TREBON: The Polish/German team of director Eliza Plocieniak-Alvarez and film student producer Laura Messner presented their animation cut-out TV series The Very Hairy Alphabet at the CEE Animation Forum, running 6 - 8 May 2019 in tandem with Anifilm festival (7 – 12 May).

TREBON: Producer Radim Prochazka of Produkce Radim Prochazka and writer/director Petr Vodicka introduced their stop animation children’s film Babu in the Night City at the CEE Animation Forum, taking place in the Czech Republic on 8 May during the Anifilm Festival, running through 12 May 2019.

TREBON: Serbian/Canadian producer/director Vojin Vasovic and Serbian producer Milorad Kocic presented the family animated film in development Twice Upon a Time at the CEE Animation Forum on 8 May 2019, taking place during the Anifilm Festival, running through 12 May in the Czech Republic.

TREBON: Martin Kotik is developing the 3D/CGI animated film Pearl, following the success of his EFM Berlin film Harvie and the Magic Museum. He presented the project at the CEE Animation Forum on 8 May during the Anifilm Festival, which runs through 12 May 2019.

TBILISI: Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze has started shooting his new feature film Wind Has Blown, A Woman Had a Thought about Her Silk Scarf as a coproduction between Germany and Georgia.

TREBON: Czech production company Krutart and Czech TV are producing a children’s animated series, Kosmix directed by Vojtech Dudek and produced by Martin Juza.

TREBON: Bulgarian producer Lachezar Velinov and writer Alexandra Lopez-Koleva are prepping a children’s TV series The Brownies, which they pitched at the CEE Animation Forum, taking place through 8 May 2019 during the Aniflim festival (7 – 12 May) in the South Bohemian town of Trebon.

TREBON: Slovakia returns to the newly expanded CEE Animation Forum, running through 8 May 2019, with the animated TV series Street Pack, which tackles a new target audience in Slovakia: teenagers.

TBILISI: Georgian directors Tamta and Salome Khalvashi have begun postproduction on Adrift, a feature length documentary that they shot in Georgia in 2017 and 2018. The film is produced by Zaza Khalvashi whose film Namme is considered by many Georgian film critics as a pearl of modern Georgian cinema.

BUCHAREST: Romanian writer/director Anca Damian will show her French language animated film Marona’s Fantastic Tale at the Cannes Film Festival Market, followed by its screening in the competition of Annecy International Animation Film Festival (10-15 June 2019). Damian is also developing the English language animated film The Island, which will be a Romanian/Belgian coproduction.

PRAGUE: Producer/writer/director David Ondricek has started filming Zatopek, a biopic of the legendary Czech athlete Emil Zatopek, winner of four Olympic medals. The film was originally planned for production in 2015, but delayed until it could get financing in place.

PRAGUE: Bohdan Sláma, known mainly for his wry comedies, is trying his talent on a different genre this time, namely a period film. Shadow Land / Krajina ve stínu is based on historical events after 1939 in a Czech border region of extremely dramatic fate. To achieve an authentic period atmosphere, Sláma is shooting the film in black and white.

TBILISI: Georgian writer/director Giga Liklikadze is in postproduction with The Pig, his low-budget debut feature film shot in October 2017.

BRATISLAVA: The award-winning Slovak director Mira Fornay, whose second feature My Dog Killer / Môj pes Killer (CINEART TV Prague) won the Tiger award at the 42nd IFF Rotterdam, is finishing post-production on  the absurd drama Cook, F**k, Kill / Žaby bez jazyka. Fornay had been trying to get the film funded and produced since 2015.

WARSAW: Dariusz Gajewski has finished shooting a major costume drama about the Polish Legions established by Józef Piłsudski, with a planned budget of 6.3 m EUR / 27 m PLN.

WARSAW: Bodo Kox has started work on the historical series People and Gods. It is produced by TVP and based on authentic events from World War II, presenting the history of a counterintelligence unit.