The following production grants were announced by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre on 10 March 2020.

After eight years of the Visegrad Film Forum and facing various challenges that are mainly related to making our guests and visitors satisfied, it’s about time we have to make a tough decision. Based on the current situation in Europe and Bratislava a.k.a. the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we’ve decided to cancel the current edition of our event, which was to be held on March 10-14. We will let you know whether we will cancel VFF completely or just put it off to a later time.

The international industry event that was scheduled to take place March 30 – April 1 has been cancelled to protect the safety of participants amid coronavirus threat. The decision was also brought on by travel restrictions across Europe.

Meeting Point – Vilnius (MPV), which takes place during Vilnius IFF, attracts hundreds of European film industry professionals. Unfortunately, many of them must now cancel their plans due to international travel restrictions caused by coronavirus. This means that filmmakers who were selected to pitch their projects during MPV will not receive desirable consideration from sales agents and other decisionmakers.

“The number of applicants for the Coming Soon session doubled compared to last year. We feel enormous responsibility for our filmmakers and aim to provide their projects with well-deserved attention from agents, distributors, producers and institutions. Regretfully, the travel restrictions impede our ability to do so,” said Alessandra Pastore, head of MPV.

The industry event has received a lot of attention in 2020, forging significant international partnerships with renowned film organizations.

“This edition of MPV was on track to be our best. It was granted Eurimages patronage, the European Film Forum was scheduled to close out the conference, the Innovation Day Lab focusing on Baltic distributors and movie theatres was set up in cooperation with Europa Cinemas, discussions for producers were planned with the help of the European Film Academy. This situation is truly unfortunate,” said Algirdas Ramaška, CEO of Vilnius IFF.

Moreover, filmmakers from countries with significant coronavirus outbreaks will not be presenting their work at Vilnius IFF.

“In order to ensure the safety of our viewers, we have come to a mutual agreement with filmmakers who reside in coronavirus hotbed areas to cancel their visits. During the festival, premises will be ventilated and disinfected. Festivalgoers will receive refunds if screenings are canceled,” assured Ramaška.

The organisers of the One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival regret to announce that because of the most recent decree issued by the government of the Czech Republic, they are interrupting the festival with immediate effect. This measure applies to all screenings and accompanying events, the afternoon school screenings, and the regional festivals. According to Ondřej Kamenický, the festival’s director: “After thoroughly discussing and analysing the entire situation, we have agreed to interrupt the festival at this point. We are thereby respecting the measures implemented by the Czech Minister of Health and the National Security Council.  At the moment, we are discussing the possibility of resuming the festival in the autumn.” If the future situation allows, we will resume the festival in several months. This would mean that films may once again be raining down on Prague in six months.

As of 10 March, in accordance with the position of Government of the Czech Republic and extraordinary measures introduced in connection with the spread in the Czech Republic of the disease COVID-19 caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest is cancelled until further notice. The Prague IFF – Febiofest plans to move one of the biggest film events in Prague and the Czech Republic to another date in 2020.

The international industry event that was scheduled to take place March 30 – April 1 has been cancelled to protect the safety of participants amid coronavirus threat. The decision was also brought on by travel restrictions across Europe.