The time has finally come for the second workshop of MIDPOINT Feature Launch and MIDPOINT Shorts, as well as for the first edition of MIDPOINT Intensive Serbia.

On April 27 – May 3, 2018 the script and project development platform MIDPOINT Feature Launch will take off in Belgrade, Serbia thanks to the strong partnership with Film Center Serbia.

Get more information on 9 projects from Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Greece, Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine here.

The Tutors

International experts will give their individual feedback to scripts of all projects, as well as cover the wide range of film development – from European film financing and co-production, sales, online distribution to project pitching and marketing strategies.

During the second workshop the teams will be guided by Head of Studies Danijel Hočevar (SVN) and Core Tutors Anne Gensior (DE), Pavel Jech (USA) and Ivo Trajkov (CZ/MK); as well as Pitching Tutor Gabriele Brunnenmeyer (DE). We are also pleased to welcome this year's Guest Tutors, Alessandro Gropplero (IT), Christina Liapi (GR), Olimpia Pont Cháfer (ESP), Inke Van Loocke (NL), Océane Portal (FR), Stefan Arsenijević (SRB) and Manfred Schmidt (DE).

Workshop program - open lectures

Sunday April 29, 17.30
/ HOW TO PITCH YOUR FILM – 6 QUESTIONS FOR THE PITCH, by Gabriele Brunnenmeyer

Sunday April 29, 18.45
/ EUROPEAN FILM FINANCING SOURCES, by Danijel Hočevar

Monday April 30, 9.00
/ MARKETING AS STORYTELLING, by Christina Liapi

Monday April 30, 13.30 
/ THE ROLE OF A SALES AGENT, by Olimpia Pont Cháfer

Tuesday May 1, 9.00
/ LESSONS FROM ONLINE DISTRIBUTION, by Océane Portal

Wednesday May 2, 9.00
/ HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE BIG JUNGLE OF CO-PRODUCTION MARKETS, by Alessandro Gropplero

Wednesday May 2, 11.30
/ HOW ONE SHORT FILM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE, by Stefan Arsenijević

Wednesday May 2, 12.30
/ HOW TO BUILD A FUNDING STRATEGY, by Manfred Schmidt

Find out more about all the lectures here

If you are in Belgrade, you are cordially invited to take part in our open lectures. Please write to Sona Morgenthalova at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to confirm your participation until Friday April 27. We are looking forward to meeting you.

MIDPOINT Feature Launch is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Film Fund, Film Center Serbia, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Trieste Film Festival, When East Meets West, Audiovisual Producers' Association, and Creative Europe Desk Serbia. Program is organised in collaboration with CineMart and Connecting Cottbus.

MIDPOINT Shorts 2018 – Workshop 2

MIDPOINT Shorts, which consists of participation of 4 short film projects from Croatia, Denmark, Hungary and Turkey, runs in parallel with Feature Launch. Teams of writers, directors and producer will develop their script and also prepare the production and promotional aspects of each project, with Core Tutor Pavel Marek (CZ) running the program and Guest Tutors Marcin Luczaj (PL) and Wim Vanacker (BE).

Learn more about the projects and participants here.

MIDPOINT Shorts program is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech Film Fund and Film Center Serbia.

MIDPOINT Intensive Serbia 2018

MIDPOINT Intensive Serbia is being held at the same time as Feature Launch's and Shorts’s second workshops in Belgrade. It is the first intensive workshop in Belgrade aimed at the Serbian film professionals. Thanks to a strong partnership with Film Center Serbia, this 4-day workshop is available for Serbian filmmakers.

Hungarian writer, director and script consultant Csaba Bollok will act as Core Tutor, and the workshop consists of group feedback, individual consultations, and plenary sessions and meetings with international decision makers.

Get to know the 4 selected projects and 10 participants from Serbia here.

MIDPOINT Intesive Serbia program is supported by Film Center Serbia.

Script Consulting Incubator

The new Czech training program for script consulting initiated by the Czech Film Fund and organized by MIDPOINT took off at the same time as MIDPOINT Feature Launch in Trieste and will run together with the second workshop of Feature Launch in Belgrade. The Czech Film Fund has initiated this ambitious project to heighten the quality of feature film scripts and to support a new generation of Czech script consultants. Four script consultant trainees have been selected: Lucia Kajánková, Vít Poláček, Michal Reich and Milada Těšitelová. They are mentored by Incubator's Head of Studies, acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker and Artistic director of Sundance Directors Lab Gyula Gazdag. They participate as script consultant trainees at MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2018 and will later move on to become script consultants for new Czech film projects that have received development support from the film fund. Read more here.

 

With the first few days, the film crew has raised almost 2,500 dollars through crowdfunding, which makes up almost 25% of their goal.

According to director Oskar Lehemaa, “Bad Hair” has received support from friends, acquaintances, families and colleagues. “But it’s also really interesting to see new, unknown people supporting the project. That shows that our hairy campaign is slowly working to draw in international horror film fans,” the director explains.

The short film “Bad Hair” tells the story of Leo, who struggles with balding and his body image issues. He uses a mystical hair growth serum that starts causing grotesque distortions to his body. Now he has to stop the horrific changes before he loses the last of his hair... or something much worse. The leading role in “Bad Hair” is played by well-known, Estonian actor Sten Karpov.

Oskar started working on the film six years ago: “I’ve been growing together with “Bad Hair”. During the long pre-production period, I made many new friends and learned a lot about filmmaking,” Oskar says.

According to the film’s producer, Evelin Penttilä, the crowdfunding campaign is happening at the same time as the last preparations for the shooting period in June. “”Bad Hair” is a technically very complicated film for the whole crew – even though the film has only one actor and it takes place in just one room, the special effects make it very tricky. Despite our small budget, we have set ourselves the goal of achieving very realistic make-up and special effects, which will work even better once our post-production wizards have enhanced them even more.” Penttilä adds that they decided to use an international crowdfunding platform to reach horror film fans who might want to support the film.

Of course, director Oskar is also a very big horror film fan himself: “Horror films can give you a raw experience in the cinema – something that you feel with your body more than with your mind. At the same time, a good horror film can take you through intense emotions and touch on important topics. Fear is something genuine, something so characteristic and even necessary that we voluntarily throw ourselves on the path of terror. And, of course, good horror films are just really fun to watch.”

Oskar Lehemaa is a director and screenwriter who grew up in Pärnu and studied in the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication Institute. For the last ten years, Oskar has mainly been working on commercials and television but has always found the time and energy to devote to strange and unique film projects. Oskar is currently also working on a full length puppet animation film “The Old Man”, which was developed out of a short animated film series by the same title.

The main role is played by Sten Karpov who is an Estonian actor born and raised in Viljandi. Sten currently is working at the Endla theatre in Pärnu and has played in several domestic TV series and feature films, including “Bad Hair Friday”, “The Swingers”, “The Pink Sweater” and “The Little Comrade”. In 2008, he received the Crystal Slipper Award given to young actors for success with their first stage work and in 2015 he received the Ants Lauter Award.

The film is produced by Stellar Film, founded in 2015. Producer Evelin Penttilä’s filmography includes the popular youth film “Zero Point”, the local box office hits “Class Reunion” and “Class Reunion 2: A Wedding and a Funeral”, Martti Helde’s visual theatre play “The Old Man and the Sea” and the Icelandic-Estonian-Norwegian co-production film “Mihkel”, which is set to premiere soon.

The film is funded by the Estonian Film Instiute, the Estonian Cultural Endowment and supported by Angel Films Estonia, Cinerama, the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication Institute and Widescreen Studios.

“Bad Hair” will screen in Estonian cinemas and horror film festivals over the world in 2019.

 

European Film Promotion (EFP) and its member organisations are delighted to announce the 2018 line-up for EFP PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE. 20 of the most promising, up-and-coming European producers have been selected to take part in EFP's high-profile networking platform at the Cannes Film Festival (May 8 - 19, 2018). During the five-day event between May 10 - 14, the exclusive group will take part in a tailor-made programme in order to foster international coproductions, intensify the exchange of experiences and help create new professional networks. EFP's longstanding programme is financially backed by the Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union and the participating EFP member organisations.

Two producers of this year’s outstanding group will present their films in the festival: A WOMAN AT WAR by Benedict Erlingsson and co-produced by Iceland's Birgitta Björnsdóttir will screen in the Critics' Week, while the artistic documentary SAMOUNI ROAD by Stefano Savona from Italy, co-produced by Marco Alessi together with French partners, will celebrate its premiere in the Directors' Fortnight. In addition, former PRODUCERS ON THE MOVE will be competing with their films for the Palme d'Or: GIRLS OF THE SUN by Eva Husson was produced by Didar Domehri and co-produced by Vladimer Katcharava and Joseph Roushop. COLD WAR by Pawel Pawlikowski was executive produced by Piotr Dzieciol, and HAPPY AS LAZZARO by Alice Rohrwacher, featuring former European Shooting Star Alba Rohrwacher, was produced by Tiziana Soudani. Last but not least THE WILD PEAR TREE by Turc Nuri Bilge Ceylan was co-produced by Labina Mitevska and Fabian Gasmia.

The full list of EFP alumni presenting their work at the Cannes Film Festival 2018 will be published next week.

This year’s 53rd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will honour the memory of the recently deceased Miloš Forman at its opening ceremony.
The opening film of this year’s festival will be Forman’s legendary comedy Loves of a Blonde.
The opening concert in front of the Hotel Thermal will include a block of music from the films of Miloš Forman. Audiences will hear the Czech National Symphony Orchestra led by a conductor Libor Pešek perform music from The Firemen’s Ball, Taking Off, Valmont, Amadeus and Hair. Also on the programme is music from the films of his friends and contemporaries.

Loves of a Blonde, which is a key work of the Czechoslovak New Wave, was a hit at numerous festivals in the late 1960s. Among other things, it was the opening film at a 1966 film festival in New York, and the following year it was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

“Miloš Forman was not only an excellent filmmaker, but also a great friend of the Karlovy Vary festival. We have decided to remember him not through laudatory speeches, but through what he symbolized – film. And although local audiences will know Loves of a Blonde from its numerous showings on television, they will surely appreciate the chance to see it on the big screen. We are also convinced that our foreign guests who do not often get the chance to see Forman’s Czech films – which significantly influenced the direction taken by Czech cinema – will welcome the screening as well,” says KVIFF’s president Jiří Bartoška.

Miloš Forman’s inspiration for the story of Loves of a Blonde came from real life, as he wrote in his autobiography Turnaround. One Saturday evening in Prague, he ran into a girl with a suitcase who had arrived from Varnsdorf in search of a man with whom she had previously spent the night and who had expressed an interest in a relationship. However, he had given her a false address. Forman talked with her, then took her to the train station, and she went back to Varnsdorf – a town full of girls employed at a local textile factory but with a shortage of men.

“Her story stayed with me for some reason and it would come back to me at add times, so I kept thinking about it. I finally asked Jaroslav Papoušek and Ivan Passer if they thought there might be a screenplay there. They said that just maybe.”

The film was shot in an authentic location in Zruč nad Sázavou, which at the time was home to a shoe factory whose workers were overwhelmingly women. Many of the locals appeared in the film, and Forman showed his excellent ability to work with a combination of actors and non-actors.

“I learned that mixing professional actors and nonactors actually helped both groups, but you had to have actors who could stand up to the challenge of the unstudied, natural behavior of nonactors,” Miloš Forman said in explaining this method. For this reason, he cast Vladimír Menšík in one of the more important roles. “The cast of Loves of a Blonde was a perfect balance of actors and nonactors, and I remember those few months in Zruč in 1964 as some of my sunniest days in the movie business,” Forman later said.