BUCHAREST: The Romanian/Hungarian feature film Freedom / Libertate directed by Tudor Giurgiu scored 14 nominations at the 18th edition of the Gopo Awards, followed by Mihai Mincan’s debut feature To the North / Spre nord (Romania, France, Greece, Bulgaria, Czech Republic)  with 13 nods. Veterans like Radu Jude and Cristi Puiu received lesser nominations for their new films.

PODGORICA: Nikola Mijović’s feature Four Funerals and a Wedding / Četiri sahrane i vjenčanje, which already received development and production support from the Film Centre of Montenegro (FCCG), is conceived so far as a Montenegrin/Serbian/Macedonian coproduction.

VILNIUS: The Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Cinema Museum reopened in Vilnius on 14 March 2024 after 16 years of reconstruction.

VILNIUS: The SMART7 network has announced its selection of European films which will tour seven film festivals across Europe in 2024. SMART7 includes festivals from Poland (mbank New Horizons IFF), Iceland (Reykjavik IFF), Portugal (IndieLisboa IFF), Romania (Transilvania IFF), Spain (FILMADRID IFF), Greece (Thessaloniki IFF) and Lithuania (Kino Pavasaris).

BRATISLAVA: Nine Slovak projects in different stages of production, including fiction, documentary and animated films, will be presented on 18 March 2024 at the Works in Progress session during Bratislava Industry Days.

RIGA: The Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) has opened the application process for its four competition sections. The festival will be held 17 – 27 October 2024.

PRAGUE: The 12th edition of the leading pitching, financing and coproduction event for animated projects, CEE Animation Forum, will be held in Pilsen, Czech Republic 12 – 13 November 2024.

The following grants were announced by the Estonian Film Institute in various sessions throughout 2023 and also at the beginning of 2024, following a call for projects launched in 2023.

Europa Distribution Workshop SOFIA MEETINGS – March 20-24th

LOS ANGELES: Hungarian set designer Zsuzsa Mihalek received the Academy Award for Best Production Design for her work on Poor Things, while Polish minority coproduction The Zone of Interest was awarded in the Best International Feature Film and Best Sound categories.

Page 1 of 1045