XV BIAFF (Batumi International Art-house Film Festival) will be held in Batumi during 13-20 September, 2020. Organizer of the film festival - Batumi Art-House "Argani", official partner - Batumi City Hall.
Black Nights Film Festival prepares the 24th edition * European Genre Forum deadline approaches * What next for the European genre industry?
Festivals 04-05-2020STATUS REPORT
The times are indeed crazy.
The film industry is in disarray, but we are glad there are signs of growing solidarity and innovation. With mixed feelings and heartfelt condolences for cancelled events, we remind you that our submissions are open and we are continuing preparations for #PÖFF24, monitoring the global events with certain anxiety like the everyone else.
Submit here:
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival - 13th until 29th of November
Youth and children's film festival Just Film - 13th until 29th of November
Short film and animation film festival PÖFF Shorts - 17th until the 25th of November
EUROPEAN GENRE FORUM DEADLINE APPROACHES
The European Genre Forum, taking place for 6th year in 2020, is a training programme aimed at European directors developing their 1st or 2nd feature length genre film project with an established producer attached.
The programme sets to boost the careers of future European players in the genre film industry through two talent labs, packed with trainings, panels mentoring and pitching sessions. The Producing Lab takes place in Zagreb during Fantastic Zagreb in July. The Marketing & Packaging Lab takes place in Tallinn during Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, running from the 23rd until the 27th of November.
Project submission ends on the 4th of May.
HÕFF ANNOUNCES PROGRAMME
It's alive! The first-ever 100% virtual programme of the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival that has reached its 15th edition. We are happy to have been able to screen around two-thirds of the initially planned programme!
And we are ever grateful for our partner Elisa for helping us make it happen!
Watch the teaser!
HÕFF + EUROPEAN GENRE FORUM PANEL
European Genre Forum and Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Festival have teamed up to organise a global fireside chat called "Fight or fright - how genre industry is facing the global lockdown" with genre industry players to discuss what the genre industry could and should do to cope with the ongoing crisis.
Speakers: Annick Mahnert, Todd Brown, Brian Yuzna, Brendan McCarthy, Moritz Hemminger, Jongsuk Thomas Nam
Moderator: Sten-Kristian Saluveer
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Being a forum for virtual experiences, in its third edition at goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film the Open Frame Award continues to experiment with new forms and media formats.
As a competition of experimental 360° and interactive Virtual Reality projects the Open Frame Award is not being set back by curfews or travel warnings. Instead the competition itself dives deep into the future of virtual realities. Thus, the presentation of the projects in competition during the festival between May 5th to 11th 2020 will be held in a virtual recreation of goEast's main venue Caligari FilmBühne. The Russian VR artist and winner of 2018’s Open Frame Award, Denis Semionov, has “recreated” the 94-year-old cinema in virtual reality, together with curator Georgy Molodtsov. Another virtual space created for this year’s festival is a GoEast VRoof Top Lounge, a meeting point for Open Frame Award nominees and festival guests, inspired by this year festival visual, designed by Russian artist collective Vreditel_li, whose works also would be demonstrated in virtual spaces.
This allows the 360° and Virtual Reality projects to compete in a reality created just for this occasion. In the end, the Open Frame Award will be given out, which is once again funded and endowed with 5.000 Euros in prize money by BHF Bank Foundation and Adolf und Luisa Haeuser Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege.
An international jury will decide over who to receive the Open Frame Award. This year the jury is composed of Mária Rakušanová, curator for the Raindance Film Festival and engaged with partnership and content acquisition at HTC Vive in Europe, Averie Timm, Producer at Facebook AR/VR (Oculus) as well as Akmyrat Tuyliyev, producer for the PBS documentary series POV Spark.
To make it possible, goEast partnered with the social XR cultural hub VRrOOm – a broadcast platform dedicated to arts, entertainment and cultural events. Virtual venues, a 360° theatre, unique virtual theatrical performances, nominees pitchings and the Open Frame Award Ceremony might be accessed through a XR VRrOOm world on the free platform VRChat. For the best experience a VR headset as well as a PC system are recommended, but the event is also accessible by most users via PC, like any videogame.
Overcoming time constraints to bring the festival online, goEast and VRrOOm were able to achieve a remarkable result, making the goEast's 2020 edition become the world's very first event to offer access to both 360° and Interactive Experiences to pre-registered guests.
Still for anyone without the hardware, there will be guided tours in the goEast VRoof Top Lounge and Caligari VR, that are streamed on the website of goEast. For this Schenker Technologies GmbH kindly provides laptop solutions for the team of goEast during the festival.
“Current situation hit the whole planet, in bigger or smaller scale. But for creative VR community it not only a strike, but also a chance to show the world what VR is capable of and how it might change the reality. The space we developed is inspired by the creative freedom and expression we found in nominated works”, says Georgy Molodtsov, Curator of the Open Frame Award. “So it’s our job to give those works the exposure they deserve.”
The selection for the Open Frame Award opens fantastic worlds and memories. Thus, the interactive animation film WINGS (Moldova, 2019) by Dmitri Voloshin recreates almost forgotten childhood dreams and vaults the viewer into the far depths of space. CAT'S WINTER TALE (Finland, Russia 2020) by Oleg Nikolaenko is told similarly fantastic, being a Christmas tale about the friendship between a tiger-cat and an angel. With WHISPERS (Poland, 2019) Jacek Naglowski and Patryk Jordanowicz employ a 360° documentary to present a faith healer, who is using the power of words, gestures and images. In VERINNERUNG VR (Germany, 2019) by Alexander Flatau different realities between a bank robbery and an innocent date intertwine. PSYCHOSIS (Russia, 2018) by the artist collective AES+F is similarly surreal. The mixed reality project is based on a text of the playwright Sarah Kane, she wrote shortly before taking her own life. BABYN YAR. VIRTUAL MEMORY (Ukraine 2020) by Alona Stulii is an interactive experience processing the fate of numerous victims of mass executions during the Holocaust at that telling the events from the perspective of all involved. With APORIA. THE CITY IS THE CITY (Poland, 2019) Krzysztof Garbaczewski creates different perspectives, even resulting in parallel worlds and an open space experience. At that a city in different worlds evolves in different directions. With THE RAIN THAT IS FALLING NOW WAS ALSO FALLING BACK THEN (Romania, Germany, 2019), Christian Zipfel takes the experience up to the very edge of Europe to Botoșani. There three men behind bars had a lot time to think and just before their release now raise the question of happiness.
You can find photographs at: Downloads
goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and made possible with the support of numerous partners. Primary funding partners are the State Capital Wiesbaden, the Hessen State Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, Renovabis, BHF BANK Foundation, Adolf und Luisa Haeuser-Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege, the German Federal Foreign Ministry, the Federal Foundation for the Study of Communist Dictatorship in East Germany and Deutsch-Tschechische Zukunftsfonds. Media partners include 3sat, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The 15th edition of the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, that will be taking place 100% online, is screening 22 feature films and 16 short films. The festival launches a new programme – the Estonian Genre Competition.
EUFCN Issues Common Production Safety Guidelines As Europe Starts To Come Out of Lockdown
Region 07-05-2020BRUSSELS: The European Film Commissions Network and the European Institute for Health and Safety in Film Industry have issued common safety guidelines for filming as countries in Europe start to come out of lockdown. The guidelines provide a roadmap of best practice on film sets for film production in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
BATUMI: The 15th edition of Georgia’s Batumi International Art-house Film Festival (BIAFF) has announced that it will add a special section “COVIDEO” to the 2020 festival taking place 13 – 20 September 2020.
ZAGREB: The eighth edition of the TV market NEM Dubrovnik, originally scheduled to take place in June, has postponed its event and will instead join forces with its sister event NEM Zagreb to hold a joint market in Zagreb running 9 – 11 December 2020, under the title NEM Dubrovnik Meets Zagreb.
BRATISLAVA: Fest Anča, the Slovak festival of animated films, has announced the complete line-up of films selected for its 13th edition, re-scheduled to take place 27 – 30 August 2020 in the city of Žilina, located in north-western Slovakia.
BRATISLAVA: Four new projects have been selected for the 9th edition of MIDPOINT Intensive Sk, which will take place online from 18 to 21 May 2020. The rescheduled module for Slovak filmmakers is organised in collaboration with the CHARACTER – Film Development Association and the Slovak Film Institute. MIDPOINT is supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund.
PRAGUE: The Czech government has announced the re-opening of cinemas on 11 May 2020, earlier than originally planned.
