An independent study on economic, cultural and social impact of Sarajevo Film Festival, conducted by Olsberg SPI, showed that the festival generated $30,8m income for the local economy, and jobs for 1.385 workers. Total economic output from the Festivals activities in 2017 amounted to $6,1m and 99 full time employees. For each Bosnian marka (BAM) of public money put into the Festival, BAM 2.11 ($1.3) of total taxation was generated. Festival contributes to development of the film industry in the region, has a positive effect on the image of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and creates a sense of unity among the locals. 

31 July 2018, Sarajevo – Olsberg SPI, one of the leading international consultancies in the field of creative industries, has conducted an independent evaluation of the impact Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) has on the local economy, tourism, culture and society. 

The study found that the Sarajevo Film Festival generates significant economic impacts for Sarajevo and for Bosnia and Herzegovina. When multiplier impacts were taken into account - including the activities of the Festival’s suppliers, and the generation of secondary spending in the economy - the study found that the total output related to the SFF amounted to $10.3 million. This supported 99 FTE (full time equivalent) employees, and an overall GVA (gross value added) contribution of $1.1 million. The results show that the festival significantly contributes to the larger economy of Sarajevo Canton and Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially tourism. Out of 30.000 tourists that visited Sarajevo during the festival dates, 10.000 resided in the city for the festival, which generated an income of $30,8m and created 1.385 FTE jobs in the tourist sector.

For each BAM of input from private sources, the Festival generates a GVA return of BAM 1.41; for public sources, this is raised to BAM 1.49. The Festival also provides strong tax revenues for the public sector: for each BAM of public money put into the Festival, both from Bosnian and international public sources, BAM 2.11 ($1,3) of total taxation is generated.

In addition to the impact on the local economy, Sarajevo Film Festival has significantly altered the international perception of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also has a strong influence on local residents, inspiring the sense of belonging and pride. In terms of its cultural importance, participants of the study have placed the Festival alongside key events in the Sarajevo's history, such as the 1984 Winter Olympics.

The festival also plays a vital role in the local audience development, and contributes to the production and the overall quality of the audio-visual industry in the Southeast European region. The Declaration of Sarajevo, adopted following a 2015 conference at the SFF and presently being considered at the Council of Europe, also provided a strong impetus to the development of a policy on Gender Equality in the film sector.  

Olsberg SPI's evaluation included a detailed analysis of the budgets and accounts of the Sarajevo Film Festival, a series of confidential consultations with a number of stakeholders, including the representatives of sponsors of the Festival and various levels government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the surveys of the industry and audience participants at the 2017 SFF which gathered over 1,000 total responses. The survey was conducted during the 2017 edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and was announced at last year's CineLink Talks on CineLink Industry Days.

Sarajevo Film Festival generated $30,8m for local economy and has a positive effect on international perception of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sale of Individual Tickets Will Start on Friday

BH Film Program: 77 Films, 21 World and 13 International Premieres!

After the successful 2018 focus on South East Europe and the Nordic countries, When East Meets West is back to work on the new edition to be held on January 20/22, 2019.

WEMW 2019 will keep the same formula primarily based on a double focus on one Eastern and one Western European region. The main idea is to bring to Trieste a large delegation of key players and decision makers from each annual spotlight territory and to select 20 projects in development from all Europe (plus North and Latin America) with a co-production potential with one of the countries in focus.

The upcoming edition of WEMW will have a new exciting East & West focus on Central Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine) and Benelux (Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands). The choice of these guest countries has been carefully done in cooperation with all national funding bodies and reflects a clear need and strategy to enhance the cooperation with and between these geographical areas.

WEMW 2019 will aim at bringing back in Trieste the record number of participants from last year (over 450 from more than 40 different countries) and will keep all successful past ingredients of the programme: along with the co-production forum for 20 projects in development with co-production potential with either Central Eastern Europe, Benelux or Italy, WEMW will launch the fifth edition of Last Stop Trieste and First Cut Lab, two parallel sections for documentaries and fiction films in post-production from Eastern Europe and Italy, meant to facilitate their access into the international market, and the second edition of This is IT, work in progress section for fiction films co-produced with Italy.

WEMW 2019 will be organized once again by the FVG Audiovisual Fund in collaboration with the Trieste Film Festival and thanks to the precious and constant support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, Direzione Centrale per il Cinema – MiBAC and CEI – Central European Initiative.

More information will be soon available at www.wemw.it

“Take a camera, shoot something, show it to somebody” - Jean Luc Godard

 

Few spots around the world give young filmmakers a shot at making a doc, from idea to screening, in just 5 weeks, under some of the finest tutoring in the world today: New York Film School, a few workshops in France and in Romania, at Aristoteles Workshop. Since 2006, generations of artists have come here to find their voice. Adina Pintilie, Golden Bear winner this year at Berlinale, is such an artist. Come August 1st, a new batch of filmmakers gets to have their say. What kind of creators will they be? Clues may hide in the stories their tutors have told so far.

 

Stories of a lesser known Romania

The Aristoteles Workshop recipe is identical 13 years since our first call: take young, talented artists, divide them into teams of three and immerse them in the middle of beautiful nowhere in Romania, with film gear and production vehicles. Add tutors from the world’s finest film schools and stir for five weeks. Each team produces a film. For 13 years now, one in three has been landing on the festival circuit, winning audiences and awards.

This edition’s beautiful nowhere is Baru, in the county of Hunedoara. The production base for all operations will be the campus of Babes Bolyai University, with whom Aristoteles Workshop has closed an unprecedented partnership. The workshop will take place there, August 1st through 31st.

Dan Nuțu, AW producer: „This year the only continent we had no applicants from was The Antarctic. The workshop went well and beyond the confines of Central and Eastern Europe. It’s a landmark on the map of docs filmmaking.“

The successful applicants, 15 young filmmakers and artists from eight countries in two continents, will be divided into five crews: director, director of photography and editor. Each one will produce a short doc, telling a story about Romania as they see it, in under 30 minutes. As they can shoot on a 2 hour radius from basecamp, we can expect films on the lost treasure of the Dacians and coal mine dramas alike.

 “The Pope” of documentaries, in the Carpathians

The workshop will kick off with a masterclass by Thierry Garrel, head of the docs department with TV channel arte for over 17 years, also known as “the docs Pope.” “It’s like learning to make movies from Scorsese,” says Dan Nuțu.

Participants will then pick their topics and start pre-prepping. They will be accompanied by four producers/ professors of documentaries from The Netherlands, France and Denmark. They all participated in international documentary film festivals: IDFAmsterdam, Visions du Reel,  Cannes Film Festival or European Film Academy Awards and masterclasses sprinkled around the globe. They access heated subject like women rights, geopolitical crises or the aftermath of war with verve and grace. For instance…

How masters tell true stories

A coup forces Madagascar’s democratically elected president out of the country. The coup’s leader is received at The Elysée Palace by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. What does the fight for freedom look like in a former French colony? Lotte Mik-Meyer knows how to tell world spinning stories, from conflict spots like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt or Madagascar, as is the case with “Return of a President.” For the past 15 years she has been teaching docs in Denmark, Vietnam, The Middle East and The United States of America. This year, she adds Romania to the list.

A “lone wolf” detonates a bomb in Oslo and opens fire on a nearby island. 77 people lose their lives for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Post factum, there’s search for meaning, questioning and the memories of the surviving families. How do we tell a story about how fragile life is and how a coincidence can mark destinies? John Appel has completed, since 1987, over 45 films. A jury member at some of the finest docs festivals (IDFA, Karlovy Vary, Visions du Reel), he teaches at Netherlands Film Academy and Amsterdam Film school, and has masterclasses in China and Mexico alike. “Wrong time, wrong place” (2012) is one of the most awarded of his productions. He’s been part of Aristoteles Workshop for the last five years.

New York Times called it ‘a cinematic tone poem as much as a biography.’ “A skin too few – The last days of Nick Drake” is one of the music documentaries signed by Jeroen Berkvens. “Jimmy Rosenberg - The Father, the son and & the talent“, another, won the Grand Prix in Krakow, the Grand Prix at Montréal’s Festival du Films sur d’Art, a Big Sky Award in Montana and The  Golden Calf in the Netherlands. Jeroen teaches documentary direction at The Netherlands Film Academy, coordinates documentary film production at HUMAN, a public broadcasting company in The Netherlands, and is a world commuter on a long string of masterclasses and courses. Which also includes Aristoteles Workshop.

How do the traces of war show in the lives of young veterans’ families? “Of Men and War” tells the story of young dads, returned from battles in faraway lands but still fighting the psychological aftermath. Laurent Bécue-Renard’s film opened at the Festival de Cannes (Official selection 2014), was nominated for Best European Documentary at the European Film Academy Awards 2014 and won awards on the scenes of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA, San Francisco Film Festival and many others. Laurent, who lived and worked as a journalist in Sarajevo during the siege, tells of world conflicts through the contorted lives in search of lost normalcy. He is a first timer at Aristoteles Workshop.

Following one week of masterclass and four of production, the best movie of this edition will be selected and awarded by an international jury.

Until a new class will emerge with freshly cut edits, the already completed Aristoteles Workshop films can be seen on cinepub.ro, a FVOD platform for cinema lovers and creators.

As of 2018, AW is partnering with the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca, The Facultaty of Theatre and Television and with cinepub.ro, the online platform where Romanian films stream for free legally worldwide.

This year’s edition is financed by The National Cinema Centre CNC, The Romanian Filmmakers Association UCIN and DACIN SARA, with the support of NouMax and The Mayoralty of Baru, Hunedoara county.

We chill and enjoy a good story with our partners Aqua Carpatica and Domeniile Sâmburești.

Word of good movies in the pipeline spreads through our media partners cinemagia.ro and liternet.ro.

 

About Aristoteles Workshop

ARISTOTELES WORKSHOP (AW) is a training and development centre dedicated to fostering a new generation of creative documentary filmmakers around the world, established by producers Dan Nuțu și Cristina Hoffman in 2006, with substantial material and spiritual support from the French/German cultural TV channel Arte.

Well known documentary experts offer full tutoring and mentoring to talented, passionate and proactive filmmakers and artists committed to undergo an intense 5-week learning experience in a newly formed team.

AW has produced over 40 documentaries widely appreciated by audiences and festival juries alike, and winners of important awards in Cannes Film Festival - Quinzaine des Realisateurs, DoK Leipzig, IDFA Amsterdam, or Locarno International Film Festival.

Over the years, the program was financed by Arte, TVR, The National Cinema Centre CNC, The  MEDIA Programme, AFCN (The National Cultural Fund Administration), UCIN (Romanian Filmmakers Union), DACIN SARA, The Cultural Romanian Institute, as well as private sponsors such as Farmexim, Istyle, Cabinetul Țuca/Zbârcea&Asociații, NouMax, Mandragora, along the mayoralties of Sibiu, Arad and Baia Mare.

About The Documentary Filmmaking Masters Program at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca

The Faculty of Theatre and Television at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is a multidisciplinary, multicultural institution with a wide spectrum: Theatre, Cinema and Media, the latter with majors in film direction, cinematography, multimedia, sound-editing, audiovisual communications and filmology. All programs are taught in Romanian, Hungarian and English.

The Documentary Filmmaking Masters is the first academic initiative in non fiction film production in Romania, propelled by Aristoteles Workshop alumnus Dan Curean and his colleagues. It is taught in English and primarily targets graduates in Cinematography, Photography, Media, Filmology, Film Direction or graduates of other disciplines seeking a specialization in documentaries. It immerses its students into all documentary production stages and all are expected to produce a long feature documentary for their dissertation thesis and to participate and interact with industry professionals in docs festivals in Romania: Astra Film Sibiu, Docuart Bucharest or Pelicam Tulcea. Visiting professors include Peter Gothshalk – commissioning editor at Arte France/Germany, dr. Arnau Gifreu – University of Girona, prof. dr. Robert Wierzbicki – University of Mittweida, Germany, dr. Rebeka Jorgensen – Fulbright Scholar, professor and filmmaker.

 

About Cinepub

Cinepub is the only FVOD online platform dedicated to Romanian cinema, legally streaming independent and national and international patrimony films since 2015. Open data meets culture in a live, free archive of Romanian cinema and one of the largest worldwide. Thursday night is premiere night on Cinepub.ro.

Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan will receive the Award in recognition of outstanding contribution to the art of film and support of Sarajevo Film Festival.

Read more

The Award to Nijaz Hastor, the owner and founder of the ASA Prevent Group and founder of the Hastor Foundation, is given for the continuous support in development of the Festival and exceptional contribution to the affirmation and development of film in South-East Europe.

Read more

The 71st Locarno International Film Festival, which kicks off today, is exceptionally rich in Lithuanian accents. Three Lithuanian films or co-productions have been selected to participate in the festival’s programmes and will have their world premieres in Locarno, to be presented by their filmmakers. In addition to film screenings, three promising Lithuanian producers will represent their country at the festival’s industry days.

Lithuanian films or co-productions will compete in two programmes in Locarno. Laurynas Bareiša’s short film Caucasus (produced by Klementina Remeikaitė) will have its world premiere in the Pardi di domani programme, while Trot (orig. Trote), a Spanish-Lithuanian co-production feature directed by the Spanish director Xacio Baño and co-produced by Marija Razgutė (production company Čiobreliai (M-Films)), has been invited to screen in the Concorso Cineasti del presente programme of film debuts. It is the first time that Lithuanian films are competing for prizes at Locarno IFF since 2014 when Pardi di domani screened Karolis Kaupinis’ debut short The Noisemaker.

The Locarno International Film Festival will also see the premiere of Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s documentary Acid Forest, an anthropological-philosophical enquiry into how people respond to an unfamiliar species; when tourists come to see a dead forest destroyed by cormorants, they are not only observing, but also being observed by the black birds.

The festival’s industry days will also feature Lithuanian elements. Match Me!, a platform for new and upcoming producers, is focusing on the Baltics this year and has invited two producers from each of the Baltic States. The networking forum is dedicated exclusively to promoting new production companies and helping them develop. Producers and experienced lecturers will discuss the changing international cinema market and opportunities therein for each young company. Ieva Biliūnaitė, who represents the company In Script and has titles such as Miracle (dir. Eglė Vertelytė), Together For Ever (dir. Lina Lužytė) and Radviliada (dir. Ramunė Rakauskaitė) under her name, and Medeina Birgilaitė of Artbox, a coordinator of many of the company’s co-productions (Tulipani: Love, Honour and a Bicycle, Foam at the Mouth, Tokyo Trial), are the Lithuanian participants. Another Lithuanian producer, Justė Michailinaitė, is going to a 5-day Documentary Summer School that focuses on issues in research and production of documentary cinema.

The participation of the Baltic States at the Locarno International Film Festival’s industry events continues a partnership that was started in 2017. Last year, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian filmmakers presented their films in post-production to potential financiers, distributors and festival programmers in the First Look programme.

The 71st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival is running between 1–11 August in Switzerland. Launched in 1946, it is one of Europe’s oldest and most significant film events, a prestigious platform for world auteur cinema.

The production of the three films and participation of the Lithuanian representatives in the festival and Match Me! event was supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre.

Polish Film Institute and EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs), one of the leading professional training, project development and networking organizations for audiovisual producers, are happy to announce the continuation of their successful partnership that will again and for the third time offer a scholarship for one Polish producer and project for the EAVE 2019 Producers Workshop. 

The award of 30.000 PLN, sponsored by the Polish Film Institute, towards the costs of the participation in the EAVE 2019 workshops will be granted to one of the selected projects in development pitched at the Polish Days (July 30 – August 1, 2018), the most important industry event in Poland, held in the framework of the New Horizons International Film Festival (July 26 – August 5, 2018) in Wroclaw. 
The award will be presented during the Polish Days awards ceremony on August 1, 2018, by EAVE’s CEO Kristina Trapp. 

Past beneficiaries of the PFI/EAVE award have been Magdalena Kaminska (Balapolis), who is pitching her latest project BEFORE THE HORIZON ENDS by Anka Sasnal and Wilhelm Sasnal, as well as Marta Golba (Endorfina Studio), who is presenting her latest production WHITE CUBE by Wojciech Pustola at the Polish Days this year:

Magdalena Kamiska:  “In 2016 I was awarded with the scholarship when pitching feature film WEREWOLF at the Polish Days New Horizons. Now the film is completed. Thanks to the PFI’s scholarship and EAVE  I was part of the 2017 workshop that gave me energy, knowledge, professional contacts and new friendships. All the benefits and experience gained are working out well for me now.“

Marta Golba:  “EAVE challenges, questions and sometimes deconstructs. All that to guide you, give tools and an amazing network of people from all arround the world to create a cinema beyond borders. I feel it is essential at this stage of my career and I would not be able to afford to participate in this adventure without the support of PFI.“

For more information about the programme and application procedure, please visit: www.eave.org

Start of the 6th edition (August 26-31, 2018)  

They act as agents to the film industry and as ambassadors to the cinema audience. 

SOFA – School of Film Agents invites film-related cultural managers to a unique pan-European think tank for the future of cinema.  

International industry experts provide participants with creative support for their film- related cultural projects.  

Cologne, July 30th, 2018 – SOFA – School of Film Agents’ sixth edition offers an exclusive group of cultural managers and film agents the opportunity to develop their projects for film infrastructure under the guidance of experienced experts. Following SOFA director Nikolaj Nikitin's invitation to Poland’s capital Warsaw, a team of internationally renowned industry professionals will provide the participants with the necessary input for a practical development of their project ideas. The six-day workshop will also stimulate an exchange about transnational communication, handling human resources in each of their home nation's creative industries and especially focusing on New Media, gender issues and post-production.  

With this year’s motto “Agents breaking down borders”, the SOFA organizers are looking forward to welcoming the following SOFA Class of 2018/2019 participants with their projects in Warsaw:  

Eva Brazdžionytė – WIFT LT (Women in Film and Television Lithuania) 
WIFT LT aims to build and foster networking of women working in Lithuanian audio-visual and creative media industries, promote their professional activities, and promote Lithuanian AV industry from the gender equality perspective.  

Agnieszka Kruk – Find Your Story 
An online platform where screenwriters and filmmakers who are looking for screenplays or new talents can meet on a neutral ground and start fruitful cooperation.  

Victoria Leshchenko – FAQ film fest – festival on science and technologies 
FAQ showcases film and lecture events on science and modern technologies delivering the most provocative answers to the trivia questions.  

Marat Parkhomovsky – IFA Digital Experiences 
A state-of-the-art web platform dedicated to unlocking the treasures of the Israeli Film Archive to local and world public. The platform will design various VOD experiences based on the archive's rich historical documentary collection and its feature film collection.  

Róbert Vámos – Satellite Trailers 
Satellite Trailers’ mission is to help Central and Eastern European films maximize their audience and increase the share of regional films across European markets by delivering high-quality trailers, teasers, and promos. 

Natia Nikoleishvili – Post Production Platform
A map of post-production capabilities in the Georgian film industry offering access to highly trained technicians and artists, freelance specialists, and experienced companies. Here you can estimate your budget and build up a professional team.  

More information on the 2018 participants: http://www.joinsofa.org/projects-participants/.

SOFA again features successful industry experts who share knowledge and expertise with the participants. Confirmed experts so far are Funa Maduka (creative and acquisitions executive within Netflix Original Films, Amsterdam), Ewa Puszczyńska (producer, Łódź, IDA & COLD WAR), Anna Serner (CEO Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm), Oliver Baumgarten (Film Festival Max Ophüls Preis, Saarbrücken), Robert Groß (CEO ACT, Cologne), Jowita Michalska (CEO of Digital University, Warsaw), and Cristian Nicolescu (CEO Avanpost Digital Cube, Bucharest). 

The complete list of experts as well as the full programme will be announced closer to the beginning of the SOFA workshop under www.joinsofa.org.