The Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF), which will be held for eleven days from October 17 to 27 this year, is going to feature 148 films across 11 themed sections and competition programmes – bringing together contemporary cinema and classics, festival hits by renowned directors as well as courageous debuts. As of September 26, all the tickets are on sale; many of the films will be shown only once, exclusively at RIGA IFF.

The sixth Riga International Film Festival will open with a celebratory reception in the evening of October 17, finally providing Latvian viewers access to the new local animation talent Gints Zilbalodis’ feature Away, which has garnered rave reviews from viewers and critics alike, and has earned him the Contrechamp award at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The centrepiece FESTIVAL SELECTION includes 12 exceptional motion pictures recently screened at major festivals. It will open on October 19 with Cannes Palme d’Or laureate, Parasite by Bong Joon-ho – an elegantly effortless mixture of drama, thriller, black comedy with elements of farce depicting a relationship between two families: the rich and the abjectly poor. The festival will present the only big-screen viewing of Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir – a dark relationship drama with autobiographical origins set in 1980s London, starring Honor Swinton Byrne alongside her mother, film diva Tilda Swinton. Other not-to-miss singular screenings include U.S. film critic, screenwriter and director Roger Ebert’s The Lighthouse – a black and white horror drama with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe that shook up the auteur cinema space in 2019 – and Beanpole by promising young Russian director Kantemir Balagov, who took inspiration for his film from The Unwomanly Face of War, Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s 1985 book of documentary stories.

Latvian audience will be happy to hear that the NORDIC HIGHLIGHTS section includes 11 films from Nordic countries this year. This section will cover the gamut from exquisite visual pleasure (Out Stealing Horses), to passionate, brave and unbelievably candid works. Two of the latter are extremely heartfelt yet very different stories of men coping with the loss of women they love. In Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, shot in Riga by Finnish film director J-P Valkeapää, a husband tries to deal with the death of his wife by probing the inner fringes of his pain tolerance in S&M sessions; A White, White Day by Hlynur Pálmason of Iceland features a former police officer obsessed with finding out the truth and exacting his revenge. The phenomenon of white nights, a feature of Iceland’s Arctic latitudes that makes night-time skies as white as land, catalyses these profound pain states. Both screenings will be made more special by the presence of their creative teams – Dogs Don’t Wear Pants director J-P Valkeapää and A White, White Day star Ingvar Sigurdsson will attend to the Latvian premieres. The NORDIC HIGHLIGHTS selection includes a treat for admirers of Sweden’s great Roy Andersson – For Infinity is his latest feature, a divine comedy of the tragicomic nature of life. The director, whose unique handwriting is virtually a genre of its own, is not a pessimist but looks earnestly at the truth of the eternal tale of life as a tragedy where nobody comes out the winner.

Looking out towards new horizons, RIGA IFF reaches across the ocean to bring the NEW CANADIAN CINEMA section to Latvia. On October 23, it will offer an exclusive screening of Ghost Town Anthology, reminiscent of Latvian folk mystery, with a Q&A session by its author Denis Côté – one of Quebec’s most peculiar and internationally recognised directors. The following day, attendees are welcome to view The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Xavier Dolan’s feature premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival: a condemnation of the cruelty and prejudice American cinema and TV star John had suffered due to his sexual orientation. Donovan’s seventh feature film stars a constellation of brilliant actors.

This year’s festival will be notable for its tech slant, as the RIGA IFF retrospective and research programme IN TECHNO VERITAS provides a treatment of the interactions between humans and technology through classical films. The festival’s guest curator, film theoretician Viktors Freibergs, invites us for a closer look at works of cinema that have awed and inspired many generations of admirers and creators. The section will open with Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Made in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Riga, BERLINALE 2019 RIGA provides an annual glimpse at some of the Berlin International Film Festival’s most brilliant features, representing the expressive power and diversity of German cinema. The section will open on October 23 with Nora Fingscheidt’s feature-length story about a nine-year-old girl’s desperate attempt to find home and heart in System Crasher. Her picture proves that one can touch upon very uncomfortable topics and still be paraded through a head-spinning series of international festivals.

Our festival’s international FEATURE FILM COMPETITION will showcase 10 films produced in the Baltic Sea region, including Latvian director Laila Pakalniņa’s documentary, Spoon. Kaur Kokk carries the Estonian tradition of folk gothic cinema established by Rainer Sarnet with The Riddle of Jaan Niemand. Scandinavian Silence by another Estonian director, Martti Helde, and Lithuanian master Algimantas Puipa’s The Other Side of Silence will explore the Baltics’ most powerful trait of being unable to talk about what hurts. Yrsa Roca Fannberg documents the last autumn of an Icelandic sheep farmer. Paweł Ziemilski’s In Touch projects images on the surfaces of various spaces, objects and body parts to visualise longing and family isolation in a small Polish village.

The ARTDOCFEST/RIGA selection, as always, combines challenging documentary cinema and discussions with film creators and guests. ARTDOCFEST/RIGA opens on October 21 with School of Seduction, a film that took director Alina Rudnitskaya seven years of peering into the lives of three women that attended a psychologist’s course on seducing wealthy men in search of a prosperous life.

Traditionally, the first weekend at RIGA IFF is devoted to families and children, with the KIDS WEEKEND section at Splendid Palace, Riga’s oldest and most distinguished cinema, screening an all-day selection of European live-action films for children and animation films for the youngest film lovers. Like each year, we also have a rich selection of works at SHORT RIGA, while the HOME MADE section is devoted to animation this year. For the second year, the National Library of Latvia will be hosting the ARCHITECT'S CUT section, screening films selected in co-operation with architect Ieva Zībarte.

RIGA IFF will also be holding an event programme for industry professionals, public discussions, and meetings with the people behind many of the wonderful pictures being screened. The festival will conclude with an award ceremony recognising the winners of the feature, short film and music video competitions.

The full festival programme and tickets to all screenings are available on the festival’s website, rigaiff.lv.

RIGA IFF is possible thanks to the support of the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, the National Film Centre of Latvia, Live Riga, Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) and the Riga City Council.

24th BUSAN International Film Festival 

World Cinema 

THE VOICE 

Glas 

World Premiere:  Sat, 5 Oct – 2:00 PM, CGV Centum City 4 

Screenings: Sun, 6 Oct – 2:00 PM, LOTTE CINEMA Daeyoung 1

Tue, 8 Oct – 1:00 PM, MEGABOX Jangsan Haeundae 6 

80 Min. / 1:2.39 / Surround 5.1 / Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia 2019 / Color 

Teaser: https://vimeo.com/360637567


Director Ognjen Sviličić is available for interviews. 

October 2, 2019 – After showing his critically-acclaimed feature film “These are the Rules” in 2014, Croatian writer-director Ognjen Sviličić returns to Busan International Film Festival with THE VOICE (Glas). The film will celebrate its world premiere in the World Cinema section. 

THE VOICE is a film about the 17-year old Goran confronted with the unquestioned religious practices at a Catholic boarding school. In this community where everyone hears God, Goran is the only one who can't. 

When Goran arrives at the new school, he immediately feels suffocated by the religious believes and rituals imposed on him. He is convinced that you should not believe in something that is forced upon you. Even after everyone turns against him, he stands firm and won't convert. Until he finds out that even if you don't believe in God, He can help you in times of need. 

Writer-Director Ognjen Sviličić’s credits include the celebrated film “Armin” (2007). After its world premiere in Berlinale Forum the film screened at more than 100 international film festivals and won more than twenty awards, amongst them the East of the West Award at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Award for Best Foreign Film at Palm Springs. “These are the Rules” (2014) was nominated for the Orizzonti Award at Venice International Film Festival where his main actor Emir Hadzihafizbegović won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor. At Warsaw International Film Festival 2005, Sviličić won the Grand Prix for his comic drama “Sorry for Kung Fu” (2004). As a scriptwriter he worked with Slovenian director Damjan Kozole for the acclaimed films “Slovenian girl” (2009) and “Nightlife” (2016). Furthermore, he wrote regional box office hits like “We will be the World Champions” by Darko Bajić (2015) and has created popular Croatian TV series. The director is also teaching screenwriting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. 

After successfully working together for films like “Armin” and “These are the Rules”, Sviličić again teamed-up with Damir Terešak. The Croatian producer’s slate contains the well-received “When day breaks” (2012) by Goran Paskaljević which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2012 as part of its Masters program, “The Eighth Commissioner” (2018) by Ivan Salaj and “The Enemy” (2011) by Dejan Zečević. Co-producers of THE VOICE are Tomi Salkovski and Nikolina Vučetić Zečević. The script was co-written by Marijana Verhoef. 

For the lead role in THE VOICE Ognjen Sviličić chose newcomers Franko Jakovčević and Belma Salkunić. The film also features the regional star Goran Bogdan “Agape” (2017), also known for his performance in the TV drama “Fargo” (2017) and Igor Kovač whose track record includes Tomislav Radić’s “Kotlovina” (2011) – a big winner at the 2011 Pula Film Festival – and “Kosac” (2014) by Zvonimir Jurić (Best Supporting Actor, Pula Film Festival 2014). 

THE VOICE is produced by MaXima Film, Skopje Film Studio, Biberche Productions with financial support by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, North Macedonia Film Agency, Film Centre Serbia, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, and Croatian Radiotelevision. 

After announcing the call for its 10th Co-Production Forum, WEMW now opens the calls for all its side events. The full programme of the 2020 edition includes a great mix of initiatives targeting projects in different phases of production as well as different formats: from the Work-in-Progress for feature fiction films to the Fine-Cut-Session for creative documentaries, from a lab for films in editing phase to a brand new programme for producers aspiring to shift to TV series content.

Have a look at our events and find the one that suits you best!

MIDPOINT Cold Open

TV Series Lab

Deadline: November 30, 2019

MIDPOINT Cold Open will select 6 producers, with a background in feature films, who aspire to shift to TV series content. The programme includes lectures, group sessions and individual consultations and aims to supply hands-on skills of production planning and financing of serialized drama content. Cold Open is participant-based, with each producer required to bring a series idea to serve as a starting point for the training programme. 

Last Stop Trieste 

Documentary Fine-Cut-Session

Deadline: November 30, 2019

LST will invite 5 documentaries at a fine cut stage already presented at one of our partner events:  Ex-Oriente Film, Balkan Discoveries at the Balkan Documentary Centre, Docu Rough Cut Boutique at Sarajevo Film Festival/Sofia, When East Meets West, ZagrebDox PRO and Baltic Sea Forum. Selected documentary fine cuts will be presented to an exclusive panel of decision makers and an international jury will deliver the Film Center Serbia LST Award, the HBO EUROPE award and the FLOW Digital Cinema Award.

This is IT

Fiction Film Work-in-Progress Session

Deadline: November 30, 2019

Section exclusively dedicated to long feature fiction films and hybrid works with a strong visual and artistic approach produced or co-produced by Italian producers. Selected teams will have the chance to screen 10' of their films to an exclusive panel of more than 40 international decision makers and an international jury that will give out the LASER FILM Award.

First Cut Lab | Trieste

Workshop for Films in Editing Phase

Deadline: November 30, 2019

First Cut Lab Trieste is a consultancy programme designed for feature fiction films in editing phase from Italy or from one of the WEMW 2020 East & West spotlight countries. Selected teams screen their full rough cut in a private session to receive feedback from three top industry advisers and a consultant editor. The main goal is to foster the artistic potential of selected rough cuts and, at the same time, increase the sales, festival and circulation potential of completed films.

The WEMW 2020 edition will also see the launch of two new initiatives: First Cut +, an extension of First Cut Lab with a programme of tailor-made modules for enhancing the promotion & audience engagement strategies of a carefully curated portfolio of feature fiction films, concluding in a Work-in-Progress presentation, and MIDPOINT Shorts, an initiative dedicated to short films that includes an intensive script and project development workshop concluding in a project showcase in Trieste.

We are also pleased to remind you that you can submit your project to the 10th WEMW Co-Production Forum until October 31, 2019. WEMW will have a new East & West focus, bringing together over 500 film professionals from all over Europe and, in particular, from our 2020 spotlight territories: Hungary, Moldova, Romania & Austria, Germany, Switzerland.  

We look forward to seeing you in Trieste next January!

More information are available at www.wemw.it  

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WEMW is organized once again by the FVG Audiovisual Fund in collaboration with the Trieste Film Festival, EAVE, Creative Europe Desk Italy and thanks to the precious and constant support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, MIBAC -Direzione Generale per il Cinema, CEI – Central European Initiative, Film Center Serbia and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Preview of the industry programme

In three weeks, a rich variety of industry events will unfold as part of the 23rd Ji.hlava IDFF:

Emerging Producers 2020 – presentation of 17 up-and-coming documentary film producers from Europe and one from the guest country – Taiwan

Inspiration Forum – platform initiating new topics in documentary film and a source of inspiration for filmmakers

Festival Hub – unique showcase of world film festivals and other film events

Visegrad Accelerator – meeting of key personalities from the Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak film environments

Discussions and focused presentations for film professionals (Creative Europe – MEDIA programme, East-West Index, pitchings of new Czech documentaries, etc.)

Matchmaking Accelerator – a service that will connect you with other film professionals visiting Ji.hlava

Conference Fascinations – a conference on distribution of experimental documentary film, accompanied by a special retrospective of Ukrainian experimental cinema

Open programme of Ex Oriente workshop organised by the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF)

East Silver Market video library with hundreds of documentary titles from Central and Eastern Europe (IDF)

Masterclasses, panel discussions, presentations, industry drinks, and much more. Join over 1,100 film professionals expected to attend the 23rd edition of Ji.hlava IDFF between October 24–29, 2019.

Are you a film student? Then note that you can acquire a substantially discounted Early Bird industry accreditation until this Sunday!

First films revealed

Ji.hlava will see a special screening of documentary essay Communism by Karel Vachek, the classic of Czech cinema. The author’s ninth film that takes many hours and has four parts, maps out the contemporary Czech political scene, philosophy, religion and art. Other sections will offer the story of human relentlessness made by the Macedonian duo Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, Honeyland, one of the winners of this year’s Sundance festival. The Canadian director team composed of Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky from Canada will bring to the audience Anthropocene: The Human Epoch in which the authors follow the effects of human activity on the planet’s ecosystem. The Brink by American director Alison Clayman shows the mentality of Steve Bannon, the right-wing populist and former strategist of president Trump. The full selection of the 23rd  Ji.hlava IDFF will be published at a press conference on October 8.

Tribute to Man Ray

As late as in the 1980s, Man Ray – American avant-gardist, a renowned photographer, painter and experimenter close to surrealism – was considered the author of only four films. This year, as part of his retrospective at Ji.hlava, you will have a chance to watch additional footage discovered in the estate of his partner, Ada Fidelin, that open the doors to Man Ray's private world. The exclusive screenings will include the dispute between Pablo Picasso and Paul Eluard during a palm-reading session and many other gems!

Erotica in experimental film

This year’s thematic section of the Conference Fascinations will focus on Erotica. Along with Man Ray, we will recall other classical authors such as Kenneth Anger, Carolee Schneeman and Peter Tscherkassky, as well as less-known authors whose works will for the first time ever be shown on the screen. The retrospective will show a range from pure visual joy inspired by the naked body to radical political manifestos.

Czech films look beyond the borders

The Czech Joy competition section will feature a diverse selection of documentaries. Barbora Berezňáková will present her debut Never Happened, which follows the leads in one large political and criminal case of the 1990s in Slovakia. Kiruna – A Brand New World by Czech-Swedish director Greta Stocklassa is a portrait of a town, which is to be moved away. The Sound Is Innocent by Johana Ožvold pays tribute to world’s electronic music and its development since 1950s until today.  Solo by the Czech-based French director and producer, Artemio Benki, follows the destiny of talented Argentinian piano player, Martín Perin, whose promising career was influenced by his long-term stay at a psychiatric clinic in Buenos Aires. The full selection of the 23 Ji.hlava IDFF will be published at a press conference on October 8.

Inspiration Forum will search for new topics for documentary films

The Ji.hlava’s Inspiration Forum, which annually offers space for discussion will host over 100 prominent guests from outside the film world. You can look forward to full six days dedicated to six particular topics, entitled God & co., The Changing Woman, Re:Democracy, How Not To Be Afraid,  Climageddon, and Made in China. This year's speakers include Dagestan-born novelist Alisa Ganieva, Croatian philosopher and political activist Srećko Horvat, writer and former US border patrol agent Fransisco Cantú, renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben, a former leading figure of German Neo-Nazi scene Christian Weissgerber, and Afghani writer and parliamentarian Fawzia Koofi. The full programme and list of guests will be announced on October 8.

Ex Oriente Film workshop with Niels Pagh Andersen and Audrius Stonys

Masterclasses and lectures by acclaimed documentary filmmakers will be open to the public at the Ex Oriente Film workshop in Jihlava (October 23-28). Editor Niels Pagh Andersen received numerous awards, and his editing credits include Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence and The Act of Killing, as well as Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow. Among other guests are director and cinematographer Erick Stoll, known for his award-winning América, and director and producer Audrius Stonys, whose Earth of the Blind got European Film Award.

The call launched in June for the fourth edition of Film +, the tailored support programme for low budget filmmaking, has closed with 73 entries from which 16 projects made the final line-up,  from four countries: 7 feature films, 5 short films and 4 documentaries.

European Parliament

17/09: Parliamentary leadership for the Digital Age – Parliament Magazine

MEPs will have to become more digitally literate than ever before if the EU is to maintain its digital leadership, writes Pilar del Castillo.

Digital Services Act

18/09: A Digital Roadmap for the next five years – Parliament Magazine

Europe’s policymakers should focus on encouraging tech firms and start-ups to be based here rather than seek confrontation, writes former ECR MEP Daniel Dalton

EU Terrorist Content Regulation

25/09: MEPs want internet firms to remove content promoting terrorism within an hour – European Parliament

On 24 September, Parliament's civil liberties committee backed the position agreed by the Parliament before May's European elections on new EU rules to tackle the dissemination of online content promoting terrorism and approved the mandate to begin discussions with EU ministers.

European Commission

10/09: How Parliament votes the European Commission into office (infographic) – European Parliament

MEPs will assess whether commissioner candidates can deliver on the challenges facing the EU in a series of public hearings.

27/09: Answers from Commissioners-designate to Parliament’s written questions – European Parliament

The Commissioners-designates’ answers to the written questions, posed by the Parliament’s committees, were received by Parliament.

27/09: Monday's commissioner hearings: Šefčovič, Hogan, Gabriel - European Parliament

Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia), Phil Hogan (Ireland) and Mariya Gabriel (Bulgaria) are the first candidate commissioners who appeared in hearings at the Parliament on Monday 30 September.

Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU

26/09: High-level conference on gender equality: Finland wants to integrate gender equality more closely with The EU’s economic policy – eu2019.fi

Finland organised a high-level gender equality conference in Helsinki from 30 September to 1 October 2019 in the context of Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The aim of the conference was to increase the dialogue between gender equality policy and economic policy and to strengthen gender equality in the EU’s decision-making.

Sustainability

20/09: Circular Plastics Alliance: 100+ signatories commit to use 10 million tons of recycled plastic in new products by 2025 - European Commission  

The declaration lays out how the alliance will reach the target of 10 million tons of recycled plastic used to make new products every year in Europe, by 2025. This target was set by the European Commission in its 2018 Plastics Strategy, as part of its efforts to boost plastics recycling in Europe.

Federation of European Film and TV Directors (FERA)

Members of the Federation of European Film and TV Directors (FERA) from 27 countries gathered in Bucharest, Romania on September 20 to 22nd for its annual General Assembly.

Events

8 October: Commissioner-designate Margrethe Vestager hearing (ITRE/IMCO/ECON), Brussels
30 September: Trilogue, Creative Europe Programme
30 September: Extraordinary JURI Committee meeting, Brussels
1 October: CULT Committee meeting, Brussels
8 October: IMCO Committee meeting, Brussels
15 October: First copyright stakeholder meeting
16 October: CICI lunch w/ Sabine Verheyen & EPP MEPs, Brussels
17 October: ITRE Committee meeting, Brussels
1 November: European Commission comes into office
4 November: UNIC/Europa Distribution/FERA/FIAD Screening, Brussels
5-6 November: Voices of Culture Structured Dialogue on Gender Balance in the Cultural & Creative Sectors Dialogue Meeting with the European Commission, Brussels