Fest Anča 2019: Call for Entries
WE WANT YOUR FILM!
Fest Anča International Animation Festival has launched a call for entries for its 2019 edition. Animated short films, student films, music videos and films for children are among the competition categories.
Fest Anča will take place in Žilina, Slovakia between June 27 and 30, 2019. Only digital copies submitted before February 28, 2019 will be considered for the festival.
Submissions are free and winners are awarded cash prizes. Find out more at our website. Submit your film via our online submission system.
Competition awards for Fest Anča 2019 are:
- Anča Award (EUR 800) for the best short animated film
- Anča Student Award (EUR 400) for the best short animated student film
- Anča Music Video Award (EUR 400) for the best animated music video
- Anča Kids’ Award (EUR 400) for the best short animated film for children
- Anča Slovak Award (EUR 700) for the best Slovak short animated film
Fest Anča International Animation Festival – the only Slovak multimedia festival focused on animated film – is based in a former train station that has been transformed into a vibrant cultural center.
The festival aims to showcase contemporary, progressive animated films, and commemorate the cream of the genre. The long-term vision is to approximate well-known international festivals by uniquely showcasing this art form in Slovakia.
The festival features an international competition of animated short films and music videos, as well as non-competitive screening sections. Attendees can additionally enjoy presentations, exhibitions, workshops, film screenings for children, and numerous accompanying events.
The lively and inspiring summertime festival atmosphere is supported by a camp site, twilight screenings, live music concerts, and a tasty range of refreshments.
More info at:
http://festanca.sk/2019/en/galeria/
In case you have any questions, we will be happy to answer them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
RIGA: Latvian director Laila Pakalnina receives a two week retrospective of her documentary films at the Paris Pompidou Centre, running through 17 May 2019.
WARSAW: HBO Europe’s Polish original drama series Blinded by the Lights has been made available to US subscribers of pay TV channel.
Karel Vachek is in post-production with his film novel Communism.
International short film competition and Festival award winners at the 59th KFF
Festivals 02-05-2019Short but sweet
Can you tell a complex story in less than 30 minutes? The films showcased in the short films competition prove that it is possible. Documentaries, animations and features are all fascinating stories from around the world, presenting different genre conventions: from love stories through dark comedies to suspense filled thrillers.
Documentary films: a trip to the inside of a family and other extraordinary places
The ten short documentaries that havebeen invited to the competition are both intimate portraits of heroesas well as films showing the problems of the modern world. Thefrighteningphenomenon, widespread in the environment of computergame lovers, is the topic of “Swatted”, whose heroes sendspecial SWAT units to their friends from the Internet for fun, justso that they can watch a live stream of brutal police operations.
Connected, dir. Aleksandra Maciejczyk
Short documents, however, are primarily intimate, family stories. In the film ”Dandelion Mum”the director follows the struggle of her mother with cancer, while in the ”Greykey” a daughter tries to revive memories of her father – a black participant in the war in Spain who goes to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. The family of Syrian immigrants living in a Dutch town is the hero of the documentary ”Like them“, and the film “Milady” presents the experiences of people adopted in their youth by foster families. Norwegian teenagers from the movie ”Viva Løten!“ also have to overcome a difficult past. The complex relationship between two people is shown in the documentary ”When the Dragon came“. The heroes got married very young, have eight children and live together, but somehow they are apart. Wiola and Krzysztof from the film “Connected” are the complete opposite -Krzysztof’s illness and their feelings make them almost inseparable.
Animated films: playing with the audience
– One of the questions we ask ourselves during the selection is the question about the audience: will viewers open to animated worlds dictated by the subversive anti-logic of sleep, desire, experiment? Our choice is based on the idea of a balance between traditional narrative films, inviting “beginner” viewers of animation to recognize the aesthetics and codes of the medium of animated film, and forms aimed at mixing genres, games with perception or film narration – says Olga Bobrowska, the selector of the Krakow Festival film.
Crème de la crème of international cinema
Sundance, SXSW, IDFA – the winners of the most important film festivals in the world are coming to cinema screens in Krakow as part of a speciel „Festival award winners” section. The KFF audience will have a chance to see twelve film productions that have already been recognized by international juries.
– You do not need to get on an airplane or train, just need to go to any of the films from the section “Festival award winners” to embark extremely exciting journey that will take you into two directions. One will transfer you to the most important festivals in the world, and the other to distant film lands. It is a lot of fun to check what has delighted other viewers and jurors in the last 12 months and let yourself be seduced by excellent, award-winning cinema – says Magdalena Walo, coordinator of the “Festival award winners” section.
Los Reyes, reż. Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff
Two loveable dogs, Chola and Football are the heroes of the documentary “Los Reyes”, awarded at the IDFA festival. Quadrupeds living in the skate park are random listeners of conversations of young people, who are wat too familiar with drugs, quarrels with their parents or threats of being thrown out of the house.
The motels in the suburbs can also be involuntary witnesses of not always legal business dealings. They are hiding places for murderers, pit stops for lost travelers and hide-aways for surreptitious lovers. In the “Vacancy” awarded in Jihlava, viewers will get to know their real inhabitants – people who dream less and less of an American dream.
The 59th Krakow Film Festival will take place on May 26 – June 2, 2019
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PRAGUE: Central European Media Enterprises reported a 7 percent decline in net revenues to 146.6 m USD and 10 percent decline in TV advertising revenues during the first quarter of 2019. Operating income increased by 12 percent to 27.7 m USD.
VILNIUS: Three MIDPOINT programmes will take place in Lithuania 3 – 9 May 2019 presented in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre.
CANNES: Polish director and screenwriter Paweł Pawlikowski has been selected to serve on the prestigious jury of the Cannes Film Festival.
Second workshop of Feature Launch 2019 is about to take off
The time has come for the second workshop of MIDPOINT Feature Launch, which will be organized in Kaunas, Lithuania – in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre – from May 3 till May 9, 2019.
Nine feature-length projects and three script consultant trainees are meeting again after the first workshop of the program.
Group leaders and script consultants Anne Gensior, Christian Routh and Ivo Trajkov will continue with their guidance of projects. Gyula Gazdag will again act as script consultant trainees mentor and Feature Launch producer tutor and Head of Studies Danijel Hocevar is also coming back on board.
MIDPOINT also invited to Kaunas numerous guest tutors from various fields of the film industry. Feature Launch is joining Alessandro Gropplero (Director of When East Meets West Co-production market), together with Greek marketing expert Christina Pelekani, film sales expert Marcin Luczaj from Poland, Greek producer Amanda Livanou and traditionally, German pitching trainer Gabriele Brunnenmeyer.
Feature Launch lectures will be open also to the Lithuanian filmmakers, who are warmly invited to join us!
If you are in Kaunas and want to experience our open lectures, please write to Barbora Podskubkova (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to confirm your participation.
Open lectures at Europa Royale Kaunas Hotel /
Kaunas, Lithuania:
May 5, 2019 / 16:30
How to pitch your film – 6 questions for the pitch by Gabriele Brunnenmeyer
May 6, 2019 / 9.30
Marketing Is Your Friend: An Introduction to Film Marketing by Christina Pelekani
May 6, 2019 / 14.00
Dos And Don'ts With Sales Agents by Marcin Luczaj
May 7, 2019 / 9.30
Case Study: Pity by Amanda Livanou and Marcin Luczaj
May 8, 2019 / 9.30
How to Make Friends And - Sometimes - Even Good Films by Alessandro Gropplero
May 8, 2019 / 11.30
European Film Financing Sources by Danijel Hocevar
Find a detailed description of the lectures here.
Click here to learn more about the workshop itself.
MIDPOINT Feature Launch is realized with the support of Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Czech Film Fund. It is presented in cooperation with Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, When East Meets West, Trieste Film Festival, the Lithuanian Film Centre, connecting cottbus, CineMart and Audiovisual Producers' Association. MIDPOINT operates under the auspices of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
MIDPOINT Shorts 2019 final workshop to start in Kaunas
MIDPOINT´s leading short-film oriented program MIDPOINT Shorts is concluding in Kaunas, Lithuania with its second workshop from May 3 till May 9, 2019.
First one was organized in January 2019 in Trieste, Italy. The workshop will continue with the script analysis (group leader and script consultant Pavel Marek) and offer them consultations from various fields of the film industry. Jukka-Pekka Laakso, director of Finish Tampere Film Festival, will share his knowledge and experiences as a guest tutor, as well as Lithuanian producer Marija Razgute and Marcin Luczaj from Poland, who is working for New Europe Film Sales agency.
Learn more about the workshop in Kaunas, program tutors, lectures and projects here.
MIDPOINT Shorts is realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture Czech Republic, the Czech Film Fund, the Lithuanian Film Centre and When East Meets West. MIDPOINT operates under the auspices of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
MIDPOINT Intensive Lithuania is here!
MIDPOINT´s first intensive workshop in Lithuania aimed at the Lithuanian film professional is also starting in Kaunas, Lithuania and will be organized from May 5 till May 9, 2019. Thanks to a partnership with Lithuanian Film Centre, this 4-day workshop is available for Lithuanian filmmakers.
You can find more information about the program
and it´s participants here.
MIDPOINT Intensive Lithuania is realized with the support of the Lithuanian Film Centre. MIDPOINT operates under the auspices of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
Estonian film Bad Hair crowned best short film at Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival
Festivals 29-04-2019Estonian film Bad Hair crowned best short film at Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival
Bad Hair became the first Estonian film to win the short film competition of the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival (HÕFF) at the festival's closing ceremony this Sunday. The festival’s audience award went to the Japanese zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead.
Bad Hair, directed by Oskar Lehemaa, was awarded the Silver Méliès (Méliès d’Argent) which grants the film the opportunity to compete for the Golden Méliès at the annual gala of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation, of which HÕFF has been a member since 2013. The 14-minute short film, Estonia’s first entry in the body horror genre deals with the topic of hair loss, as the protagonist orders a mysterious hair-growth serum that has undesired effects on his body.
The jury, consisting of Daniel Cohen, the artistic director of the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival, film critic Marta Balaga and Estonian film director Urmas E. Liiv awarded the filmmakers “for making the only film in the world that makes you truly happy to be bald”.
Bad Hair, Oskar Lehemaa’s first independent film was produced by Evelin Penttilä at Stellar Film, a production that lasted over five years. It was originally pitched as part of the Baltic Pitching Forum in 2014 - an event co-organised by PÖFF Shorts (the sub-festival of Black Nights Film Festival) alongside Lithuanian Shorts, ShortEst, 2Annas and Riga Int'l Film Festival where it won the opportunity to represent the Baltics at Euro Connections - Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival’s co-production market. The film also received crowdfunding in Indiegogo.
Crew members include actor Sten Karpov, DOP Ivar Taim, who won the Best Cinematography award in 2018 at the Black Nights Film Festival for his work on The Manslayer / The Virgin / The Shadow, production designer Triin Valvas, make-up designer Liisi Roht, editor Sander Somma and composer Paul Oja.
The jury also gave nods to another Estonian film, the animation Strawberry Eaters by Mattias Mälk and Oscar’s Bell by Chris Cronin (UK). The eight films in the competition were selected from among 150 submitted works.
The biggest jury of the festival - the audience - favored the Japanese zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead (directed by Shinichiro Ueda) with the US supernatural thriller Freaks (directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein) close on its tail.
The 14th Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, the biggest genre film festival in the Baltics, ran from the 25th until the 28th of April. The festival is organised by the team at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Film still: Strawberry Eaters
Photo by Markus Sein: Oskar Lehemaa accepting the award
