The first „script” session of InternationalAcademy of Document – Dragon Forum 2012 is finished!

25 directors and producers from 7 countries presented 14 documentary film projects on the first session of The International Academy of Document, which took place in Warsaw on 24th – 27th of January. The session was dedicated to the work on scripts and was the first opportunity for this year Dragon Forum participants to know each other. Further session, which will be concentrated on the realization of the projects from the production side, will take place in the second half of April.

During the first session of Dragon Forum 2012 open to the public documentary film screenings were organized. This screenings attracted wide interest of the audience. Within 3 evening screenings you could watch films, production of witch was connected to Dragon Forum and to meet their authors as well as people from the production crew. „Invisible Strings – Talented Pusker Sisters” was the film which took part in Dragon Forum in 2009, was produced by HBO Poland. Screening’s special guest was Agnieszka Niburska from the HBO Poland promotion department. There was also a screening of “Crulic – The Path to Beyond”, made by Romanian director Anca Damian, which was also Dragon Forum participant in 2009. Arkadiusz Wojnarowski, from Magellan Film Foundation – Polish co-producer and distributor of the film, spoke about the backstage of its production. The last evening the first episode of the documentary series „Farewell Comrades!” was shown as well as presentation of the associated interactive website. The film is devoted to the collapse of the Soviet empire. German producer Georg Tshurtshenthaler from the company Gebrueder Beetz spoke about that unique trans-media project that has been realized in 12 European countries.

Photo gallery is available here

More information on: www.dragonforum.pl

Starting March 7th HBO Poland is introducing new movie channels in HD: HBO2 HD, HBO Comedy HD and Cinemax2 HD on the Polish market.

From now on all HBO and Cinemax channels will be available in HD.

The new channels have the same programming offer and scheduling as the ones in SD.

HBO and Cinemax along with their multiplexes and value-added services bring viewers the biggest blockbusters,

award winning original productions, series, exclusive events, evergreen movies, film festival hits, international and European movies.

The entire movie offer of HBO and Cinemax will be available in HD from March 7th on DTH platforms Cyfra+, Cyfrowy Polsat and n.

HBO is in talks with other operators about introducing these channels to their offer.


Contact -

Agnieszka Niburska
Menedżer ds. Public Relations

HBO Polska, ul. Puławska 17, 02-515 Warszawa
tel.: +48 22 852 88 38, fax: +48 22 852 88 02
gsm: +48 601 24 90 60

"The Golden Beggar" a competition among local European television stations and producers who come from widely varied backgrounds - they work independently, or with local media outlets, or are young producers just starting out.

Festival annually brings a unique program premieres, which you will not see elsewhere. Come and see the original films, which are not in normal distribution.


Festival has three parts: non-competitive festival of films under the title "Europe on the screen", the competitive part "Golden Beggar" and supporting events called "Essence of Kosice". Also included are business meetings, workshops, presentations, exhibitions, concerts and multimedia happenings. In addition, the Festival, in cooperation with foreign
partners, will introduce new trends in media, e.g. media literacy projects or participatory projects in 2012. The Festival is also one of the flagship projects for the year 2013, when the city of Košice becomes a European Capital of Culture.

Contact:

Nadácia City TV, Medzinárodný festival lokálnych televízií

Eva Dekanovska

Hutnícka 1, 040 01 Košice

tel.: +421 905 966 649, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.festival.sk

Prague, February 3, 2012 - Czech cinematography will be represented in several areas at this year’s International Film Festival in Berlin (9 – 19 February 2012). The Czech Film Center will be representing Czech cinematography for the tenth time at the European Film Market. Under the umbrella Central European Cinema the CFC will be representing national cinematography together with the Slovenian Film Center and the Slovak Film Institute. The stand will offer Czech representatives of the film industry, i.e. distributors, producers, festival representatives, etc., facilities for business meetings and negotiations. The stand’s partners this year are the Karlovy Vary IFF and Barrandov Studios.

Altogether eight Czech films or co-productions will appear in this official programme of this year's Berlinale and the European Film Market.

The film A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære/Královská záležitost), selected for this year's international competition, was produced by Zentropa in co-production with, among others, the Czech production company Sirena Film. The filming took place mostly at Czech locations. Around 39% of the total budget was spent in the Czech Republic. This epic period film starring Mads Mikkelsen was made in the Czech Republic from March to May 2011. Zentropa is the renowned company most often connected with its founder, the world-famous director Lars von Trier and the Dogma 95 film movement.

The film A Night Too Young is among the 38 films presented in the Forum programme. It is the graduate work of Slovenian director Olmo Omerzu, who lives in Prague, for the FAMU film school.

Jiří Konečný, the film's producer, thinks highly of the invitation to the distinguished Berlin section. "I am very glad that a graduate film by a starting director was selected for the prestigious festival in Berlin. And I am grateful for the support that the Czech Film Center, who we have been cooperating with since the beginning of its existence, provided to us for the festival. It would definitely be more difficult for Czech films to get into foreign festivals without such an organisation,” stated Jiří Konečný from Endorfilm, which produced the film. Czech Television, Studio FAMU and the Slovenian company Arsmedia are co-producers.

A Night Too Young will have its world premiere in Berlin on 13 February 2012 at 10 p.m. It should be released to Czech distribution on 22 March 2012

“Czech films are already a traditional part of the Forum programme. They have the courage to tell sensitive stories and, as this case has shown, they touch on the essential ethical themes of our time. We want to provide room for such films in the Forum programme and thus to offer the director and producer of A Night Too Young the public space they deserve at Berlinale,” remarked Christoph Terhechte, the Director of the FORUM section at Berlinale.

Screenings of Czech films will also be taking place at the European Film Market. This year 6 titles are heading to Berlin – Gypsy by director Martin Šulík, Perfect Days by director Alice Nellis, Sláma’s Four Suns, Vorlíček’s fairy tale Saxana, Innocence by Jan Hřebejk and Tomáš Luňák’s Alois Nebel.

“Five of the six films being shown already have international sales, which goes to show that foreign sales companies see commercial potential for Czech films. Plus most of the films shown at the film market originated in international co-production and that also indicates a path that leads to the international market,” stated Jana Černík from the Czech Film Center.

Contact:

Tel: +420 221 105 398

e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.filmcenter.cz

Lenka Sindelarova

Czech Film Center - Film Promotion

{mosimage}WARSAW: Filmbox channel in Poland has recorded impressive growth of over 90% (0,17% SHR) in November 2011 and 58,4% in December 2011, according to data produced by Nielsen Audience Measurement for the Polish web portal wirtualnemedia.pl.

Between January 19 - 21, EEFA Training Network was present at WHEN EAST MEETS WEST Co-production event during Trieste Film Festival through four film projects whose representatives benefitted from specialized training at the East European Film Alliance workshops throughout 2011, along with other 11 promising film projects from European and non-European countries: Script Development for Documentaries (Zagreb, March 3-7, with Croatian Audiovisual Center support), Script Development for Fiction Projects (Sofia, June 9-13, with Bulgarian National Film Center support), Management of Film Production (Kyiv, October 27-31, in partnership with Molodist International Film Festival), Legal and Distribution Matters (Tallinn, November 25 – 28, in partnership with PÖFF Black Nights Film Festival).

The status of EEFA Training Network at WHEN EAST MEETS WEST was one of partnership, as the four projects invited at the Co-production event were awarded after the final pitching session, at the end of EEFA TN 2011, by our partners at WHEN EAST MEETS WEST.

In the final line up section, CIRCLE fiction feature project from Turkey was represented by director-writer-producer Atil Inac, from Lacivert Film, an experienced Turkish film production company emerging today with new projects, prestigious film awards and international collaboration initiatives.

In the freshly launched “warm-up” section, the other three EEFA TN 2011 graduate projects participated: two documentaries FAR ENCOUNTERS from Croatia, represented by producer Dijana Mladenovic and SEE YOU IN CHECHNYA from Georgia, represented by producer-writer-director-D.O.P. Alexander Kvatashidze and one fiction project LEMON JUICE AND INDIGO from Hungary, represented by producer Judit Stalter.

Producer Dijana Mladenovic is the founder of Kinematograf production company which was established in 1999 first as a cinema exhibitor. For almost a decade, it was a leading cinema exhibitor in Istra, Croatia. Nowadays, the main company activity is film production.

Producer Judit Stalter represented the project through Laokoon Filmgroup, a young generation production company founded by Gabor Sipos and Gabor Rajna, which focuses on the development and production of high-quality auteur feature films, creative documentaries and shorts.

Producer-writer-director-D.O.P. Alexander Kvatashidze founded Lokokina production studio in 2009, together with his filmmaking and business partner Nikoloz Tarielashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia. The studio's main activity is to produce and/or take part in different stages of documentary, fiction or video advertisement productions. As a result of his good work at EEFA TN 2011, Alexander Kvatashidze was also invited by our partner and visiting expert producer Dorota Roszkowska to participate with SEE YOU IN CHECHNYA at the final pitching session of Dragon Forum International Academy of Document to be held in Krakow in summer 2012.

EEFA is looking forward to contributing to the further development of the above mentioned film projects in 2012.

East European Film Alliance is a consortium of eleven countries coordinated by the Romanian Film Sector and has for 2011 the following partners: HAVC (Croatian Audiovisual Center)– Croatia, IFF Molodist (Kyiv International Film Festival Molodist) – Ukraine, ALTFilm (ALTFilm) – Moldova, ASA (Ankara Cinema Association) – Turkey, BNFC (Bulgarian National Film Center ) and GEOPOLY (Geopoly Film) – Bulgaria, IFF Moscow (Moscow International Film Festival) – Russia, PÖFF Tallinn (PÖFF – Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival ) – Estonia, LNFC – National Film Centre of Latvia, Georgian National Film Center – Georgia and State Film Fund from Ministry of Culture and Tourism Azerbaijan.

Alongside our partners, the initiative has been supported in 2011 by

Media Mundus

For all other information, please access http://eefa-eu.org/

or contact: Ruxandra Cernat (Project Manager, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Sorina Diaconu (Online manager, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)


Submit your film for the 11th edition of Transilvania Film Festival!

TIFF will take place between 1st and 10th of June 2012. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2012, for films submitted in the Official Competition and the Shadows competition and March 15, 2012, for films submitted in the Romanian Days competition.

Paris / Los Angeles - 27 January. Basic Lead, the organizer of DISCOP ISTANBUL today announced that close to 300 companies will be attending the upcoming second edition of the event, which takes place from 28 February to 1 March.

Held at the INTERCONTINENTAL CEYLAN HOTEL, DISCOP ISTANBUL will draw together over 120 international suppliers of television content and buyers representing broadcasters, pay-tv operators, mobile networks, alternative content distribution platforms and territorial agents operating in Eurasia and Northern Africa, a half-a-billion viewer world region set to phenomenally grow in the years to come.

Exhibitors selling content include ZODIAK RIGHTS, BANIJAY, ITV STUDIOS GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT, TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM, AETN INTERNATIONAL, TELEMUNDO, TELEVISA, DISCOVERY, VENEVISION, NBCUNIVERSAL, VIACOM, SPARKS, ZEE TELEFILMS, MONDO TV, TRT, GLOBAL AGENCY, MBC, MEDIASET, MBC, to name a very few.

Sellers taking part in DISCOP ISTANBUL will also include the largest contingent, ever, of Turkish producers and distributors of world renowned Drama Series !

France’s programs export arm, TV FRANCE INTERNATIONAL, will also be in attendance with a contingent of 30 companies including ARTE, AB INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION, MEDIATOON, INA, and others.

DISCOP ISTANBUL will offer a vibrant program of informative sessions and briefings, featuring a selection of renowned industry speakers and three days respectively dedicated to Central Asia’s booming television industry, to the renaissance of Arabic television content focusing on the reasons why Middle Eastern and North African home-grown tales do so well at home and abroad and to the future of content distribution.

DISCOP ISTANBUL will also feature a generous agenda of social functions and networking opportunities.

Patrick Jucaud, General Manager of Basic Lead commented today, “The inaugural edition of DISCOP ISTANBUL in 2011 exceeded all our expectations and this year’s market is showing all the signs of being even more successful. We look forward to welcoming buyers from Eurasia and Northern Africa who very seldom travel to other international markets, alongside the large contingent of international attendees looking to do business in this rapidly growing region.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

www.discop.com // This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. // TEL + 33 1 42 29 32 24.

Social networks: Facebook // Twitter

Jussi Awards

The winners of Jussi Awards (“Finnish Oscars”) were announced in a
gala in Helsinki on January 29th , 2012.

The highest amount of Jussi Awards (six) went to Le Havre by Aki Kaurismäki.

Jussi Awards are annual film awards for the best achievements within
Finnish cinema. The awards are given by Filmiaura, an association of
Finnish film professionals. The Jussi Awards cover altogether 14
categories: best film, direction, actress in a leading role, actor in
a leading role, actress in a supporting role, actor in a supporting
role, script, cinematography, music, editing, sound design, set
design, costume design and documentary. The first Jussi Awards were
given in 1944.

THE WINNERS ARE:

Best film

Le Havre / producer Aki Kaurismäki

Best direction

Le Havre / director Aki Kaurimäki

Best actor in a leading role

Silence (Hiljaisuus) / Joonas Saartamo

Best actress in a leading role

The Good Son (Hyvä poika) / Elina Knihtilä

Best actor in a supporting role

Silence (Hiljaisuus) / Ilkka Heiskanen

Best actress in a supporting role

Le Havre / Elina Salo

Best script

Le Havre / Aki Kaurismäki

Best cinematography

Le Havre / Timo Salminen

Best music

Silence (Hiljaisuus) / Timo Hietala

Best sound design

Silence (Hiljaisuus) / Olli Huhtanen and Pietari Koskinen

Best editing

Le Havre / Timo Linnasalo

Best set design

Hella W / Kari Kankaanpää

Best costume design

Hella W / Anu Pirilä

Best documentary

Forever Yours (Ikuisesti sinun) / director Mia Halme

Conrete Jussi (life achievement award)

Elina Salo

Audience Award

The Storage by Taru Mäkelä

Kati Nuora

International information

The Finnish Film Foundation

Kanavakatu 12

FI-00160 Helsinki, FINLAND

Tel +358-9-62203017

Fax +358-9-62203050

Mobile +358-50-5689191

Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.ses.fi/en

During the Film and MusicFestival "Küstendorf", which ended on Monday, and which was foundedby Emir Kusturica, the Piotr Subbotkofilm entitled "Glasgow"was awarded the Bronze Egg prize. This is the fifth award won by the shortfeature produced under the "30 minutes" programme, a joint initiativeof the Studio Munka Polish Film Association, the Wajda Studio, the TVP and the PolishFilm Institute.

The Chairperson of the 5th edition of theSerbian festival's jury was actress Leila Hatami, known from the film "ASeparation" by Asghar Farhadi and she was the one to hand the award to Piotr Subbotko. The justification of the verdictreads: "The movie went into the story of a mother and a child withhumorous and surprising moments, which were always unpredictable."

The Silver Egg was awarded to the film"Boys Where Are You?" by Jelena Gavrilović (Serbia), and the GoldenEgg went to Fernando Pomares and his film "Alto Sauce" (Spain). It isworth noting that the Critics Prize was awarded to the Polish film"Barbacan", directed by Bartłomiej Żmuda.

"Küstendorf" takes place in MokraGora [Wet Mountain]. In its programme, in addition to the competition section,there are also retrospectives (this year Kim Ki-duk's retrospective and NuriBilge Ceylan's one), the festival also presents the latest trends in worldcinema and the newest authors. The audience also has an opportunity to seefilms featuring the winners of lifetime achievement awards (this year there wasa retrospective of Isabelle Huppert).

So far, "Glasgow" has won awardsat the following festivals: "Tous Courts" in France, the "GoldenApricot" in Armenia, "Message to Man" in Russia and in Cottbusin Germany.

"Glasgow" is the directorialdebut of Piotr Subbotko, writer,graduate of the "DevelopmentLab" fiction programme at the Wajda School. His film tells the storyof 12-year-old Damian, who lives in the belief that his father is a famousfootballer for the Glasgow Celtic club. During one summer vacation, in order toraise money for a trip to Scotland, Damian works on house renovation with hisretired friend Miecio. Having fallen in love with 15-year-old Monika, who ispregnant, he wants to take care of her child and to take them both to a betterworld. The film features performances by Rafał Garnecki, Sandra Korzeniak,Zygmunt Malanowicz, Adam Graczyk, Filip Garbacz, Jowita Budnik and MarcinTyrol.

WAJDA SCHOOL | WAJDA STUDIO
more than a filmschool | more than a film studio

“Fromscript to screen” – this was the main idea when Andrzej Wajda andWojciech Marczewski founded the film school in 2001 in Warsaw, Poland.Since 2011 they have also started the production company - Wajda Stu­dio, whichaims to support projects with strong artistic vision.

We offer a unique combination ofproduction and edu­cation for film professionals at international level.

In our filmography we have more than50 documenta­ries and short fictions, more than 200 students shorts. We havehad screenings and awards such as film festivals such as Berli­nale, San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary, Hot Docs, IDFA and DokLeipzig.

The Studio’s mission is tosearch for new talents among debutants. We are looking for author- drivenfeature, documentary and short film projects which bring up contemporaryissues. We focus on development stage and support our directors with artisticsupervision from the best Polish and European filmmakers.

www.wajdaschool.pl | www.wajdastudio.pl