For the past couple of weeks there has been news in the press about various international film festivals undergoing changes. The most notable example comes from Berlin, with Locarno’s artistic director Carlo Chatrian set to replace Berlinale’s outgoing director Dieter Kosslick in 2020. As Vilnius Film Festival Kino Pavasaris prepares for its 24^th outing, we would like to announce that Mantė Valiūnaitė will be taking over our senior programmer duties. 

Film curator Valiūnaitė has been with Kino Pavasaris for five years as a programmer and has worked as the senior programmer for Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Inconvenient Films for four years. She oversaw numerous film projects for Meno Avilys, an NGO specializing in film education and preservation, including Slow Viewing: The Dialogue Between Márta Mészáros and Margarethe von Trotta and Luminous Shadows: Selected Installations & Film Retrospective of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Valiūnaitė graduated from Vilnius University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and received her MA in Film Studies from King's College London.

The programming team will once again welcome Aistė Račaitytė, who has been part of the Vilnius Film Festival for six years. She received her bachelor’s degree in Film Theory from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and MA in Film Curating from Birkbeck, University of London. She worked as a programme assistant at the British Film Institute and curated several retrospectives in Lithuania, including Slow Viewing: The Dialogue Between Márta Mészáros and Margarethe von Trotta. Račaitytė reviews films, international festivals and oversees the films distributed by Kino Pavasaris Distribution.

Film critic Gediminas Kukta and our Head of Communication and film journalist Dovilė Raustytė will also join the festival’s programming team.

Kukta spent four years working as one of the programmers for the Vilnius International Short Film Festival and was a member of the selection committee for the competition programme New Baltic Cinema at the European Film Forum Scanorama. He has worked for the creative communication agency Autoriai for five years. Kukta received his bachelor’s degree in Lithuanian Philology and master’s degree in Intermediate Literature Studies from Vilnius University.

Santa Lingevičiūtė, who has been part of the programming team for many years, will seek new challenges outside of the festival for the time being. Edvinas Pukšta will also take on a new role as a Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival programmer but will stay with Kino Pavasaris as a consultant to share his remarkable experience with the new team.

“Vilnius Film Festival employs the best experts in their respective fields and their decision to accept international job opportunities is a natural process. Their positions have been filled with equally qualified and determined individuals. Examples from Berlinale and other festivals prove this to be the case. Understandable changes in personnel ensure continuous steady growth and innovative decisions, which are things Kino Pavasaris is well known for.

It’s not easy to part with long-time members of the team – we are immensely thankful for their input.  Edvinas and Santa have contributed a great deal to shaping the festival and creating the backbone of our excellent film programme. I am pleased that Edvinas will continue to share his experience with us, and I’m sure we’ll see others during new projects,” said Vilnius Film Festival’s executive director Algirdas Ramaška.

The organizers have already acquired the Palme d‘Or and Golden Bear winners for their 2019 festival, proving this year’s programme to be every bit as excellent and ambitious as ever.

Vilnius Film Festival will return March 21–April 4, 2019.

Altogether, as the representatives of the Czech documentary film community, we demand an immediate release of our colleague, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who was arrested by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation on 10 May 2014 and brought to Moscow to face what Amnesty International described as “an unfair trial in a military court.”

On May 14, 2018 Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years in jail, announced an indefinite hunger strike demanding the release of all 64 Ukrainian political prisoners convicted in Russia, denouncing their torture and restrictions in the access to a lawyer and medical care. After 46 days of a hunger strike, Oleg’s kidneys and heart are collapsing.

As Oleg himself stated, “A big betrayal sometimes begins with a small act of cowardice.” In front of an imminent risk of a death of an innocent filmmaker, we urge the political representatives and legal authorities all across the Europe for a strong personal engagement in the matter of Oleg Sentsov.

We firmly believe in the free artistic and political expression as essential and basic values of any society. As documentary and film institutions, we cannot stress enough the vital work documentary filmmakers do, while bringing up stories of violations of freedom and justice.

According to the film by award-winning Russian director Askold Kurov The Trial: The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov, it was indeed Oleg Sentsov’s critical filmmaking and political actions that stood in the background of his indictment. Thanks to the courtesy of its producer Marx Film, film’s co-producers Czech Television and Message Film, and the Rise and Shine world sales, the film is available on Vimeo (HERE with English subtitles).

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

    •    Write to your foreign minister

    •    Add your name to the letter of the European Film Academy by sending them an e-mail

    •    Donate for the coverage of legal expenses and to support Oleg’s young children.

    European Film Academy e.V. 

    IBAN: DE69 1005 0000 0190 3335 70  

    BIC/SWIFT: BELADEBEXXX 

    Reason for payment: Donation for Oleg Sentsov

 

Audiovisual Producers' Association (APA)

Czech Film Center

Doc Alliance Films

dok.incubator

Institute of Documentary Film

Ji.hlava IDFF

Karlovy Vary IFF

One World IDFF

The Mute, Monument and A Coach Daughter’s among 25 projects in Poland’s most important industry showcase.

The 2018 edition of Polish Days will take place July 30 – August 1 during the 18^th New Horizons International Film Festival (July 26 - August 5, 2018). This year's event will feature 5 completed films, 9 as part of a presentation of works in progress and 11 projects in development.

Full list of selected films:

Completed films:

A Coach's Daughter (Łukasz Grzegorzek)
Monument (Jagoda Szelc)
White Cube (Wojciech Pustoła)
Hurrah, We Are Still Alive (Agnieszka Polska)
The Mute (Bartosz Konopka)

Works in progress:

Fisheye (Michał Szcześniak), Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa), Simple Things (Grzegorz Zariczny), Marygoround (Daria Woszek), Wind Up (Tomek Tryzna), Dear Ones (Grzegorz Jaroszuk), Unpromised Land (Jacek Borcuch), Used Up (Małgorzata Imielska), Dark, Almost Night (Borys Lankosz)

Pitchings:

It was nowhere (Anka i Wilhelm Sasnal), 9:17 PM Incident (Tomasz Wolski), Her/His (Anna Kazejak), The storm before the calm, (Marcin Bortkiewicz), In Between (Piotr J. Lewandowski), Broad Peak, (Leszek Dawid), I never cry, (Piotr Domalewski), Patagonia, (Agnieszka Zwiefka), The In-Between, (Bartosz M. Kowalski), The Horse Tail, (Justyna Łuczaj-Salej), Ilusion (Marta Minorowicz)

Over 200 professionals from Poland and abroad have already confirmed their participation, including programmers from numerous international festivals, sales agents, distributors and film producers.

As part of the event, industry representatives from around the world attend closed screenings to learn about the latest Polish films at every stage of production: they watch completed films and fragments at the post-production stage, and they also listen to pitchings about projects in production. Polish Days is an excellent opportunity for producers and filmmakers to promote their projects and to find foreign partners. During the selection process, the organizers choose the most interesting films currently being made in the Polish market. Projects presented in past years included, among others, Silent Night, Panic Attack!, The Fastest, Spoor, The Last Family, The Birds Are Singing in Kigali, All These Sleepless Nights, Warsaw '44, Papusza, Floating Skyscrapers and Congress.

Organized since 2013 in cooperation with the Polish Film Institute, Polish Days is the most important industry event at the New Horizons International Film Festival.

Polish Days is co-organized by the Polish Film Institute. Event partners include the Wrocław Film Commission, the Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission, the Łódź Film Commission, the Krakow Film Commission, the Podkarpackie Film Commission, Warmia - Masuria Film Fund, Coloroffon and Aeroplan Studios, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, EAVE . Media partners include Film Pro, Film New Europe and Film & TV Kamera.

The festival spot of the 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF has been premiered today in the Thermal Hotel in Karlovy Vary. Its author is the renowned French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. The Ji.hlava IDFF’s spot was officially released during the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

“And even if nothing turned out how we’d hoped, it would not have changed what we’d hoped for,” says Godard in the festival spot.

“This year’s festival spot created by Jean-Luc Godard follows in the line of outstanding works made for the festival by such figures as Godfrey Reggio, Jan Němec and Jóhann Jóhannsson. The festival spot comes in the format of a short film, an intimate haiku. Even within the framework of this minute-long minimalist format, Jean-Luc Godard remained loyal to his signature method of layering meanings and references. Each new viewing opens up new interpretations,” says Marek Hovorka, the director of the Ji.hlava IDFF.

“Godard sets filmmaking in the context of the history of arts, works with references to popular works of fine arts. At the same time, it shows how inseparable the work is from the author and how important role inner authenticity plays in terms of authorship. Flipping through photos in Godard’s cell phone, the history of arts spontaneously alternates with his own memories, selfies and the perspective of a dog that gives the human position a different angle,” adds Hovorka.

The oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard, who started his filmmaking career in the 1950s, is considered one of the cornerstones of world cinema. With such renowned titles as Breathless, Pierot Le Fou and Alphaville. His latest film Le Livre d'image produced this year won him the very first awarded Special Palm Dor in Cannes. “The form of this award clearly attests to Godard’s outstanding talent. Although this world-renowned filmmakers has already turned 87, he introduced a film that the jury of the main Cannes competition had no clue how to categorise. However, they were so struck by the film that – unfortunately to Godard’s detriment – created a special category,“ says Hovorka.

The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival is one of the most prominent European festivals focusing on documentary cinema and the largest event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira described the event as the “Mecca of documentary filmmaking”. The festival programme traditionally offers over one hundred films shown in their world, international or European premiere. The festival’s pivotal competition sections include the main competition Opus Bonum, section dedicated to filmmaking debuts First Lights, Fascinations focusing on contemporary experimental film and Eastern European competition Between the Seas, this year extended with an additional student category. The Ji.hlava IDFF is a co-founder of the pan-European festival network Doc Alliance and the VOD portal – DAFilms.com.

The 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF will take place on October 25–30 2018.

Warsaw Kids Film Forum is delighted to announce the full selection of projects to be presented during the Forum in September. This year we were overwhelmed with 75 applications from 22 different countries from which the 36 projects were chosen to be part of Pitching and Script Exchange sessions.

Filmmakers of the selected projects will have the opportunity to present their work in front of the International and Polish Decision Makers which includes distributors, sales agents,TV broadcasters, producers, film institutes and funds.

This year we have diverse country representation. The selection includes projects from 13 different regions including: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Israel, La-tvia, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, RSA, UK and Ukraine. We believe in the high quali-ty of presentations, since among the titles to be pitched there are ones produced by Oscar® winning production company Opus Film from Poland or famous South African Trig-gerfish Animation Studios.

Sessions during the Forum are divided into three groups: Projects in Development, Works in Progress and the new event - Script Exchange. First two will be given a chance for a public pitching in front of Decision Makers. The Script Exchange, in collaboration with Script Fiesta Festival, is an opportunity to present projects by writers and directors, who are looking for a producer. 

Presented projects are competing for four awards:

CeTA Awards - Audiovisual Technology Center (Centrum Technologii Audiowizualnych CeTA) will award 2 projects with production and post production services at CeTA studios for a total amount of PLN 160.000.

EAVE Award - European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs will be granting an invitation to the EAVE Marketing workshop in autumn 2018 in Luxembourg.

The Financing Forum for Kids Content Award - The Financing Forum For Kids Content (Malmö, Sweden). The Forum will award the best pitch by giving the producers an invita-tion to present the project in Malmö in March 2019. 

Below you will find the full selection of projects to be included in Warsaw Kids Film Forum:

Projects in Development:

Babsy, animated feature film, Grupa Smacznego, Poland Bella in the Belly, animated TV series, Animoon, Poland Capitain Nova, live-action feature film, Keplerfilm, Netherlands

Christmas in the jungle, live-action feature film, Locomotive Productions, Latvia The Cosmonaut, live-action feature film, Pistachio Pictures, UK

Detective Bruno, live-action feature film, Shipsboy, Poland Fantasylum, animated feature film, Mizar Films,Poland

The Flying Bear – Return of the Guardian, animated feature film, Badi Badi, Poland The Girl from the future vel. Ignatek, live-action feature film, Opus Film, Poland

The Girl, Who Rides Dragon, documentary film, Calafilm, Germany The Little Odyssey, animated TV series, K-pictures, Czech Republic

Martin and the Forest Secret, live-action film, BFILM.cz s.r.o., Czech Republic The No.1 Car Spotter, animated TV series, Triggerfish, RSA Odo, animated TV series, Letko, Poland

The Raft, live-action film,Dori Media Paran, Israel Ride to Freedom, documentary film, Hakafilms, Poland

The Ring of Life, live-action feature film, Pronto Film, Ukraine

Sparkle, live-action TV series, ANDERTHALB Medienproduktion, Germany Through a Glass, Darkly, live-action feature film, Iron Films, Poland Triple Trouble, live-action feature film, Koi Studio, Poland

Twisted Tales, animated TV series, Institute for Transmedia Design, Slovenia Whizz Kids, animated TV series, Media Resources Management, Ukraine

Young Tesla and the Idea Poachers, live-action feature film, Nukleus film/ Jaako Dobra Produkcija, Croatia

Works in Progress:

Czarny Młyn, live-action feature film, TFP, Poland Government of Children, documentary, Storyscapes, Romania Pot & Nut, animated TV series, Pigeon, Poland

Rosa & Dara and their great summer adventure, animated feature film, Bionaut, Czech Republic

Sky Riders, live-action film, UCM – United Channels Movies, Israel

Script Exchange:

/GEEKGIRLS, transmedia tv series, Leticia Milano, Germany – Exchange with Akadie-mia fur Kindermedien

8 Bit Buddies, live-action tv series, Henning Marquaß, Germany – Exchange with Akadie-mia fur Kindermedien

Fly, feature animation film, Kaś Zawadowicz, Poland Kratlandia, feature live-action, Helen Schasmin, Estonia

Summer Warriors, feature live-action film, Katarzyna Wiśniowska, Poland Teleportation Manual, live-action feature film, Stefan Łazarski, Poland

The Great Sea Serpent, animation feature film, Karolina Niegowska/ Nicolás Reza Gardu-ño Vázquez, Poland

Zobben, feature live-action, Martin Rehbock, Germany

Warsaw Kids Film Forum is an international pitching forum for films and television series aimed at the children’s market. Our goal is to create a meeting place where Eu-ropean professionals can exchange ideas, experiences and develop new content for chil-dren. We want to create a space that will help connecting projects with potential co-pro-ducers, distributors, sales agents, broadcasters and film funds.

The 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will feature Breathing into Marble, a Lithuanian-Latvian-Croatian co-production, in competition, while Endless Tail by writer and director Željka Sukova, Chris the Swiss by Anja Komfel, and When the War Comes by Jan Gebert will screen out of competition.

READ MORE.

The name of Lithuania will be reiterated louder than ever at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival which opens today. After a 15-year hiatus the audiences will have an opportunity to see a retrospective of classics from the Baltic countries titled “Reflections of Time: Baltic Poetic Documentary”. World premieres of two renowned Lithuanian filmmakers will take place at the festival with both films participating in the competition programmes. Lithuanians will also actively take part in industry events.

The tripartite retrospective “Reflections of Time: Baltic Poetic Documentary” that will be screened from June 29 to July 7 offers a rare occasion to see key documentaries from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania described by the festival’s artistic director Karel Och as a “unique report on the Baltic cinematic miracle.” The programme will be headlined by Audrius Stonys’ latest film Bridges of Time co-directed with the Latvian filmmaker Kristīne Briede. The film portrays the birth of poetic documentary in the Baltic republics. The co-production of three Baltic countries is a metaphysical essay meditating on the ontology of documentary film, revealing a subtle yet powerful fight against the regime and the desire for freedom. The film will also contest in the documentary competition.

The programme is focused on the 1960s – the ‘renaissance’ of the documentary cinema in the Baltic states when filmmakers started transforming the conventional principles of narrative and aesthetics and experimenting with the cinematographic language. The retrospective programme includes key poetic documentaries from the New Baltic Wave film school created during the 1960s and 1970s as well as works from the filmmakers who emerged after the restoration of independence and were heavily influenced by the New Baltic Wave.

Beside the premiere of the Bridges of Time by Stonys and Briede, Lithuania will be represented by Robertas Verba’s documentaries The Old Man and the Land (1965) and The Dreams of the Centenarians (1969); the works from the 1970s filmmaker Henrikas Šablevičius Apolinaras (1973), A Trip Through Misty Meadows (1973) and We Were at Our Own Field (1988); Šarūnas Bartas’ film from the early independence period In Memory of a Day Gone By (1990); as well as Audrius Stonys’ documentariesEarth of the Blind (1992) and Antigravitation (1995).

The Latvian part of the programme will include films of the classic authors of the Latvian poetic documentary Ivars Kraulītis, Aivars Freimanis, Herz Frank and Uldis Brauns, as well as the modern filmmaker Laila Pakalniņa. Estonia will be represented by the 1960s and 1970s documentaries from Andres Sööt, Ülo Tambek, Hans Roosipuu, Mark Soosaar.

The last time Baltic cinema was featured in the Karlovy Vary Film Festival was in 2003. The programme included works of classic Lithuanian filmmakers – Vytautas Žalakevičius’ feature The Chronicle of One Day (1963), Algirdas Dausa’s and Almantas Grikevičius’ Feelings (1968), and Algimantas Puipa’s A Woman and Her Four Men (1983) – alongside Andrius Šiuša’s And He Bid You Farewell (1993) and Šarūnas Bartas’ Corridor (1994).

The international premiere of Giedrė Beinoriūtė’s feature film Breathing into Marble will also take place at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The film which was nominated for five Silver Cranes at the Lithuanian national film awards this year and won the prize for the best supporting role was selected for the Karlovy Vary IFF competition programme “East of the West”. The story based on the novel by Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė reveals a complicated story of a family involving an epileptic son Gailius and an adopted unruly child Ilja taken from an orphanage. The film explores their relationship.During the past decade four Lithuanian films have been selected for the competition programme “East of the West” – Together For Ever directed by Lina Lužytė in 2006, Aurora and The Collectress by Kristina Buožytė in 2012 and 2008, and Low Lights by Ignas Miškinis.

The main competition programme of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival will also feature the Lithuanian minority co-production film Jumpman (directed by Ivan I. Tverdovskiy) co-produced by Ieva Norvilienė (production company Tremora). The last time Lithuania was mentioned in this programme was two decades ago when A Wolf-Teeth Necklace by Algimantas Puipa was selected for the official programme in 1997.

Lithuania will also be visible throughout the film industry programme that will take place during the festival. The Latvian-Lithuanian-Belgian co-production Oleg was selected for the Eastern Promises Industry Days consisting of nearly 40 projects in the various stages of production from Central and Eastern Europe as well as Balkan, Middle East countries and Eurimages member states. The film directed by the Latvian filmmaker Juris Kursietis is co-produced by Lukas Trimonis (production company In Script), with the leading role played by the Lithuanian actor Valentinas Novopolskis, original score created by the composer Jonas Jurkūnas, sound directed by Vytis Puronas, and episodic appearances by Valentinas Krulikovskis.

The Lithuanian sound director Jonas Maksvytis who received the Silver Crane for the best professional work on the film The Ancient Woods (directed by Mindaugas Survila) at this year’s Lithuanian national film awards will participate in the panel discussion “Artisans in Focus” along with other highly talented professionals from a range of fields.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival founded in 1946 is the biggest in Czech Republic and one of the most important among the European film festivals taking place in the resort town of Karlovy Vary in July each year.

The production of all Lithuanian films participating in the festival and the industry programme has been supported by the Lithuanian Film Centre. The documentary retrospective has been prepared in cooperation with Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian national film institutions. It is a tribute to the centenary of restoration of independence of the Baltic republics.