The third workshop of Feature Launch 2019 has successfully finished today in Karlovy Vary. Eighteen participants with eight exciting projects and two script consultant trainees attended the final workshop, which was held from June 28 till July 3, 2019 in the Czech Republic – starting in Prague and finishing within Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Eight promising projects of feature films were pitched on Monday, July 1 during Works in Development – Feature Launch – a project showcase and networking event.
Three awards altogether were given out to Feature Launch 2019 participants:
KVIFF & MIDPOINT Development Award
The main award of 10.000 EUR was received by Hungarian project Some Birds, Daniel Hever's feature debut, written by Zsanett Kertesz and produced by Laszlo Dreissiger.
The jury consisting of Hugo Rosak (Head of Industry at KVIFF), Danijel Hocevar (producer, Feature Launch Head of Studies) and Katriel Schory(producer, Feature Launch Expert) has awarded the project “for a story about two characters that are trying to find a place in the world creating a special bond which transcends generations.”
This joint financial award of the Karlovy Vary IFF and MIDPOINT is aimed to support emerging talents mainly from Central and Eastern Europe and help to further develop their feature film project.
connecting cottbus Award
The graduate project Rattlesnakes, presented by producer Maja Ilic and director Nikola Ljuca, was granted the opportunity to attend the connecting cottbus co-production market in November 2019 in Germany.
Rotterdam Lab Scholarship Award
Elene Margvelashvili, the producer of the Georgian project Grey Skies, was chosen to participate in the professional training program for producers, Rotterdam Lab, which will take place within International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2020.
Huge congratulations to all the winners and all graduated participants of MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2019!
To follow up on Feature Launch as a year-long program,
partner co-production market When East Meets West invites all the participating producers to Trieste, Italy in January 2020, offering them one more chance to meet with their potential artistic and financing partners during the Feature Launch Spotlight.
MIDPOINT Feature Launch is realized with the support of Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Czech Film Fund. It is presented in cooperation with Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, When East Meets West, Trieste Film Festival, the Lithuanian Film Centre, connecting cottbus, CineMart, Art Department Masterclass and Audiovisual Producers' Association. MIDPOINT operates under the auspices of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
WHEN EAST MEETS WEST summer news
2020 East & West Focus
First Cut + and MIDPOINT Shorts
A breath of fresh air to start your summer!
WEMW is planning several new events and partnerships for the next 2020 edition to be held in Trieste on January 19/21, 2020.
After the successful 2019 edition, WEMW 2020 will have a new exciting East & West focus on Hungary, Romania, Moldova & Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Starting from early September producers from all over Europe and North/Latin America will be able to apply to the WEMW Co-production Forum and WEMW will select 20 projects in development with international co-production potential, preferably with one of the 2020 territories on focus.
The WEMW 2020 programme will expand and will host the winter session of First Cut +, a program extension of First Cut Lab, the editing workshop for films from Central & Eastern Europe run by Tatino Films and in partnership with WEMW and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. First Cut + is a carefully curated portfolio of 16 films which will be thoroughly supported on their way towards the market & audiences and is comprised of First Cut Lab alumni as well as alumni from partner programs Less is More (LIM) and MIDPOINT Feature Launch. The creative teams will benefit from tailor-made modules for enhancing their promotion & audience engagement strategies, together with works-in-progress screenings for selected industry people. 8 projects will participate in First Cut+ in Trieste and another 8 projects in the summer session in Karlovy Vary in July 2020. First Cut+ is the only brand-new action to receive financial support from the Access to Markets’ scheme of the Creative Europe’s MEDIA sub-programme. The initiative will be officially launched and presented at the Karlovy Vary IFF at 5 p.m. on July 2, 2019.
Last but not least, WEMW will start looking for the best shorts in development from the next generation of European filmmakers. After the successful cooperation with Feature Launch, a unique platform for emerging talents from Central and Eastern Europe developing their 1st or 2nd feature, WEMW and MIDPOINT will consolidate their cooperation with a reshaped programme exclusively for short films in development. MIDPOINT Shorts will select 4 teams of writers, directors, and producers and will offer intensive script and project development during two residential workshops. The whole program will conclude in Trieste with a project showcase in front of many decision makers within WEMW.
The deadline for submissions is July 26, 2019 and more detailed info about the MIDPOINT Shorts 2019-2020 here.
This is just the beginning of a series of new initiatives with which the 10th anniversary of WEMW will be celebrated in 2020! Stay tuned and after the summer break the complete programme will be unveiled!
WEMW 2020 will be organized once again by the FVG Audiovisual Fund in collaboration with the Trieste Film Festival and thanks to the precious and constant support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, Direzione Centrale per il Cinema – MiBAC, CEI – Central European Initiative and Film Center Serbia.
More information will be soon available at www.wemw.it and on our Facebook page.
KARLOVY VARY: FNE spoke to MEP Helga Trüpel Vice President of the Committee on Culture and Education about the future of European culture after the recent EU elections and the importance of the LUX Prix for cultural diversity in Europe.
GENEVA: Ten projects from CEE countries received coproduction support at the 155th meeting of the Board of Management of the Council of Europe's Eurimages Fund, held in Geneva from 24 to 28 June 2019. In all, 6.2 m EUR was distributed to 17 fiction films, two documentaries and four animated projects.
WARSAW: Warsaw Kids Film Forum, an international co-production forum for films and television series aimed at the children’s market, have selected 25 projects to be pitched at the third edition, taking place 25-27 September 2019.
Once again this year, the European Parliament is supporting European cinema by way of the LUX Prize. The 2019 edition of the Competition officially kicked off in March and, following much deliberation on the part of the Selection Panel, the ten films which make up the Official Selection have just been unveiled at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
A highly varied initial shortlist of films was considered for the debates and was consequently discussed by the 21 European film professionals who carefully suggested, watched and selected them. A selection of refreshing and eye-opening European works, including first features, fiction films and documentaries, directed by both male and female directors, hailing from every country on the Continent, were discussed, evaluated and compared by the selection-panel members.
The official line-up was revealed today at Karlovy Vary, 30 June, by European Parliament´s Vice-Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education Helga Trüpel, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control Martina Dlabajová, LUX Prize coordinator Doris Pack, and Benedikt Erlingsson, director of 2018 LUX Prize winner - Woman at War.
The 2019 LUX Prize Official Selection
(in alphabetical order)
Clergy (Kler) - Wojciech Smarzowski (Poland)
Cold Case Hammarskjöld - Mads Brügger (Denmark/Norway/Sweden/Belgium/United Kingdom/Germany)
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya (Gospod postoi, imeto i´e Petrunya) - Teona Strugar Mitevska (North Macedonia/Belgium/Slovenia/ France/Croatia)
Her Job (I Doulia tis) – Nikos Labôt (Greece/France/Serbia)
Honeyland (Medena zemja) - Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov (North Macedonia)
Invisibles (Les invisibles) – Louis-Julien Petit (France)
Ray & Liz – Richard Billingham (United Kingdom)
System Crasher (Systemsprenger) – Nora Fingscheidt (Germany)
The Man Who Surprised Everyone (Tchelovek, kotorij udivil vsekh)– Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov (Russian Federation/Estonia/France)
The Realm (El reino) – Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Spain/France)
This year’s highlights in the selection include a total of four female directors (Teona Strugar Mitevska, Tamara Kotevska, Nora Fingscheidt and Natasha Merkulova), two documentaries (Cold Case Hammarskjöld and Honeyland), a sensational presence of small countries (not one but two films from North Macedonia) and European co-productions (half of the selection are co-productions).
The 2018 LUX Prize Audience Mention goes to Woman at War
On the same event, the 2018 LUX Prize Audience Mention was announced. The 2018 LUX Prize Official Competition film that received the highest number of votes from audiences across Europe was Woman at War. This year, the lucky voter randomly selected from among all the participants and invited to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival to announce the Audience Mention award is Hungarian-born, Sweden-based Barbara Majsa, a freelance journalist, editor, film critic, and also the managing editor at Cinema Scandinavia who awarded the price to director Benedikt Erlingsson.
The LUX Prize Competition and the LUX Film Days
From the aforementioned 10 films in the Official Selection, 3 films will take part in the LUX Prize Competition, which will be selected and announced at the Giornate degli Autori press conference in Rome on 23 of July 2019. These films will compete to be the winner of the 2019 LUX Prize and will become the core of the LUX Film Days.
In order to support the European film industry and help the most significant European (co-)productions to circulate beyond their national market, the European Parliament LUX Film Prize subtitles the 3 competing films into the 24 official languages of the European Union and screens them in all 28 EU countries during the LUX Film Days. In doing so, the European Parliament supports cultural diversity as it brings films to audiences across Europe and encourages debate on the issues they raise.
The 2019 LUX Prize winner will be awarded on 27 November . The winning film will also be made available for the visually- and hearing-impaired, and actively promoted by the European Parliament.
About the 10 films...
2019 LUX Film Prize Official Selection
Clergy by Wojciech Smarzowski
An unanimous objection to the historically influential and nowadays increasingly unquestioned role of the Catholic Church in Poland. Three priests and an archbishop are the particular focus of the story, and different “sins”, as per the Catholic teachings, are explored through each of them.
Cold Case Hammarskjöld by Mads Brügger
A provocative investigation into the 1961 death of Swedish UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. A film that reminds us how feature filmmaking can be a consciousness-raising force and that, as a bonus, is also hilarious, charming and deeply humanist.
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija by Teona Strugar Mitevska
A powerful cinematic work, which tells the story of a woman that finds herself in a position only men can access to at a religious ceremony, and which makes a significant contribution to the feminist struggle, the most acute social issue of our times, which has yet to gain momentum in the Balkans.
Her Job by Nikos Labôt
A strong drama on the aftermath of the Greek financial crisis and the need for female empowerment in a dislocated and wounded society. A film that shows that survival can only be achieved through self-liberation.
Honeyland by Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
A visually spectacular piece of cinéma vérité represents an extraordinary journey from a personal to a local to a global level by following one beekeeper in rural Macedonia, in the midst of the contemporary awareness of the significance of bees for the global environment.
Invisibles by Louis-Julien Petit
A story about the struggle of a group of homeless women and the social workers who care for them after their reception centre is closed. A look at a topical issue from a certain closeness, full of laughter, tears and emotion.
Ray & Liz by Richard Billingham
A story about bullying, domestic abuse and alcoholism that flits back and forth in time. An austere, autobiographical movie full of an overpowering sense of how a bad relationship, or a domineering parent, can create misery.
System Crasher by Nora Fingscheidt
Under the unofficial denomination for children who won’t fit into any existing structure, the very relevant social drama follows the wild and energetic journey of a 9-year-old girl through all possible stations of German Child Proctective Services.
The Man Who Surprised Everyone by Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov
A story that merges folklore and local humour with contemporary politics that intends to convey a parable about ordinary Russians and their relationship with death, edging into the field of contemporary LGBT rights in Russia.
The Realm by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
A forceful and adrenaline-charged thriller that grapples with Spain’s hottest topic in the recent years, corruption among the political class through the fall of a successful politician, and his fiefdom, that looked destined to last forever.
Visit us: www.luxprize.eu
Warsaw Kids Film Forum is delighted to announce the full selection of projects to be presented during the Forum in September. This year we received 58 applications from 21 different countries from which our selection committee including Tania Pinto da Cunha,Viola Gabrielli, Zofia Horszczaruk, Ronald Krushchak and Maciej Jakubczyk have chosen 25 projects to be pitched.
Filmmakers of the selected projects will have the opportunity to present their work in front of the International and Polish Decision Makers which includes distributors, sales agents, TV broadcasters, producers, investors, film institutes and funds.
This year again we have diverse country representation. The selection includes projects from 16 different regions including: Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey,and Ukraine.
Sessions during the Forum are divided into two groups: Projects in Development and Works in Progress.
Presented projects are competing for awards:
- CeTA Awards – Audiovisual Technology Center (Centrum Technologii Audiowizualnych CeTA) will award 2 projects with production and post production services at CeTA studios for a total amount of EUR 37.600.
- EAVE Award – European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs will be granting an invitation to the
EAVE Marketing workshop in autumn 2018 in Luxembourg. The Financing Forum for Kids - Content Award – The Financing Forum For Kids Content (Malmö, Sweden). The Forum will award the best pitch by giving the producers an invitation to present the project in Malmö in March 2019
The Financing Forum for Kids Content Award – The Financing Forum For Kids Content
(Malmö, Sweden). The Forum will award the best pitch by giving the producers an
invitation to present the project in Malmö in March 2019. - Pop Up Film Residency – Individual three weeks membership program in Bratislava
KARLOVY VARY: This year for the sixth time FNE teamed up with KVIFF and critics attending the festival to rate the films in the Main Competition, the East of the West competition and the Czech section of the official Karlovy Vary International Film Festival programme by international critics attending the Festival.
NICOSIA: Several productions have been approved for incentives or already applied for incentives in Cyprus, where the cash rebate of up to 35 percent on qualifying expenditures was launched in 2018.
Today in Warsaw will start the first session of DOC DEVELOPMENT - an intensive program of documentary development at an early stage. The project will be developed by, among others, a valued cinematographer and documentalist Paweł Dyllus, laureate of numerous international awards for "3 days of freedom" Łukasz Borowski, titled author of animations and music videos Urszula Morga, director of the award-winning Arabian secret Julia Groszek, Grand Press Photo winner Paweł Wyszomirski and Aleksandra Maciejczyk, whose film "Connected" was awarded the Silver Dragon at the 59th Krakow Film Festival. In total, 12 projects take part in the program.
The first edition of DOC DEVELOPMENT will open the Warsaw session planned for the last week of June. The next sessions will be held in autumn: in September, October, November and December. The program is organized by the Filmowa im. Władysław Ślesicki.
Konsultacje z tutorami programu DOC LAB POLAND (archiwum)
DOC DEVELOPMENT will consist of five 3-day sessions, during which participants will consult their ideas with tutors and experts - leading Polish filmmakers and other participants, analyze research and documentary photos, prepare a preliminary teaser and professional presentation materials, and finally write or refine the script. Each project is also provided to cover the cost of documentation in the amount of PLN 1,500.
The program ends with pitching for producers interested in cooperation on participants' projects and individual meetings with them. The effect of the program is also to prepare projects for submitting applications to PISF for development. The consultants of the program are leading Polish documentalists: Lidia Duda, Bartek Konopka and Jacek Bławut. The program's director is Adam Ślesicki. The workshops will also be run by producers Katarzyna Ślesicka and Anna Wydra as well as lawyers, specialists in promotion, preparation of trailers, research, archives, etc.
- The creators often struggle with the problem of "blank paper". Often they do not have anyone to consult their projects with - says Adam Ślesicki, director of DOC DEVELOPMENT. - I would like to create a place where in a friendly atmosphere they will be able to confront their ideas, give in to constructive criticism, knowing that sympathetic experts will listen to them, and at the same time they will work intensively on projects. We created such a model 5 years ago in DOC LAB POLAND and I see that it brings very good results. Now we want to focus also on this earlier stage, when the project is just being created, when it can still be run in different directions and make choices that will later decide on the film. DOC DEVELOPMENT assumes working with directors, but we would also like to prepare them for interviews with producers, equip them with the necessary tools for this cooperation and show the elements that later influence, for example, successful project financing. Over 50 projects submitted for selection show that the demand for such a program is high.
Warsztaty Fundacji Filmowej im. Władysława Ślesickiego w 2018 roku (archiwum)
The first edition of the program will be attended by: Karina Bedkowska, Łukasz Borowski, Aleksandra Maciejczyk, Filip Drzewiecki, Paweł Dyllus, Klaudia Folga, Julia Groszek, Ilona Laskowska-Levy, Emmanuel Levy, Eri Mizutani, Urszula Morga, Andrzej Szypulski, and Paweł Wyszomirski.
Organizatorem DOC DEVELOPMENT jest Fundacja Filmowa im. Władysława Ślesickiego, która od 2015 roku prowadzi największy w Polsce program konsultacyjno-prezentacyjny DOC LAB POLAND. Efektem dotychczasowych pięciu edycji jest ok. 120 rozwijanych lub pitchowanych projektów, z których powstało już ok. 40 filmów zdobywających laury na całym świecie. Co roku w ramach programu odbywa się ponad 300 indywidualnych spotkań koprodukcyjnych i dystrybucyjnych podczas Krakowskiego Festiwalu Filmowego. Fundacja jest także organizatorem jedynego w Polsce międzynarodowego Marketu Koprodukcyjnego na KFF (co roku ponad ok. 40 uczestniczących producentów i ok. 400 spotkań), a także programu Doc Hot Selection, w ramach którego prezentowane są najlepsze i najczęściej nagradzane polskie filmy dokumentalne ostatnich lat.
DOC DEVELOPMENT jest wsparty przez Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej, Partnerami są: Mazowiecki Instytut Kultury, Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, Krajowa Izba Producentów Audiowizualnych i kancelaria MKZ Partnerzy.
All Information Here: www.docdevelopment.pl
