Women in Film – an informal Polish organization gathering over 3000 women working in the film industry – organized a conference entitled “50:50 by 2020” on Friday, 21 September 2018 during the Gdynia Film Festival.

Following the inspiring example of fellow women from all over the world and declarations signed in Venice, Toronto, and Locarno, Polish Women in Film have decided to propose a similar approach to Gdynia Film Festival management. 

The Polish film industry is indisputably filled with remarkable female talent, such as: Agnieszka Holland, Małgośka Szumowska, and Jagoda Szelc. However, recent research conducted by dr Monika Talarczyk from Łódź Film School, which was commissioned by Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique) on the basis of data analysed from the Polish Film Institute, leads to a damning conclusion: only 13% of the Polish Film Institute’s budget was allocated to female filmmakers in the last 12 years, which means that 87% of it was given to male directors. Women in Film has therefore decided to host a conference announcing these research findings as well as taking a comparative look at gender equality in film industry funding across Europe. Attendees include Iris Zappe Heller ( Deputy Director of the Austrian Film Institiute), Madelaine Ekman (Swedish Film Institute expert) and Peter Carpentier (Member Executive Committee of the Federation of European Audiovisual Directors).

Alongside international experts, dr Monika Talarczyk from Łódź Film School is going to present key findings from her analysis of data from the Polish Film Institute.

The general director of the festival Mr. Leszek Kopec alongside the writer/director Mr. Wojciech Marczewski Head of the Programming Board of the Festival signed the gender parity pledge announcing

- to present a schedule and plan of implementation of changes aiming to achieve parity in all decisive bodies of the festival: Programming Board, Selection Committee, Qualification Committee, Jury,

• to continue the transparency policy,

• to compile statistics of gender of the directors of all the films submitted to selection,

- to present, at the 44. Gdynia Film Festival, the results of actions taken by the Festival’s management in order to ensure gender parity.

The conference was supported by: Agnieszka Holland, Jagoda Szelc, Małgośka Szumowska, Klara-Kochańska-Bajon, Julia Kijowska, Anna Radwan, Sonia Bohosiewicz, Gabriela Muskała, Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Kasia Adamik, Olga Chajdas, Ewa Bukowska, Agnieszka Smoczyńska.

The opening speech was given by the leader of the movement Renata Czarnkowska-Listoś (producer) together with Małgorzata Szumowska. Absent Agnieszka Holland recorded her greatings to all guests and organizers. The closing speech was given by Ewa Puszczyńska, producer of “Cald War” who stated that’s important for women in the industry to stay united and the conference proved the strength of the women in the film industry.

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The following grants were announced by the Film Centre of Montenegro in September 2018.

Paris-based company Indie Sales has acquired Gabi Virginia Şarga and Cătălin Rotaru first feature film, “Thou Shalt not Kill”. The director duo is known for their short film 4.15 PM The End of the World which was selected in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Thou Shalt Not Kill is set for a World Premiere at the upcoming Warsaw Film Festival’s 1st and 2nd competition

On 26^th of September, the Macedonian Film Agency within the framework of the 39th International Cinematographers' Film Festival “Manaki Brothers” in Bitola announced the one-year partnership with Less Is More – a training programme that was created by Le Groupe Ouest (France). The aim of the program is to help film professionals in the integration of the realization of films with a limited budget from the very beginning, that is, the development of the project.

Within this training program, a number of activities will be realized as part of this partnership, and as a particularly important one, is the organization of the workshop for local film professionals entitled "Pre-Writing Workshop". 

The goal of the workshop is to collect the ideas for films from all participants, reinforcing and directing them to make great future film projects even before they enter the process of development. The workshop will introduce the participants to the knowledge of how budget constraints may cause creativity. This is the first workshop of this kind that will be organized in Macedonia and is intended solely for the Macedonian film professionals who will acquire the knowledge of internationally renowned script doctors. 

The young film professionals that were present have expressed interest in the workshop and because of this we expect that a new film wave of more creative, more original and communicative projects will be born, which is our strategic goal.

More about this training program can be found on the following link: https://lim-lessismore.eu/