SOFA – School of Film Advancement offers training for up-and-coming cinema professionals and cultural entrepreneurs in developing, financing and realizing innovative projects for national and international audiences. The initiative is unique in the international context because it is aimed not at directors and producers, but at cultural managers, agents and ambassadors within the cinema industry, from Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, Greece, Israel, Central Asia, the Caucasus and MENA region. Through collaboration with highly qualified experts and experienced professionals within the cinema industry, SOFA helps participants since 2013 to fully develop their project ideas, prepare them for financing, and realise them effectively. This, in turn, boosts the regional development of cinema culture and the local
film industry. The workshop in Vilnius offers added value to selected SOFA alumni, as it explores alternative ways of financing cultural projects in the field of cinema. The Vilnius edition brings SOFA alumni together with potential financing partners from the public and private sector.
Five SOFA alumni active in the film industry have been selected: Angelos Tsaousis and Andromachi Papaioannou (Greece), Dániel Deák (Hungary), Eva Brazdžionytė (Lithuania) and Marat Parkhomovsky (Israel). Participants in the Vilnius event will be trained by two highly experienced cinema industry professionals, Juliane Schulze and Thierry Baujard from Media Deals (Germany). Media Deals organises European Investment Forums in a range of European countries, providing opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to meet up and discuss investment and partnership opportunities.
After two days of intensive training, participants will present their project ideas to Simay Dinc (Co-founder of Recontact, Turkey), Patrick Zucchetta (President & Founder of Able Technologies, holding Group, France), Veikko Maripuu (Co-founder and Managing partner at Head Capital, Estonia), Lars Mattiasson (Cofounder of the xPlot platform, Denmark) and Rolandas Kvietkauskas (director of the Lithuanian Film Centre, Lithuania).
The SOFA Vilnius workshop is funded by the Lithuanian Film Centre, the German Federal Foreign Office and Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union and is co-organized by Filmplus UG (Germany) together with the Vilnius Film Cluster.
We thank our funding partners, as well as Goethe-Institut Vilnius, the Embassy of the German Federal
Republic Vilnius, the Mayor of Vilnius City, Vilnius Film Office, KESSLER, Meeting Point Vilnius and MO Museum.
About SOFA:
Film is the most flexible art form of our times. With every new invention in the digital audio-visual industry, the art form film adapts itself to the technology’s specific demands. Cinema as a cultural and social place has been film’s favorite spot and media for over a century – but, for many years now, it’s by no means the only one. Therefore SOFA commits itself to the advancement of the art form film on any given platform, by supporting projects that further explore film's potential in the audio-visual industry and guide it towards new audiences. Once selected for SOFA, the participants enroll in a training programme dedicated to the very needs to bring their ideas to life.
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