EU Copyright Directive

14/11: EU Council poised to insist on mandatory upload filters – MEP Julia Reda

The closed-door trilogue efforts to finalise the EU Copyright Directive continue. The Presidency of the Council, currently held by Austria, has now circulated among the EU member state governments a new proposal for a compromise between the differing drafts currently on the table for the controversial Articles 11 and 13.

Competition

06/11: Mergers: Commission approves Disney's acquisition of parts of Fox, subject to conditions – European Commission

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the proposed acquisition of parts of Fox by Disney, both US based global media companies. The decision is conditional on full compliance with commitments offered by Disney.

09/11: Antitrust: Commission seeks feedback on commitments offered by Disney in pay-TV investigation – European Commission

The European Commission is inviting comments from interested parties on commitments offered by Disney to address competition concerns relating to contractual clauses preventing the cross-border provision of pay-TV.

Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD)

06/11: Less hate speech and more European content on video streaming services: Council adopts new EU rules – Council of the European Union

As a result of updates by the EU to its rules for audiovisual media services, traditional television and new services such as on-demand broadcasting will compete on a level playing field. Video sharing platforms will also for the first time be subject to rules ensuring that viewers, and in particular minors, will be better protected from violent or harmful content or hate speech.

EU Budget

14/11: Long-term EU budget : MEPs lay down funding priorities for post-2020 budget – European Parliament

In a vote on Wednesday, MEPs confirmed their position on the next EU long-term budget, including a precise breakdown of the amounts for each EU programme.

European Elections

08/11: Manfred Weber elected as EPP candidate for the President of the European Commission - EPP Group

The Congress of the European People’s Party (EPP) today elected  Manfred WEBER as the EPP’s candidate for President of the European Commission, ahead of the May 2019 European Parliament elections.

07/11: Progressives unite behind Frans Timmermans – S&D Group

After Frans Timmermans was endorsed as the PES Common Candidate by fellow Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, the president of the S&D Group Udo Bullmann hosted an exchange with Frans Timmermans at the S&D Group meeting yesterday, with the participation of Maros Šefčovič and PES president Sergei Stanishev. The meeting was a clear sign that progressives are up and ready for the 2019 campaign.

Lux Film Prize

14/11: Winner of the Lux Film Prize: “This is about a woman who wants to save the world” (video) – European Parliament

Woman at War has won this year’s Lux Film Prize. In an interview, director Benedikt Erlingsson talked about climate change and the challenges it poses to democracy.

Events

27 November: Trilogue - EU Copyright Directive
27-30 November: EUIPO Working Group Meetings, Warsaw
3-4 December: Trilogue - EU Copyright Directive
14 December: UNIC Paris Meeting

New edition, new structure of the workshop

The following grants were announced by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre on 13 November 2018.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival announces the lineup of the Baltic Competition programme, brought back to life after a seven year hiatus. Three out of the 11 films announced are having their international premieres in Tallinn.

Estonia will be represented by three films. The feature-length animation Captain Morten and the Spider Queen, an Estonian-Belgian-Irish-UK co-production by director Kaspar Jancis, which premiered at Animafest Zagreb this summer. The film, dubbed by renowned actors such as Brendan Gleeson and Ciarán Hinds, presents a tale of a young boy who learns to take control over his life when he is shrunk to the size of an insect and has to sail his own toy boat through a flooded café.

The feature-length debut by Liina Triškina-Vanhatalo, Take it or Leave it, is Estonia’s candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. The story, striking acutely at several social cords of Estonian society, follows a struggling construction worker who unexpectedly has to take on the role of a single father. The film has been produced by Ivo Felt who received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Tangerines in 2014.

Director Moonika Siimets offers a moving perspective on Stalinist terror through a child’s perspective in The Little Comrade, that was warmly received by local audiences and those at Busan IFF, winning the Public Choice Award.

Latvia’s documentary To be Continued, chronicles three children with different social backgrounds during their first year in school, it is the country’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Another documentary Bridges of Time, co-produced with Lithuania and Estonia, studies the poetical world created by the new wave of documentary filmmakers in the Baltic countries during the 1960’s.

The feature films from Latvia include Bille, set at the end of 1930’s, the childhood years of the writer Vizma Belševica, that will have its international premiere at Black Nights, and Foam at the Mouth, a tale about an ex-cop whose new project involving three service dogs goes awfully wrong.

Lithuania is represented by four films. Making its international premiere, Ashes in the Snow presents a tale of a group of people deported to the Siberian taiga during the Stalinist repressions of 1941. The other titles are Summer Survivors, a tale of an ambitious young psychologist who accepts to transport two patients to a seaside psychiatric unit that premiered at Toronto IFF, Breathing into Marble that arrives from a busy festival run that included Karlovy Vary and Busan IFF, and the documentary 100 Years Together, following several Lithuanians celebrating the country’s centenary. The film won the Public Choice Award at Vilnius IFF.

100 Years Together / 100 metu kartu, Lithuania, Director Edita Kabaraitė  - International Premiere
Ashes in the Snow, Lithuania-USA, Director Marius Markevičius - International Premiere
Bille /Bille, Latvia-Lithuania-Czech Rep, Director Ināra Kolmane  - International Premiere
Breathing into Marble / Kvėpavimas į marmurą, Lithuania-Latvia-Croatia, Director Giedrė Beinoriūtė
Bridges of Time / Laika tilti, Latvia-Lithuania-Estonia, Director Kristīne Briede ja Audrius Stonys
Captain Morten and the Spider Queen / Kapten Morten lollide laeval, Estonia-Belgium-Ireland-UK, Director Kaspar Jancis
Take it or Leave it / Võta või jäta, Estonia, Director Liina Triškina-Vanhatalo
The Little Comrade / Seltsimees laps, Director Moonika Siimets (Eesti)
Foam in the Mouth / Ar putām uz lūpām, Latvia-Poland-Lithuania, Director Jānis Nords
To be Continued / Turpinājums, Latvia, Director Ivars Seleckis
Summer Survivors / Išgyventi vasarą, Director Marija Kavtaradzė (Leedu)

Renamed How To Fake  a War stars Jay  Pharaoh,  Katherine Parkinson and Lily Newmark . First pre-sales to China, Middle East and Switzerland and will screen the very first moving images from the film on the teaser/trailer at the American Film Market from today.

 

How to Fake a War - the fiction feature film debut of leading international documentary director Rudolph Herzog moves to complete post production in Dublin this month.   Produced by Georgia’s 20 Steps Productions and Film and Music Entertainment the UK/Dublin-based production house, the companies, along with world sales agent Bankside Films has just released the initial moving images from the film on a teaser/trailer. These are currently available for view at the  Bankside office in Santa Monica

Initial pre-sales have been completed to Lemontree in China, Front Row in the Middle East, and Praesens in Switzerand.

The production stars Jay Pharaoh, Katherine Parkinson and face of Chanel Lily Newmark.   Pharoah, the American actor, stand-up comedian, and musician plays rock star Harry Hope.  He most recently played 'Nate Hoffman' opposite Claire Foy in Steven Soderbergh’s ground breaking Berlinale entry Unsane, and will next be seen in Lionsgate/CodeBlack's upcoming feature #Twominutesoffame.  He also starred as the lead of Showtime's White Famous last year and was a cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live for six seasons beginning in 2010. 

London 2018 – In a few days time, a  global charity concert is due to take place led by the vain and arrogant rock star, Harry Hope and his over-confident PR consultant, Kate. When notorious war monger, Boris the Butcher, decides to call a cease-fire four days before the big event, Kate knows that she absolutely has to make this event happen or her career will be over. She embarks on a mission to Georgia to create a fake news story letting the world know that the war is back on. Assisted by her naïve new intern, Peggy, the two quickly discover that they have taken on more than they can handle and as events spiral out of their control, all hell quickly breaks loose.

How To Fake a War is being handled in Cannes for  worldwide sales by UK sales outfit Bankside Films, and the production stars BAFTA winning Katherine Parkinson (credits include ‘HUMANS’ and ‘THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIEY) in the leading role of Kate and co-stars up-and-coming Lily Newmark as naïve intern/niece Peggy whose five star performance in Pin Cushion scored her a BIFA nomination this year.

The film was developed by Creative England, Film and Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd, Finnish financing house IPR.VC and is being produced by Samantha Taylor, Mike Downey and Vladimer Katharava, via their Dublin-based Film and Music Entertainment (IRE), 20 Steps Productions and Kinomedia in Poland with key financing from the UK’s Quickfire and Helsinki-based IPR.VC. 

“The events of recent weeks in the world, on both sides of the Atlantic, make this film as very much a part of a contemporary zeitgeist that is here to stay for a while,” says producer (and deputy chair of the European Film Academy), Mike Downey, “in brief, is a very funny take on the contemporary idea of Fake News!  This a subject that is going to run and run.”

Rudolph Herzog (director) is an award-winning director, producer and writer. RTS Award-nominated The Paedophile Next Door for Channel 4, is BBC/ARD documentary on humour in Hitler's Third Reich sold widely internationally and his book Dead Funny on the same subject was named a book of the year by THE ATLANTIC. He directed The Heist for channel Four and in 2014, a documentary based on his book A Short History of Nuclear Folly was broadcast in Europe. He helmed a National Geographic special on the mysterious death of polar explorer Roald Amundsen and The Agent on the double agent Werner Stiller who escaped East Germany and became a millionaire at Goldman Sachs. His latest best seller, Teruggestalten, has been picked up by Philipp Kreuzer’s Maze Pictures (The Happy Prince) for production.  He is the son of legendary German director Werner Herzog.

Written by Tim Price (Dr. Who; Secret Diary of a Call Girl) whose National Theatre sell-out production Occupy starred Rhys Ifans and whose The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning won the prestigious James Tait Black prize for drama) he has brought to life an idea by Raid Sabbah which is co-produced in association with Georgia’s 20 Steps Productions, and co-funded by Georgian National Film Centre and the tax credit scheme of Enterprise Georgia.

Other cast includes today include Daryl McCormack (Vikings) soon to be seen in Michael Grandage’s Lieutenant of Inishmore, Ali Cook (Lost in Karastan/Mr Selfridge), Volker Michalowski (Inglorious Basterds) and Samuel Vargu (Pit Stop Mafia/Elvis Walks Home.)

How To Fake a War is a Downey/Taylor production for Film and Music Entertainment (IRE) in co-production with 20 Steps Production and in association with Quickfire Films, Bankside Films, IPR.VC fund and the Georgian National Film Centre.  Developed in association with Creative England, Film and Music Entertainment (UK), and Kinomedia.  The film is produced by Sam Taylor and Mike Downey, co-producers are Vladimer Katcharava and Radoslaw Drabik and executive producers are James Atherton, Jan Pace, James Bierman and Aleksi Bardy.

The film is shot by legendary German lenser Peter Zeitlinger whose work with Herzog senior has included, Grizzly Man, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Rescue Dawn and Cave of Forgotten Dreams as well as Nicole Kidman starrer Queen of the Desert.  The film will be edited by Anne Sopel whose most recent work includes Whisky Galore as well as Mr Selfridge and The White Princess.

Filmed on location in in Georgia and Dublin, casting is handled in the UK by Vicky Wildman. Production services in Georgia have been supplied by Caucasian Film Service, post production services and investment will come from Dublin-based Windmill Lane, where the complete edit and all post will take place.  Local accounting services supplied by Grant Thornton and legal services on behalf of the producers by Mathesons.