Due to the Covid-19 pandemic SOFA – School of Film Advancement will hold its Tbilisi workshop for the second time in a digital form. With the experience of three online  workshops in 2020, SOFA is putting a great effort in preparing the best possible digital  performance for their participants and guests. 

The March 22-26 workshop will focus on marketing and finance strategies of the  participants’ projects. SOFA has prepared a wide range of lectures, keynotes and “one-on one” meetings fitted to the participants’ individual needs. Since the workshop cannot take  place in Georgia, the team made an effort to bring the experience of this wonderful country  and its culture closer to digital life.

The central TV industry event will be held

from the 6th until the 9th of September 2021, mostly outdoors

The longtime tradition of B2B gathering of TV professionals in Dubrovnik continues in September this year. Although the initiative plans were for June, the 8th TV market NEM Dubrovnik 2021 will be held at the end of the summer, from the 6th till the 9th of September 2021. The location of the event is a well-known Dubrovnik Palace Hotel, but also other Dubrovnik locations that will not leave the visitors indifferent.

The Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) is opening submissions for features, shorts, and music videos to its six competition sections. All submissions will be free of charge for one month, until 17 April. The festival will take place this autumn from 14 to 24 October.

The festival’s main award

The RIGA IFF Feature Film Competition is the festival’s central event. This year, it will once again bring together current, artistically outstanding films from the Baltic Sea region and the Nordic countries that expand the language of cinema. A jury of international film professionals will award the winner of this competition with the RIGA IFF “Rooster”, a bronze statuette in eight parts as well as a cash prize.

A wider film programme for the youngest audience members

The popular KIDS WEEKEND section has now become KIDS’ REEL. It has not only outgrown its weekend slot, but now also incorporates two international competitions. The films selected for the feature and the short competition will be judged by members of the European Children’s Film Association (ECFA), and the winners will be nominated for ECFA awards. The nomination gives these films the chance to win the award for best European short or feature film.

SHORT RIGA – creative short films from around the world

The eighth RIGA IFF continues to look for brilliant and creative short films for the SHORT RIGA International, National and Baltic Music Video competitions.

Films selected for the SHORT RIGA International and National competitions will also compete to receive a nomination for a European award. This section of the festival is looking for short films in different genres from all over the world that will not only compete for the RIGA IFF “Silver Grass Snake” award and a cash prize, but also for a nomination for the European Film Academy’s (EFA) European Short Film 2021 award.

The BALTIC MUSIC VIDEO Competition (BMV) section is unique in the region and continues to prove that music videos are an independent, exciting and creative format in their own right. The section will feature works that broaden the understanding of the language and possibilities of music videos. The competition screening will be attended by filmmakers, an international jury and audience members who will weigh in on the winner of the third RIGA IFF “Silver Grass Snake” award.

Further information about submission regulations and deadlines can be found on enter.rigaiff.lv

The Riga International Film Festival will take place for the eighth time in 2021. Over the years, it has become one of the most important international film events in Latvia and the Baltic region, with broad, high-quality programming intended for both audiences and film professionals.

RIGA IFF is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, the National Film Centre of Latvia and the Riga City Council.

KKI Talks in March: Virtual Cinemas and parallel windows

We are delighted to invite you to join us during the upcoming KKI Talks, a series of free monthly webinars for film industry professionals. This time, among our guests are Patrick O’neill from Wildcard Distribution (Wildcard projects includes the animated feature film “Wolfwalkers”, 2021 Oscar nomination), Alex Stolz from usheru.com, a movie marketing and analytics company focused on connecting film companies with their audiences, Eve Gabereau from Modern Films, company which was launched as an alternative to the traditional model of the film value chain to work across borders, media and windows and Maciej Jakubczyk, Head of Education Department of the New Horizons Association, who will tell more about the new New Horizons VOD platform. 

KKI Talks: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN DISTRIBUTION – Virtual Cinemas and parallel windows

22 March, 15:00 - 16:00 CET, online

A shrinking theatrical window has challenged theater operators and intensified an increasingly competitive streaming environment. Theatrical exhibition and distribution will change. During our next KKI Talks we will look at examples of virtual cinema and parallel VoD windows and discuss next goals for content creators in expanding the dissemination of their titles to their audiences.

Meet our panelists:

• Eve Gabereau, CEO, Modern Films
• Maciej Jakubczyk, Head of Education Department of the New Horizons Association
• Patrick O'neill, CEO, Wildcard Distribution
• Alex Stolz, Founder, Future of Film & Head of Film, usheru.com 

Registration form and more information can be found here: https://www.kidskinoindustry.pl/webinar-registration/. 

The participation in the webinar is free of charge. The webinar will be held in English.

Kids Kino Industry (international co-production forum) along with Kids Kino.Lab (script development workshop) are the part of the Kids Kino International Film Festival which takes place in September in Warsaw and twenty Polish cities (and online). The Kids Kino IFF, Kids Kino.Lab and Kids Kino Industry are organised by New Horizons Association Educational Department – a non-governmental organisation, founded in 2003 by Roman Gutek. Its main objective is the promotion and popularization of unconventional, artistically challenging cinema.

With a new line up of Kids Kino Industry Talks we plan to maintain an exchange hub and create a creative community, providing keynotes on trends, studies, enlightening panels, and best practice presentations in order to hone the producer’s business decisions for children’s content. Our audience are European content producers and distributors focussing on children and youth. 

Filmmakers and scriptwriters from all three Baltic countries are being encouraged to apply for the BALTIC SHORTS RESIDENCY, the third edition of which will take place in Lithuania from 1-20 June 2021

Now established as an important event on the Baltic film calendar, the BALTIC SHORTS RESIDENCY is an intensive short film script workshop over a three week period that takes place in the Klaipeda region of Lithuania between 1-20 June 2021. The workshop invites three selected participants (one from each Baltic country) to engage in an intense writing process while receiving professional consultation from Wim Vanacker, creative advisor and script consultant. This consultation is currently slated to consist of a three day intensive script workshop at the residency location and 2-3 online sessions.

Five Croatian titles to screen at the Sofia International Film Festival, the first portion of which is held in hybrid format, 11th – 31st March, while the second portion will take place in the second half of 2021.   

Dalibor Matanić’s fiction feature The Dawn will be screening in the regional competition programme, Balkan Competition. The Dawn is the second instalment of Matanić’s The Sun Trilogy (The High Sun, The Dawn, Sunset). Just as he did with The High Sun, Matanić once again wrote the screenplay and directed the film in which he continues to examine the juxtaposition between the most noble and basest of human impulses. Matanić’s latest offering had its world premiere in November 2020, in competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. The film is a Kinorama production, along with Ascent Film and RAI Cinema, while Ankica Jurić Tilić acts as producer and Andrea Paris, Matteo Rovere and Ines Vasiljević as co-producers.