The special hybrid edition of WEMW is about to kick off and, starting today, 900 film professionals from over 60 different countries will have exclusive access to a wide range of activities, from the traditional real-time presentations of selected projects and work-in-progress, inspirational lectures and case studies, to the more unusual Green Lottery, the Creative Europe Desks Quiz Show and a Musical Plant Installation!

But let’s have a closer look at the 2022 programme: 

1. All pitching sessions & showcases & award ceremony

Participants will enjoy the presentation of 12 fiction films (Jan 24) and 10 feature documentaries (Jan 25) during the Co-Production Forum Pitching sessions. During the MIDPOINT Shorts Showcase (Jan 24), professionals interested in short films will be able to discover 4 short international film projects selected and developed by the program MIDPOINT Shorts 2021-2022. 

Three showcases will be dedicated to works in progress: Last Stop Trieste (Jan 24) will show 6 documentary projects in a final editing stage; First Cut+ (Jan 25) will present 8 international work-in-progress feature films previously selected in a new programme including tailor-made modules for enhancing their promotion & audience engagement strategies; This is It (Jan 26) will show 9 work-in-progress feature fiction films and hybrid works with a strong visual and artistic approach with Italian majority or minority co-producers. 

2. Panels and collaboration

Thanks to the close collaboration with several major content partners, WEMW has put together a series of sessions tackling different challenging topics. EAVE will lead the session “Future thinking of data analysis in the audiovisual industry”, where different speakers will look at audiovisual data and potential technological tools to better understand them from different perspectives: streamers, indie European industry, the audience potential of our scripts. For the third year the MIDPOINT Institute, key partner of the Cold Open Drama Series Lab, will organize the lecture “Financing Opportunities for Series”. ESoDoc, co-organizer of the first edition of the Inspirational Lab ‘Impact Pyramid’, will curate the keynote “What happens when Impact & Production dance together?”. ACE Producers will “come back to Trieste” to host the “ACE Interview with Ankica Jurić Tilić”, co-founder of the production company Kinorama. Thanks to the new partnership with MEDICI – The Film Funding Journey (organized by FOCAL), WEMW will dedicate the panels IN THE SPOTLIGHT: UK, Ireland & Russia Funding Landscape and Canada Funding Landscape to the 2022 countries in focus. For the very first time genre cinema will break into When East Meets West and the Fantastic Film Forum of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival will curate the session “Crossing Genre Cinema. New Trends in Contemporary Genre Cinema”. Last but not least, EWA Network and CIRCLE Doc Accelerator will join forces in discussing how to create a fairer, more equitable and inclusive audiovisual industry in the closing panel “Embracing a New Future and Inclusive Future”. This year, in collaboration with the Documentary Association of Europe, WEMW launched the series Tiny Desk Conversations, informal chats to introduce a variety of topics and a few special guests from the 2022 countries in focus. 

3. Round tables with decision makers & producers from the 2022 spotlight territories

The 2022 edition will also feature a rich programme entirely dedicated to producers attending the market. Producers interested in deepening their knowledge on editorial line of doc & fiction sales, commissioning editors as well as training initiatives will have at their disposal 7 hours between Jan 24 and 25, and 32 decision makers in the section WHO IS WHO | Meet the Decision Makers. While as part of the 2022 East & West countries in focus, participants will have the chance to attend special lectures and round-tables dedicated to this year’s spotlight countries: Russia, UK, Ireland, Canada and USA. A wide range of topics will be addressed by local key players and producers.  

4. Out of the box

To counterbalance these industry activities, WEMW has teamed up with several friends from the industry and, after the success of the 2021 edition, is about to launch a completely renewed out of the box programme where registered producers will be able to do magic tricks together with festivals, markets and sales representatives during The Magic Co-Production, learn more about their hopes and dreams in The Magic Wishlist, and take part in this year’s Quiz Show dedicated to the Creative Europe Desks’ secrets. Widely successful in 2021, we are glad to bring back the Fortune Teller Corner where film issues are solved with the help of a tarot deck. 

This year, even more than for the last ‘out of the box’ edition, contents and formats have gone hand in hand with a very simple underlying idea: new generation, same heart!

Register now at live.wemw.it!