Finland are joining forces to promote themselves as a filmmaking region under the banner of North Star Film Alliance, a new venture which will officially launch at the AFM (American Film Market) in November.

JIHLAVA: The ever-expanding industry programme at the 23rd edition of the Ji.hlava IDFF (24 – 29 October 2019) continues to surprise with the range of discussions and presentations during an intensive four-day long schedule with five areas of concentration. Over 1,000 film professionals are expected to attend the festival.

COTTBUS: Debut films from Georgia and from Bosnia & Herzegovina are among the 12 films competing for the top prize at the 29th FilmFestival Cottbus, which takes place 5 – 10 November 2019. Poland will be represented by a competition film as well as the closing night film, Corpus Christi by Jan Komasa, which has become a critical and a domestic box office success. The Cypriot hit Smuggling Hendrix by Marios Piperides will open the festival.

RIGA: The 6th edition of the Riga IFF opened on 17 October 2019 with the national premiere of emerging young Latvian filmmaker Gints Zibalodis’s auteur success Away at the historic Splendid Palace, Riga’s oldest cinema and one of just three remaining art house cinemas. The singular achievement of the film is just one facet of the growth of the Latvian film industry, from near extinction a decade ago, to having a film short-listed for an Oscar nomination in the animation category, and a new crop of domestic films which are attracting local audiences. The festival continues through 26 October.

WARSAW: The Croatian live action family adventure film Bumblebee’s Flight was pitched at the Warsaw Kids Film Forum, which concluded on 27 September 2019. The project was presented by producer Maja Vukic and writer Marko Hrenovic.

RIGA: Ten fiction and documentary films will screen in the Baltic Sea Region Competition of the 2019 Riga International Film Festival, which runs 17 – 27 October 2019. The lone Latvian entry is Laila Pakalnina’s documentary Spoon, which premiered in the documentary competition of the Karlovy Vary IFF.

WARSAW: The pre-teen German animated series Nearth – A New World won the Best Pitch award at the 2019 edition of Warsaw Kids Film Forum, at the close of the event on 27 September 2019. The Danish 2D animated film Napoleon won a three-week Pop Up Film Residency in Bratislava, and two Polish productions received new in-kind post-production awards.

WARSAW: The new 30 percent automatic cash rebate, along with dedicated coproduction funds and an extensive network of regional film funds, is making Poland an attractive coproduction partner. The Warsaw Kids Film Forum, which runs through 27 September 2019, is riding on this new wave with an extensive selection of Polish children’s productions being pitched this year, as well as foreign projects looking for Polish partners. Among them is the Polish animated film project Sol & Liv presented by LETKO producer Anna Glovik and scriptwriter/director Piotr Szczepanowicz.

WARSAW: The animated comedy/adventure series I Love This is one of several Polish projects being pitched at the Warsaw Kids Film Forum, running through 27 September 2019.