FINAL FREE LIVE WEBINAR: CURSE OR BLESSING. CO-PRODUCTION IN A CHANGED ENVIRONMENT

There are less than two weeks to go before the start of the 4th edition of Kids Kino Industry, the international co-production forum. This year's edition has been moved to the online world, resulting in the programme being extended from three to four days. If you read our newsletter regularly, you know that as part of the lead-up to this year's edition, we have prepared a series of free webinars on Zoom and the last one is due to take place on 21st September, one week before the event starts.

Crème de la crème of world stop motion animation, that is Mike Cooper, Andy Gent, Magda Bieszczak and Melani Coombs – masters known for their work on the films: "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children", "Isle of Dogs", " Harvie Krumpet” or “Mary And Max”. Five days full of business meetings and one-to-one consultations, unique opportunity to work in American LAIKA studio and pitching competition – the program of ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum has been announced. The Jubilee edition begins in Łódź on October 6^th.

A suite of Hobby Horses at the Krakow Film Festival

The emotions after the jubilee edition have barely subsided, and the Krakow Film Foundation has just announced a call for entries for the 61st Krakow Film Festival. As every year, at the beginning of October, the proposals of documentary, short and animated films will start pouring in from all over the world, which will compete for places in the program.

This year’s special edition of ZagrebDox is scheduled to take place from 4 to 11 October at SC Cinema and &TD Theatre of the Student Centre in Zagreb. After it was postponed in March due to the unfavourable epidemiological situation right before the opening, the most important documentary film festival in Croatia takes place in a reduced form and adhering to all the epidemiological measures, on new dates and at a new venue, giving a chance to documentary lovers to see around fifty titles selected for this year’s festival edition. The SC Cinema, in terms of seats the largest movie theatre in Zagreb, has been chosen for the new venue because it makes it possible for as many viewers as possible to see the films, with maximum respect to the epidemiological measures. 

The central part of the programme, as always, will be the competition, international and regional, with cherry-picked titles to provide the audience with an overview of the recent production and current creative preoccupations, presenting a series of works that interestingly explore different contemporary issues and phenomena and acquaint with intriguing personal tales and colourful individuals. The side programme under the title The Best of the Rest will screen around twenty selected titles from this year’s official sections.

ZagrebDox is supported by the City of Zagreb and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, and ZagrebDox Pro by Creative Europe – MEDIA Sub-programme. The festival’s general sponsor is Croatian Telecom.

*Immortal

CICAE appeals to all levels of government to support cinemas

CICAE, the international confederation of arthouse cinemas, is very concerned about the future of cinema as a cultural venue. "If effective immediate measures for our sector do not take effect soon, bankruptcies can be expected" says Christian Bräuer, President of CICAE. Traditional cinemas and arthouse cinemas in particular, with their high level of social and cultural commitment, do not just follow the principle of profit maximisation. They do not have necessary reserves. At the same time, they are now burdened by high fixed costs.

Tackling the pandemic is a challenge for society. It entails responsibilities for all of us. The same applies to the economic consequences. “Here, of course, we are also dependent on state aid," says Christian Bräuer. "We need aid programmes specially tailored to the situation of cultural venues and arthouse cinemas, otherwise there is a danger that in the end many will disappear forever and culture will fall through the net.”

The last months have seen a drastic change of the world as we knew it. We all had to quickly and instinctively adapt to radically new circumstances. The next edition of WEMW will reflect this new reality with a brand new format, while keeping an eye on the usual care for our guests. Our main goal is to build a safe professional environment and to offer both an on-site & online program in order to meet the needs of all participants. It will be a unique edition and we are ready to face this new challenge. The on-site version will be held in Trieste between 24 and 26 January 2021 and will include a combination of physical and digital initiatives; it will be followed on 27 and 28 January by a series of online one-to-one meetings.