Warsaw, 22^nd February 2019 - The new Polish 30% cash rebate scheme that was announced last year is active now. The scheme is based on first come, first serve rule and the Polish Film Institute has just begun to accept applications.

After many years of effort by the local film industry, Poland finally got its own incentive scheme. From February 2019 the Polish Film Institute, the main funding body supporting film production in the country, provides access to a generous 30% cash rebate on productions, including feature films, animations, documentaries and series made in Poland.

The scheme is managed by the Polish Film Institute and offers reimbursement of production costs incurred in Poland in the amount of 30% of Polish eligible expenditures. The funds come directly from the state budget and are distributed throughout the year on the first come, first served basis. At least 10% of the annual budget is intended to support animated productions.

Reimbursement is available for feature films, animations, documentaries and series - fiction, animated and documentary. The return is available for the production of Polish and international co-productions and services provided for foreign productions. To apply for support a Polish partner or company registered in Poland is required.

To enter the scheme an applicant needs to pass the qualification test and meet minimum spending thresholds. The minimum spending levels are different for different genres – i.e. for feature films the threshold has been set at PLN 2.5 million (approx. EUR 600,000 for those applying in 2019 (increase to PLN 3 million / EUR 715,000 next year and PLN 4 million / EUR 950,000 from 2021), for feature animation on PLN 1 million (EUR 240,000) and documentaries on PLN 300,000 (EUR 70,000). The producers of series need to prepare to spend at least EUR 240,000 per episode in case of fiction live action series; and PLN 1 million (EUR 240,000) per season in case of documentary or animated series. There is a cap per project – PLN 15 million (EUR 3.33 million) and a cap per applicant per calendar year – PLN 20 million (EUR 4.76 million). The reimbursement is paid after the presentation and positive verification of the final report on production or the stage of work covered by the support.

Applications are submitted in Polish and can be made at the earliest 6 months before and at the latest 2 months before the start of the part of the production to which the application relates. The Polish Film Institute takes up to 28 calendar days to assess the application.

In addition to the new incentive scheme Poland offers extensive opportunities for film and TV productions, from a wide range of diverse locations, through an experienced pool of incredible local talents who have been responsible for a wealth of outstanding films including the Oscar nominated “Cold War” by Paweł Pawlikowski or the European Film Awards winner “Another Day of Life” by Damian Nenow and Raúl de la Fuente, up to state-of-the-art facilities and sound stages.

More information about the 30% cash rebate scheme is available at the Polish Film Institute website: http://en.pisf.pl/incentives.  

The 26th edition of Astra Film Festival, the most important event dedicated to non-fiction cinema in Romania, held from October 14th-20th, 2019, awaits its film submissions in the competition sections of AFF 2019, the deadline for submitting entries being March 25th. Nonfiction film professionals have 4 weeks to complete the sign-up process.

The eight Visegrad Film Forum will welcome the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. He has been exceptionally successful in the last year and his films are highly desired by many renowned film festivals.

 Visegrad Film Forum will host top-notch filmmakers from all over the world for the eight time. From the 19th to the 23rd of March they will introduce themselves to the public in an informal atmosphere via lectures and their best-known films.

Controversial filmmaker of a festival favorite?

We are, of course, talking about the ambitious Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. In a single year, he managed to show three of his films at three A-list festivals. His name started to show up in the news after he shot the documentary Maidan (2004). The feature captures the passionate civil protest against Viktor Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine at the time. Of the countless hours of material, he managed to produce a portrait of an awakening nation with a newfound identity. Later, he stirred the waters again with the feature Austerlitz (2016). In this black and white documentary he visits concentration camps and observes the behavior of tourists that pass through daily.

His last two documentaries have lured the attention of festivals and praise from critics. One of them is Victory Day (2018), that had its’ world premiere at the festival in Berlin and The Trial (2018), that was introduced in Venice.

Apart from documentaries, he has done live-action films My Joy (2010) and a war feature In the Fog (2012), that premiered in Cannes. He was nominated for a Golden Palm in Cannes for the movie A Gentle Creature (2017), that is inspired by the Dostoyevsky novel of the same name. A year later at the same festival he received an award for best director in the category Un Certain Regard for the movie Donbass (2018). The film consists of 13 episodes, each telling a story from the enemy-held area from 2014 to 2015.

Woman behind the camera?

Kirsten Johnson, the director, producer and cinematographer from New York bas more than 40 documentaries under her belt. She worked as a principal cinematographer on the Oscar winning movie Citizenfour (2014) about a former analyst of an American security agency and The Invisible War (2012), documenting sexual abuse in the army, which was Oscar-nominated. Furthermore, she worked as a cinematographer with the director Michael Moore on the documentary about the USA after the 9/11 attacks called Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). She also contributed to a feature called Risk (2016), that follows the story of Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.

Her own documentary Cameraperson premiered at the Sundance festival in 2016. It connects radical shots from the war in Middle East and her personal childhood materials as well as material from the dying days of her late mother.

Do you know the film schools of the V4 countries?

Visegrad Film Forum brings new chances for film schools of the V4, which is why we continue with the exchanging of partner schools. Students from The Tomas Bata University in Zlín will introduce their films, representing the Czech Republic. Students from WRiTV in Katowice form the Polish delegation. Representing Hungary will be the students of SZFE in Budapest. The home team will be well represented by one of the co-organizers of the event – the Film and TV Faculty VŠMU.

Early bird accreditations valued at 20 EUR (10 EUR for students) are available only until 19.2.2019, after that the price goes up.

Visegrad Film Forum 2019

Date: March 19-23, 2019

Place: Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Venue: Film and TV Faculty VŠMU

Film industry professionals will once again be able to buy accreditations allowing them access to the industry conference Meeting Point – Vilnius (MPV) as well as the VIFF Kino Pavasaris. The early bird accreditations are available until March 3, while the standard ones are on sale until March 18. Accreditations are available for purchase here: https://kinopavasaris.lt/en/accreditation-mpv 

Paid accreditations for industry professionals are common practice at international film festivals, giving professionals from various fields access to events they would otherwise not have. Two types of accreditations will once again be available this year. The Industry accreditation will allow access only to MPV on April 2–4. The Industry + Festival accreditation will let its owner attend the industry conference and all the VIFF Kino Pavasaris film screenings throughout the festival, taking place March 21–April 4.

The Early Bird accreditations are available at a discounted price until March 3. The Industry accreditation will cost 50 euros, giving access to the three-day long conference and networking events, while the Industry + Festival accreditation will be priced 90 euros, giving access to all the previously mentioned events, as well as unlimited festival screenings, including the ones that will take place during the festival extension.

Beginning March 4, the Industry accreditation will cost 70 euros and the Industry + Festival accreditation 150 euros.

Sales of all accreditations will be open until March 18. Last Minute accreditations will be available to latecomers for a higher price. However, this type of accreditation does not offer the possibility to appear in the MPV catalogue. The accreditations can be purchased here: https://kinopavasaris.lt/en/accreditation-mpv  

In 2018, the rapidly growing international industry event MPV received around 300 Lithuanian and international guests from more than 35 countries. In its 10^th edition, led by the newly appointed Alessandra Pastore, MPV promises three days packed with intensive Coming Soon work-in-progress pitching sessions, inspirational ToT – Talks on Tomorrow framework of panels and talks as well as networking events. This year’s MPV programme is also enriched with two new initiatives. Organised together with MAIA workshops, Talent Nest will aim to explore, nurture and offer industry and networking opportunities to emerging professionals from the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine and the Caucasian countries. Shorts Library initiative will let industry professionals get acquainted with directors’ previous short films. More news about the MPV programme is coming soon.

As an instrument for cultural and political change, music plays a vital role in the fight for freedom. This year, music will also be at the center of the 24^th Vilnius International Film Festival Kino Pavasaris, with Kirill Serebrennikov’s Summer (Leto) set to open the festival on March 21.

In his latest feature, Serebrennikov follows young musicians as they search for an escape in Leningrad’s underground rock scene of the 1980s. For young people who lived in the Soviet Union, freedom was defined by the music of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, David Bowie and others whose songs are included in Summer. Though fictionalized, the film pays tribute to Viktor Tsoi, the charismatic leader of the legendary band Kino.

Summer premiered at Cannes, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Cannes Soundtrack Award. The film explores what it means to strive for artistic freedom while oppressed by restrictions. It therefore seems symbolic that Serebrennikov, an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, finished making Summer under house arrest.

Summer trailer: http://bit.ly/2sNeqZh

This year, Vilnius IFF will pay tribute to emerging new filmmakers as well as already established masters. The festival will screen Hirokazu Koreeda‘s latest audacious drama Shoplifters, winner of the Palme d’Or and Academy Award nominee in the Foreign Language Film category. Also included in the programme are Nadine Labaki’s compelling story about anger and neglect Capernaum, which won the Cannes Jury Prize, and Berlin-based artist Jeremy Shaw’s psychedelic Quantification Trilogy . The complete festival line-up will be announced at the end of February.

Selected features will be screened across 5 sections: Festivals’ Favorites, Discoveries, Critics’ Choice, Masters and Competition of European Debuts. The programme will also include the retrospectives of two exceptional and unconventional master filmmakers who will be announced soon. 

The carefully selected programme and festival guests will invite filmgoers to stop rushing and let their imaginations take over. For two weeks, the 24^th VIFF Kino Pavasaris promises to inspire, shock and encourage to take action.

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be welcoming a host of high-calibre guests for its 19^th edition: in addition to Krzysztof Zanussi, the subject of this year’s Homage, multi-award-winning director Sergei Loznitsa will also be paying a visit to Wiesbaden, where he will be giving audience members special insight into his experiences in a master class open to the general public. Croatian actor Leon Lučev is slated to be on hand at the festival to present his directorial debut. Furthermore, filmmaker Helke Misselwitz is paying a visit to Wiesbaden.

Alongside these happy highlights, goEast will also be paying a farewell tribute to two recently departed fellow travellers from the world of Eastern European film: Lithuanian-American avant-garde legend Jonas Mekas and Yugoslavian-Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev.

The Specials section once again promises a variety of events, including the traditional Matinee, where actor Kida Khodr Ramadan will be presenting KANUN (Germany, 2018), his first outing as a director, the Schools goEast programme and the finest genre films from Central and Eastern Europe, selected this year in co- operation with the Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. Finally, the exhibition “Eastern Fairy Tales”, featuring the work of photographer Frank Herfort, provides unfamiliar glimpses into life in the post-Soviet republics.

Special Guests in Wiesbaden: Sergei Loznitsa // Leon Lučev // Helke Misselwitz 

The annual master class, open to the general public for the first time this year, will be given by Sergei Loznitsa. The Ukrainian director and screenwriter gained notoriety starting in the mid 1990s for his documentary films treating Soviet history. His most recent film THE TRIAL (PROTSESS, Netherlands, 2018) also takes up this subject and will be featured in the goEast programme. Aside from his documentary work, Loznitsa is also a prolific director of fiction features whose films have been honoured in Cannes, among other places.

Leon Lučev is an established star in front of the camera, not only in his native Croatia, but in all of the former Yugoslav republics as well. At goEast, Lučev will be presenting his first effort behind the camera, the short film I CAN BARELY REMEMBER THE DAY (MALO SE SJEĆAM TOG DANA, Croatia, 2018). This film, which revolves around a man who is confronted with the death of his father on his daughter’s birthday, will be shown as an entry in the RheinMain Short Film Competition.

In addition, director Helke Misselwitz will be making an appearance in Wiesbaden. Misselwitz began her career in the GDR, where she studied with Heiner Carow; from 1997 to 2014, she held a professorship for direction at the Academy for Film and Television in Babelsberg. Her cinematic work often focuses on the fates of female protagonists. goEast will show her fiction feature LITTLE ANGEL (ENGELCHEN, Germany, 1996), about a young woman’s search for happiness, which received the German Critics’ Award in 1997.

Specials:   Matinee with Kida Khodr Ramadan // Schools goEast // Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival

The name Kida Khodr Ramadan was on everyone’s lips last year for his gripping portrayal of Ali “Toni” Hamady in the award-winning German series 4 BLOCKS. Now the celebrated actor is coming to goEast to present his directorial debut KANUN (Germany, 2018) at the traditional Matinee. In Ramadan’s film, an old, re-enflamed feud between two families calls for a vendetta according to the eponymous unwritten Albanian law of “kanun”.

At Schools goEast, a new joint project from goEast and Wiesbaden’s school board, school students will get to know Central and Eastern European film in the scope of cinema and museum visits and learn to engage critically with the medium of film.

This year’s programme includes BLOSSOM VALLEY by Hungarian director László Csuja. Csuja, who studied under Oscar®-nominated director Ildikó Enyedi (goEast jury president in 2018), tells the story of two teenagers making their way through Hungary with a kidnapped baby in this novel take on the road movie genre.

The goEast Specials promise first-rate cinema experiences once again, presented this year by the Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. This festival, which takes place in summer and transforms Croatia’s capital into a gathering place for fans of fantastic cinema and related genres such as science fiction, horror and thrillers, will also provide for plenty of goose bumps in Wiesbaden – the programme includes a late night cinema screening of the Serbian science fiction film EDERLEZI RISING, featuring feminist adult film actress Stoya in the lead role.

In Memoriam: Jonas Mekas // Dušan Makavejev

goEast bids farewell to Lithuanian-born cinema master Jonas Mekas, who passed away on January 23^rd 2019 at the age of 96. Before going on to collaborate with creative giants like Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Salvador Dalí in New York City of the 1960s and 70s and making a lasting impact on the American film scene with his experimental films and archive projects, Mekas lived for a time in Wiesbaden directly after the end of World War Two as a displaced person, while studying philosophy at the University of Mainz.

goEast is also paying tribute to Dušan Makavejev, a significant representative of Yugoslavian auteur cinema, whose contributions were central in defining the style of the Yugoslav Black Wave. In the early 1970s, his film about psychoanalyst and human sexuality researcher Wilhelm Reich, entitled W.R. – MISTERIJE ORGANIZMA (WR

– MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, Yugoslavia, 1971), attracted considerable international attention. The film was banned in Yugoslavia and director Makavejev was threatened with a prison sentence. goEast would like to bid a fond farewell to Dušan Makavejev, who passed away in Belgrade on January 25^th 2019.

Photo Exhibition: “Eastern Fairy Tales” by Frank Herfort In his pictures, German photographer Frank Herfort searches out clichés in everyday situations in Russia and Eastern Europe and debunks them with refreshingly incongruous stylistic choices: traditional “babushkas” and vodka swigging men on sleds collide with modern architecture or advertising billboards. Frank Herfort’s photographs possess a cinematic quality and each of his images tells a story – his “Eastern Fairy Tales”, on display at Museum Wiesbaden from April 10^th to 16^th, are at times epic, at times touching, often beautiful, and occasionally even downright bizarre.

With its multi-faceted programme, featuring film screenings, workshops, exhibitions and panel discussions, goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, is equally aimed at local cinema fans, experts from the industry and academia and guests from around the world, and sees itself as a vital platform for culture from the post-socialist cosmos.

Pan-European Picnic

What kicked off in earnest thirty years ago in Berlin on 9 November heralded the end of an era that had seen Europe, and the world at large, divided into two parts. However a tiny hole had already been torn in the Iron Curtain back in August of 1989 through an at first glance unremarkable art intervention staged by peace activists: at their “Pan-European Picnic”, the border crossing between Hungary and Austria was opened for several hours and many East German citizens who happened to be vacationing at Lake Balaton were able to make their way into the West. This year, with the generous support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, goEast is dedicating a series of events to this singular occurrence, a series that is all about transcending borders, between East and West as well as between the disciplines of film, literature and fine art. Included among the planned events is a genuine picnic too, to be held at Wiesbaden’s Schlossplatz square, where festival guests, cultural creators and Wiesbaden residents can come together.

Symposium: Constructions of the Other – Roma and the Cinema of Central and Eastern Europe

This year’s Symposium, which international film scholars, members of the cultural sector and filmmakers are invited to attend, deals with a controversial complex of topics: On one hand “Gypsy” stereotypes from the world of cinema will be subjected to a critical re-examination, spanning from the Third Reich to Emir Kusturica. On the other hand, films made by Roma filmmakers and the lived realities of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe will be placed in the focus. The film retrospective is framed by a series of lectures which aim to take a close critical look at the various (film-)historical, socio-political and cultural aspects of this thematic field.

Homage: Krzysztof Zanussi

In the Homage section, goEast is honouring the venerable master of the Polish New Wave, Krzysztof Zanussi, with an extensive retrospective. The multi-award-winning director and screenwriter, celebrated by critics as the “Polish Godard”, is celebrating his 80^th birthday this year and is among the most important filmmakers of his generation. In 2001, Zanussi served as the first jury president at goEast and he will be returning to Wiesbaden in 2019 to present classics such as STRUKTURA KRYSZTAŁU (THE STRUCTURE OF CRYSTAL, 1969), ILUMINACJA (ILLUMINATION, 1972) alongside his most recent work ETER (ETHER, 2018).

Support for Young Filmmakers: RheinMain Short Film Award

// East-West Talent Lab // Renovabis Grant

Two new prizes and the training programme East-West Talent Lab are intended to enable up-and-coming filmmakers to realise innovative project ideas. For the first time, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain is presenting the RheinMain Short Film Award (endowed with 2,500 euros in prize money), which will go to the winner of the newly established short film competition. The jury is composed of members of cultural associations focusing on Central and Eastern Europe from the Rhine-Main area. Since the early 1990s, Renovabis has been committed to social renewal in the post-socialist countries – this year, the charity has chosen to establish and award a 3,500 euro research grant for documentary projects tackling the topics of human rights and minority rights. Starting this year, the goEast Development Award for the best project pitch in the East-West Talent Lab (also endowed with 3,500 euros in prize money) is made possible with the support of Russian Standard Vodka.

Dziga Vertov’s ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION and Other Archive Treasures

In addition to current productions from Central and Eastern Europe, historical films and archive works have traditionally occupied a prominent place in the goEast programme. One particularly bright highlight in this regard in 2018 is the German premiere of ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION (GODOVSHINA REVOLYUCII, USSR, 1918) by documentary film pioneer Dziga Vertov. The film, which is possibly the first feature- length documentary in cinema history, and which was considered lost for many years, has been meticulously reconstructed by Russian film historian Nikolai Izvolov. In the scope of a workshop talk, Izvolov will provide insight into his work on this reconstructed version of Vertov’s film.

In the scope of the Symposium, among other films, Bauhaus artist László Moholy- Nagy’s dynamic work BIG CITY GYPSIES (Germany, 1932) will be shown. In addition, two important archive montages will be making their way to the screen as well. First, THE TRIAL (PROTSESS, Netherlands, 2018), in which Belarusian director Sergei Loznitsa employs archive materials from Soviet show trials held in 1930. Loznitsa is scheduled to attend the festival and will also give a master class. Finally, in their enchanting archive montage BRIDGES OF TIME (LAIKA TILTI, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, 2018) Audrius Stonys and Kristīne Briede pay tribute to the poetic Baltic school of documentary filmmaking.

The following grants were announced by the Czech Film Fund on 13 February 2019.