EU Filmmakers welcome initiative to bring Artistic Freedom in focus at EU-level
Press releases 22-02-2021Today, the event “Media and artistic freedom under attack - Europe has to act” organized by the S&D Group in the EU Parliament brought much-needed focus on a worrisome trend of undemocratic interference in the media and cultural sectors in Europe.
As an organization representing filmmakers at European level and advocating for their cultural, creative and economic interests at national and European level, FERA welcomes this initiative which sheds light on the absolute need to ensure creators’ artistic freedom in 21st century Europe, without which European filmmakers’ unique yet diverse creative voices would cease to exist.
PARIS: The French international distribution company WIDE has added Bogdan George Apetri’s thriller Unidentified and Dusan Milic’s drama Darkling to its newest slate of films to be screened at the Berlinale’s EFM.
BRUSSELS: The Federation of European Film Directors (FERA) has issued a statement “welcoming the initiative bringing artistic freedom in focus” at the EU level.
VALLETTA: The Maltese film Luzzu directed by Alex Camilleri has been launched on the international festival circuit with its premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where Jesmark Scicluna, who plays a struggling fisherman, won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award in Acting.
WARSAW: The Polish government has proposed a levy on advertising revenues aimed mainly at multinationals operating in Poland that pay only a small fraction of their revenues in the form of corporate income tax. The tax will not apply to smaller, local or regional media.
WARSAW: The 21st edition of New Horizons IFF has moved its 2021 dates to 12 – 22 August. The festival, which traditionally takes place in July, made the decision after the announcement of the delayed Cannes FF dates.
PRAGUE: The script development and training programme MIDPOINT will hold a special edition of MIDPOINT Intensive tailored for the Sofia Meetings. Applications for the programme are being accepted through 8 March 2021.
New dates of the 21st IFF New Horizons. Festival passes available from March 10
Festivals 19-02-2021Dear friends,
For many weeks we have been intensively preparing the 21st edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival. In an effort to ensure the highest quality in terms of programming and organization we are planning for this year's event to be a hybrid edition - cinema screenings will of course be the heart of the festival, but some films will be available online.
Due to the still serious pandemic, many international spring festivals are changing their dates. Cannes is one of them, and this year it will be held in July, very close to our festival's originally planned date. Since the Cannes festival significantly influences the New Horizons program and its industry events (including Polish Days), we decided to hold our festival a little later. Therefore, the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival will be held on August 12-22, 2021, in Wrocław, of course.
Tickets for the stationary part of the festival go on sale March 10. The upcoming edition will include, among others, the retrospectives of Chantal Akerman, Angela Schanelec and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In recent months, our programmers have participated in festivals in Venice, Tallinn, Rotterdam, Gothenburg and Sundance. We already have over 80 confirmed titles and we still have the Berlinale, the aforementioned Cannes, and hundreds of submitted titles to watch. Movies for the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival will certainly be expressive and boldly comment on the complex reality we face every day.
Thank you for your understanding and support. We are convinced that this year's edition will be unforgettable, full of meetings and discussions in cinemas and, what is extremely important to us, safe.
Kind regards,
Roman Gutek, Marcin Pieńkowski and the entire New Horizons International Film Festival team
Special edition of our MIDPOINT Intensive program was tailored for Sofia Meetings (running online, March 17–24, 2021), the international co-production market which takes place online during the Sofia International Film Festival.
MIDPOINT Intensive Sofia Meetings is a one-off online training program open to 1st and 2nd feature film projects in the early stage of development from Central and Eastern Europe.
FNE spoke to Polish filmmaker Marek Walczyk about how the pandemic had impacted his work as a filmmaker and VFX supervisor. He spoke about how the pandemic diversified the international markets where he works and how remote working had driven technical advances in VFX in filmmaking.
