BRUSSELS, 25 JULY 2019: The International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), representing cinema associations - including the Associazione Nazionale Esercenti Cinema (ANEC) and the Associazione Nazionale Esercenti Multiplex (ANEM) - and key operators across 38 territories in Europe, calls for films selected in competition at leading film festivals and awards to receive a full theatrical release. 

Following the decision from the Venice International Film Festival to include the films The Laundromat and Marriage Story in its 2019 official selection, the association released the following statement: 

Thanks to their global prestige, leading film festivals and awards competitions have both the honour and the responsibility of bringing high quality and diverse films to the attention of audiences around the world. 

For that reason, cinema operators expect both to consider only those titles intended to receive a full theatrical release and - where release strategies for films selected for inclusion are not yet confirmed - to make every effort to encourage the distributors of these titles to observe established industry norms. 

The inclusion of films in official selections that are within the reach of everyone - and not only that of streaming platform subscribers - benefits the audience as a whole. Where films are available solely on these platforms, or receive only a limited "technical" release in cinemas, festival/award selection becomes in truth only a marketing tool whereby most of the potential audience is denied access to a wealth of great content. 

Cinemas offer their audiences an unparalleled cultural and social experience, which through state of the art technologies allow each film truly to do justice to the creative vision of its director. Not only do they represent the gold standard for film viewing, but in general theatrical releases also provide the opportunity for the widest possible audience to discover and enjoy as broad a range of film content as possible, employing a fair and transparent business model of longstanding and proven benefit to audiences as well as to the wider film and cinema sector. 

In short, cinema operators - who are themselves long-standing and strong partners and supporters of film festivals and awards competitions - strongly believe that those organising such events around the World should celebrate and support the social, cultural and economic relevance of cinemas, taking responsibility for the diversity and accessibility of the films they include.

David Pope and Danijel Hocevar to lead the MIDPOINT Intensive Montenegro workshop

MIDPOINT´s first intensive workshop dedicated to Montenegrin filmmakers will be organized in October 2019 in Podgorica (October 12 – 15, 2019). The workshop will be focused both on script and project development.

We are very happy to announce that script consultant David Pope (UK) is joining MIDPOINT again and will act as a group leader of this program. He will be accompanied by Slovenian producer Danijel Hocevar, who will guide the participating projects as a producer tutor. 

The workshop is open to Montenegrin creative teams of filmmakers (scriptwriter and producer, with possible participation of director) with their feature fiction film projects. 

Thanks to a partnership with Film Centre of Montenegro, this 4-day workshop has been made possible. 

Read more about the program here and in case you are Montenegrin filmmaker with a suitable project, apply here.

Deadline for applications is July 26, 2019. 

The workshop is realized with the support of the Film Centre of Montenegro. MIDPOINT operates under the auspices of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

ANIMARKT 2019 – RECRUITMENT FOR WORKSHOPS AND MASTERCLASSES HAS STARTED

This is a truly unique opportunity. Three-day professional workshops and exclusive masterclasses run by prominent figures of world animation are one of several reasons to come to Poland on 8-12 October. During the Animarkt Stop Motion Forum 2019 Barry Purves, Juan Soto, Angela Poschet, and Christine Polis will share their knowledge with participants. Applications for workshops and masterclasses can be submitted until 5th September, the participation is free. 

Professional workshops and masterclasses are, together with pitching and a business panel, one of the three main sections of ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum 2019 – the most important event related to puppet animation in Central and Eastern Europe. “Workshop meetings are organised for young artists and those who take their first steps in film production. The groups are small so as to ensure comfortable working conditions and direct contact with the workshop leaders,” says Paulina Zacharek from Animarkt. In order to participate, you need to read the rules of recruitment, fill in the application form and attach the required materials. You can do this at en.animakt.pl. Each trainer will personally choose his or her participants. 

The animation direction workshop will be run for the first time in Poland by Barry JC Purves, a charismatic idol of young-generation artists, with nominations to Oscar and BAFTA. During the three days (8 – 10 October) the participants may expect many practical exercises that will help them improve their skills in the scope of stop-motion technique. The trainer will teach participants some of his tricks and share the insights gained during 41 years of working in animation and storytelling.

At the same time (8 – 10 October) there is also planned a stop-motion animation workshop with Juan Soto, who has worked for productions such as of My life as a Zucchini by Claude Barras, winner of many awards, and a highly popular film The Pirates! dubbed by Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek and Martin Freeman. The artist will run workshops devoted to characters’ movement in stop-motion animation, at the centre of which will be smooth and expressive gestures of the puppets and their convincing, realistic behaviour. He will explain to participants the 12 most important stop-motion rules in series of practical exercises.

Apart from the three-day workshops, there will also be master lectures open to the public as well as consultations that require preregistration. One of such presentations will be run by Christine Polis, an artist that since 2002 has been creating puppets, structures for animation, scenography, and prompts. During an open case study (9 October) she will talk about her work on puppets for many international productions. She will focus on the puppet creation process, so it performs its functions well and can fulfil all the tasks assigned to it in the screenplay. She will demonstrate how difficult, precise and technically and artistically demanding is the art of puppet creation. She will also provide consultation to 5 projects of her choice. 

The masterclass by Angela Poschet (11 October), on the other hand, is a unique opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and experience of award-winning production coordinator, in whose portfolio there is Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson or the Oskar-nominated Frankenweenie by Tim Burton. The case study she has prepared, open for the public, will focus on certain aspects of production – from planning to budget management, to organisation. Producers and production managers, as well as directors making their debut in puppet animation can also benefit from free individual consultation with Poschet.

ANIMARKT STOP MOTION FORUM is Poland’s first and Central and Eastern Europe’s prime international event devoted exclusively to stop motion and puppet animation. It is a unique meeting venue of the field’s top artists, craftsmen, producers, distributors, broadcasters, and investors. Its diversified program offers a unique combination of workshop and vocation-oriented elements on the one hand with networking and business-to-business meetings on the other, while the pitching of short puppet animations is a unique opportunity for artists. The forthcoming 4th edition of the Animarkt will be held in Łódź between 8 and 12 October 2019. Entry to all ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum events is free of charge, but registration is necessary due to a limited number of places.

MOMAKIN, the organizer of the ANIMARKT STOP MOTION FORUM, is a business partner for animation. It offers professional support to animation projects at every stage of their development. It brings together artists, producers, and distributors. It boasts an immense portfolio of talents from all over the world and numerous successful ventures home and abroad.

Animarkt Stop Motion Forum is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Polish Film Institute.

Last chance to submit your project to MIDPOINT Shorts 2019-2020

Developing a short film?
In case you are looking for a script consultancy as well as for the professional advice with the production and promotional aspects of your project, be sure to apply to our MIDPOINT Shorts program. 

This professional project development program (consisting of 2 residential workshops and online consultations) is open to creative teams of writers, directors, and producers.   

For the upcoming edition, Czech director and acclaimed script consultant Pavel Marek will act as a group leader of the program. Lithuanian producer and short film expert Marija Razgutewill enrich the program as a producer tutor, guiding the producers and overall production development of the projects. 

The whole program will conclude with a brand-new project showcasewithin the prestigious When East Meets West Co-production Forum in January 2020. 

Dates and venues 

Workshop 1 / September 23–28, 2019 / Prague, Czech Republic

Workshop 2 / January 16–22, 2020 / Trieste, Italy (within When East Meets West) 

You can learn more about the program and the methodology here.

You can access the application form here. 

Deadline for applications: July 26, 2019 

MIDPOINT Shorts is realized with the support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Czech Film Fund. It is presented in cooperation with When East Meets West.

SLON CREATIVE RESIDENCY

with emerging artists from the MagiC Carpets platform

10.07 – 7.08.2019

Slon, Ceraşu, Romania

Artists in residence: 

Marta Elina Martinsone (LV)

Luisa Sequeira (PT)

Vlad Dinu (RO)

Daniel Djamo (RO)

Project team:

Radu Pervolovici - Managing Director 

Romelo Pervolovici - President

Raluca Elena Doroftei - Curator

Iosif Prodan, Florian Alexandrescu - PR

Adrian Drăgoi - Production Manager

Flori Strâmbeanu, Raluca Stoica, Cătălina Stoica - Catering

META Cultural Foundation organizes the second edition of the creative residence involving artists through the Magic Carpets - Creative Europe Platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

The event takes place in the village of Slon, Ceraşu, Romania, between 10th of July and 7th of August, 2019. The curator assigned by META Cultural Foundation is Raluca Elena Doroftei. Four emerging artists were invited to this year’s edition: Marta Elina Martinsone (Latvia), Luisa Sequeira (Portugal), Daniel Djamo (Romania) and Vlad Dinu (Romania).

Marta Elina Martinsone is a theatre and film director, residing in Riga, Latvia. In her works, as a theatre director, but also as film director, she analyses the relationship between imagination and reality – how we conceive worlds in our mind and how they clash with the reality creating existential conflict. She is interested in mixing theatre and film, by including theatrical means of expression in film and experimenting styles of acting. Marta holds a Master of Arts degree in Audiovisual Arts: Film directing and producing, and in Theatre Arts: Theatre directing, from the Latvian Academy of Culture, and a Master of Arts degree in Art history and theory, from the University of Essex, UK. Also, she studied a BA in history, at the University of Latvia.

Luisa Sequeira is a filmmaker and film curator, living in Porto, Portugal. She works on multiple platforms, such as film, video and photography exploring the intersections of cinema, design and emerging media. She studied journalism and specialized in directing documentaries at Porto University. Currently, she’s pursuing a PhD in Media Art, developing a research in memory, archive, archaeology and cinema. Since 2010, she is the artistic director of Shortcutz Porto and organizes Super 9 Mobile Film Fest, an online festival exclusively dedicated to mobile cinema. In cinema, she made several short, documentary and experimental films that have been screened at various international film festivals, exhibitions and symposiums.

Vlad Dinu is a Romanian visual artist and photographer, who lives and works in Bucharest, Romania. Vlad approaches ideas such as soul and metamorphosis of the human body, explores and observes nature, the urban medium and architecture, frequently using abstract filters. He is licensed in Photography and Video – Computerized Image Processing Department, at Bucharest National University of Arts and is currently pursuing Master studies in Photography and Dynamic Image at the same university.

Daniel Djamo is a Romanian visual artist and filmmaker. He is fascinated by the origins and stories of individuals and groups, as well as themes such as national identity. Blending film with performance and video art, he also creates photographic installations which evoke the past and underline ‘the instant’. Daniel holds a Master and a Bachelor degree of Arts from the Photography and Video – Computerized Image Processing Department of Bucharest National University of Arts, and obtained a Doctorate in Visual Arts from the Art History and Theory department of the same university. He also has a BA in Journalism, Public Relations and Communication Sciences from the Bucharest University. He has been awarded multiple prizes, including the ESSL Award CEE, the Henkel Art.Award. Young Artist Prize CEE, the Startpoint Prize Romania, Special Award for Documentary Film. His videos have been screened in numerous video art and film festivals, while also winning several awards for his artworks in the competitions.

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Magic Carpets is a platform developed by thirteen European partners – Kaunas Biennial from Lithuania – the initiator of the project, Ideias Emergentes from Portugal, Eva International from Ireland, Folkstone Fringe from UK, KUNSTrePUBLIC from Germany, Prague Biennale from Czech Republic, Openspace from Austria, Latitudo from Italy, Lab852 from Croatia, Novo Kulturno Naselje from Serbia, Meta Cultural Foundation from Romania, New Theater Institute from Latvia, The Center for Contemporary Art from Georgia. The platform is designed for emerging artists, who have the opportunity to be selected by one of the thirteen partners for a one-month residency program. The aim is to encourage artistic productions together with local artists and communities. The project is co-funded by the European Union through the 2014-2020 Creative Europe – Culture program. 

Two of the Romanian artists proposed by META Cultural Foundation have been selected by our partners to participate in their residences:

Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, https://www.beneraestefan.ro/, by EVA International (https://www.eva.ie/) from Ireland.

Odeta Catana, https://odetacatana.com/, by New Theatre Institute (Homo Novus festival) http://www.homonovus.lv/eng/index, from Latvia.

The video works created at the Slon Residency through the Magic Carpets platform have the opportunity to be included in META Cinema’s selection programs and be promoted and enrolled in national and international competitions. In recent years, the shorts produced in Slon have been selected at prestigious international festivals: CineFestival, Los Angeles (USA) – 2016, Dublin International Short Film and Music Festival (Ireland) – 2016, Festival Corto Corrente (Rome, Italy) – 2016, Bucharest French Film Festival – 2015, 2016, 2017 (Romania), Sundance Film Festival (Utah, USA) – 2016, International Film Festival (Berlin, Germany) – 2018, etc.

You can find more about the residence on META website: http://metacinema.ro/index.php?year=201902

More information about the MagiC Carpets project can be found on: http://magiccarpets.eu/?fbclid=IwAR0KTauBTUFOitljLPXWTOdb9FnasaPkOzQukB6vJjXGVHSMS-UVH5oHrB8