PRAGUE: The Ex Oriente documentary development workshop is accepting applications for its 2018 programme through 24 April 2018.
A higher than normal number of Czech films have received cinema distribution recently.
Applications now open worldwide for the 4th edition of Pustnik Screenwriters Residency
Press releases 19-04-2018TETA Association has launched the 4th edition of Pustnik Screenwriters Residency, which will take place between 09-17 September 2018, at Port Cetate, Romania. Pustnik is the only Romanian initiative of this sort, dedicated to young and emerging filmmakers from all over the world.
During this nine-day retreat, eight screenwriters (three from Romania and five internationals) will develop their first or second feature-length screenplays. Producers from across Europe are also invited to participate in roundtable discussions and informal pitching sessions.
Applicants are required to have written at least one short or feature-length film which has screened at a notable international film festival. The working language of the residency is English, so fluency in English is mandatory.
The deadline for applications is 23rd of May 2018 and filmmakers can apply online at www.pustnik.com. Any information regarding the application process can be found in the How to apply section. There are no application or participation fees and the organisers cover costs of accommodation and meals, as well as transport within Romania.
Besides dedicated writing time, Pustnik offers the participants the opportunity of meeting established producers from all over Europe who will give them feedback on their projects. At the end of the programme, the eight participants will pitch their projects in a cosy, informal setting.
Screenwriter Laurence Coriat will be one of the special guests at the 2018 residency. Laurence is best known for her collaborations with Michael Winterbottom, including Wonderland (1999), A Mighty Heart (2006) and Genova (2008). She will share professional and creative insights with this year’s residents, and will also be available for one-on-one consultations.
Pustnik introduces this year a theme that revolves around the personal act of writing. “Don’t Panic” invites writers to leave behind fears and anxieties inevitable to all artists and brings to the table an uneasy but universal subject. The future residents and the guest speakers will be sharing their experiences and insights in overcoming the almighty writer’s panic.
The eight filmmakers will be selected by Andreea Borțun (writer/director, Romania), Bryn Chainey (writer/director, UK/Australia), co-founders of Pustnik, and Lavinia Cioacă (film critic, Romania).
The residency is hosted at Cultural Port Cetate, a late 19th century site with an incredible history of its own, located on the Romanian shore of the Danube.
About Pustnik:
Pustnik is the first international screenwriters residency to take place in Romania. The project aims to offer an organic context for young screenwriters to develop their work-in-progress stories, in an environment dedicated to peace of mind and clarity of thought, away from the industry’s pressures. At the same time Pustnik is creating a network of young film professionals, a community whose aim is to ease and encourage collaboration across the international cinema industry.
For more information:
Paul Petrache – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Program organized by TETA
TETA is an NGO founded in June 2006 and its main purpose is developing cultural activities and events to promote an alternative education for all participants enrolled in its projects and at the same time to offer a cultural revival to the communities in which the events take place. TETA is also producing films and theatre performances.
Cultural Project co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration
In April, for a whole week the German city of Wiesbaden becomes a meeting point and a promotion platform for Central and Eastern European film and filmmakers. The 18th goEast festival, which kicked off yesterday, is shining a spotlight on the Baltic States with a symposium, “Hybrid Identities – Baltic Cinema”, dedicated to the national cinemas of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, their histories, pursuits of national and cultural identities. The festival’s programme also includes some of the key recent titles of Baltic cinema. The project is part of a wide-ranging tripartite programme with which the Baltic States present their cinemas to Europe on the occasion of their centenary of statehood.
The carefully selected films from Central and Eastern Europe in goEast film programme and the symposium are to reflect the region’s cinematic diversity: from contemporary filmmakers to their historical predecessors, from experimental to arthouse and popular film, with new spaces for discussions on film aesthetics, sociopolitical and theoretical underpinnings of filmmaking. The festival seeks to be a forum for an East-West dialogue, open up a space for creative interactions, discussions, workshops, lectures, cooperations with other cultural and societal institutions, networking, exchanges of experience, professional development opportunities for young filmmakers who will benefit from numerous programmes and projects organised by the festival.
“The visibility of Baltic filmmakers has improved significantly over the recent years. Newest films are being screened in the most important European festivals. But it is important to represent the industry with not just the most recent titles, we must pay attention to our cinematic heritage, to maintain a dialogue, to discuss tradition, to study filmic identities with film experts, to survey what we have achieved, what makes us distinctive, what we are today. It’s an important moment for us, crowning our efforts to put together a strong programme, bring experts, masters, important titles. It’s a wonderful result of cooperation among the three countries,” says project manager Dovilė Butnoriūtė, head of the Department of Film Promotion, Information and Heritage at the Lithuanian Film Centre.
The symposium “Hybrid Identities – Baltic Cinema” will include lectures and discussions focusing on Baltic pursuits of identity between 1918 and 1990. The film historian dr. Lina Kaminskaitė–Jančorienė will talk about Lithuanian film production during the transitional 1980s; the Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Audrius Stonys, the Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalniņa, and the Latvian film critic Elīna Reitere will share their insights about the individuality of Baltic cinema; the director of Riga Film Museum Zane Balčus and journalist Ābrams Kleckins will give a lecture on documentary poetry and cultural identity of “Riga School”; the Latvian National Film Centre director dr. Dita Rietuma will reveal cinematic gems in contemporary Latvian cinema; the Estonian film historian Lauri Kärk will present Estonian Sixties during the Soviet Thaw, whereas prof. dr. Eva Näripea will talk about national and transnational in different periods of Estonian cinema, well-known Estionian animation artists will discuss about great animation in small country, etc.
Complementing the daytime discussions will be screenings of master works from each Baltic State, among them: Lithuanian classic films Nobody Wanted to Die by Vytautas Žalakevičius (1965), Feelings by Almantas Grikevičius and Algirdas Dausa (1968), Devil’s Bride by Arūnas Žebriūnas (1974), The Children Of The Hotel “America“ by Raimundas Banionis (1990); Latvian classics – 235 000 000 by Uldis Brauns (1967), The Swamp Treader by Leonīds Leimanis (1966), Is It Easy To Be Young? by Juris Podnieks (1986); Estonian classics – Madness by Kaljo Kiisk (1968), The Last Relic by Grigori Kromanov (1969), The Ideal Landscape by Peeter Simm (1980). Also, short films programme of retrospective Lithuanian documentary, including films directed by Robertas Verba, Valdas Navasaitis, Henrikas Šablevičius, Saulius Beržinis, Audrius Stonys, and two programmes of Estonian animation, presenting works of Priit Pärn, Mait Laas, Riho Unt and other filmmakers, will be screened during the symposium “Hybrid Identities – Baltic Cinema”.
The main goEast film programme will introduce the general cinema-going public to contemporary films from Central and Eastern Europe. The sixteen titles in competition will include two Lithuanian films – Mindaugas Survila’s new documentary The Ancient Woods and Eglė Vertelytė’s tragicomedy Miracle, – and Estonian director Rainer Sarnet’s feature film November. Vertelytė, alongside her producer Lukas Trimonis, are also invited to present Miracle as a case study at East-West Talent Lab, an education and experience exchange programme for young filmmakers. 
The presentation of Baltic cinema at goEast and the symposium is organised in partnership with Lithuanian Film Centre, Latvian National Film Centre and Estonian Film Institute.
goEast film festival, organised since 2001, seeks to present the diversity and richness of Central and Eastern European cinema in the very “heart of the West” and raise awareness of the region’s filmmaking and its relevance to international cinema. Each year, the festival’s programme of more than 100 feature, documentary and short films attracts up to 400 industry professionals and 11,000 cinema-goers.
PRAGUE: The Czech dramatic comedy/mother-and-daughter road movie Dad’s Volha / Tatova volha by Jiri Vejdelek has topped the 2 M USD mark after six weeks in distribution in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
ZAGREB: Estonia will have the lone entry from Central Europe in Animafest Zagreb’s main competition, Captain Morten and the Spider Queen, an Estonian/Irish/Belgian/British coproduction directed by Kaspar Jancis, Henry Nicholson and Riho Unt.
Ex Oriente Film call for applications is closing on April 24, 2018. If you have documentary project in development or early production stage, you can submit it using our online application form (applying is free of charge and is only available in English). Also, if you know about interesting projects in development, do not hesitate to share our call.
Tutors
Among more than 25 tutors of this year’s edition of Ex Oriente Film, we are proud to have the General Delegate of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week Giona
A. Nazzaro (Switzerland/Italy), producer and consultant Iikka Vehkalahti (Finland), Head of Studies of the European Documentary Network Mikael Opstrup(Denmark), director and script editor Ivana Pauerová Miloševičová (Czech Republic) and director and producer Filip Remunda (Czech Republic).
Participants
The workshop is open for 12 selected documentary projects, represented bydirector-producer teams who will attend all the workshop sessions. It is designed for directors and producers coming from Europe with a special attention for Central and Eastern Europe projects (incl. EU acceding and candidate countries, Post-Soviet states and Russia) and/or for creative documentary projects dealing with stories from Central and Eastern Europe.
Workshops
The first Ex Oriente Film session will take place in Trieste (Italy) in June 17 – 23, 2018. For the first time, Ex Oriente Film will be held alongside the new training and development initiative RE-ACT. The date of RE-ACT workshop is June 19 – 21. Creative teams (director and producer) from partner countries/regions: Slovenia, Croatia and Friuli Venezia Giulia who have documentary projects in early stages of development are welcome to apply to RE-ACT until April 20, 2018. You can find more information on the website of RE-ACT workshop.
Next sessions will take place in Jihlava (October 25 – 30, 2018, within IDFF Ji.hlava) and in Prague in March 2019 (within East Doc Platform during One World IHRDFF) where the whole process culminates at the East Doc Forum co-production meeting, featuring the final pitching in front of Europe's and North America's leading commissioning editors and independent producers, distributors, buyers and film fund representatives.
MIDPOINT TV Launch 2018 – Workshop 2 is taking off
Participants from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece and Serbia will gather again from April 19 till April 24, this time in the town of Pilsen, Czech Republic. Finale Plzen Film Festival sets the frame for the second out of three residential MIDPOINT TV Launch workshops and we are happy to share the program with you.
Six TV series projects and sixteen participants have been selected to participate in this Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union supported program to develop their projects over the course of 9 months. The participants will receive an intensive one-to-one tutoring and they will participate in group feedback sessions.
MIDPOINT TV Launch is a workshop program that nurtures and trains emerging talents from the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The program provides training and tutors the participants in creating rich-in-content, compelling stories and innovative series concepts.
During the second workshop the teams will be guided by Core Tutors Maggie Murphy (USA) and Gabor Krigler (HU), as well as by Director Tutor Rumle Hammerich (DK), Producer Tutor Jacqueline de Goeij (BE) and Guest Tutor Steve Matthews (UK). We will also welcome Anna Katharina Brehm from SerienCamp Conference (GE), Gaia Tridente from MIA (IT), and Ed Wallerfrom C21 Media – Content London (UK), who will join us as experts.
If you are at Finale Plzen Film Festival, make sure to check out the open program:
April 20 / Friday / 17.00 – 18.30
SHARED VISION – Working in the Creative Triangle / Rumle Hammerich
April 21 / Saturday / 16.30 – 18.30
So You've Written a Great Pilot... / Steve Matthews
April 22 / Sunday / 16.00 – 17.30
Pitches, Bibles, Pilot Script – Keeping the Show Close at Heart / Jacqueline de Goeij
April 23 / Monday / 17.00 – 18.30
Looking for Partners in the Television Landscape while Keeping Everybody Happy / Jacqueline de Goeij
MIDPOINT's partner HBO Europe will grant a financial annual award to appraise the best project at the final workshop of the year. C21 Media will grant a one-year free subscription to a selected producer participant.
Czech Projects Can Now Apply for the Script Consulting Incubator
The Czech Film Fund´s 2018 call for applications for development support of Czech feature films is now open with the deadline being set to April 25. Filmmakers can now register to the Script Consulting Incubator and also apply for financial and dramaturgical support for the first time.
Projects selected for the Script Consulting Incubator will be provided with a year-long professional script consultancy with top international experts.
The Script Consulting Incubator, which was initiated by the Czech Film Fund, aims to stimulate changes in the practices used in Czech feature film development and to help address the problem of the lack of qualified feedback for local film scripts. The program is being organized for the Czech Film Fund by the international training and networking platform MIDPOINT.
More information on what participation in the Script Consulting Incubator entails is included directly in the Czech Film Fund´s call. (Please note that the projects can be selected in the Incubator only through their application for development support at the film fund.) You can also consult the project´s website.
You can meet representatives of the Czech Film Fund and MIDPOINT at the Finale Plzen Film Festival on Monday, April 23, at 10.00 Happy Hour & Coffeewith the Script Consulting Incubator.
First Time in the Central and Eastern European Region – Visegrad Animation Forum Gives Space to Projects of Animated Feature Films in Development
Press releases 18-04-2018The sixth year of the international Visegrad Animation Forum for film professionals will take place on 1st – 3rd May. As a tradition, it will be centred on a pitching competition of animated projects now in development in two categories – short films and series / TV specials. This year's novelty is a pitching competition of upcoming animated feature films. It is organised by the Visegrad Animation Forum in cooperation with the Anifilm Festival and the newly established CEE Animation platform. This will be the first time in history that the region of Central and Eastern Europe will see a presentation of feature films that are still in development.
Feature film is a distinguished discipline in animation. Such production ventures require courage, patience, and a great deal of energy. That's why animated feature films are often eagerly awaited. Last year's animation sensation – again from the CEE region – was Loving Vincent (dir. Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, POL), which has circled the world, broken box office records and collected a number of prestigious awards – including the European Film Award or a Golden Globe nomination. At the beginning of 2018, Jan Švankmajer, a strong name in Czech animation, introduced his latest feature, Insect.
Among this year's closely watched premieres by leading Central and Eastern European filmmakers are Another Day of Life (dir. Raúl de la Fuente, ES, Damian Nenow, POL) – an adaptation of the Angola civil war report, The Fantastic Voyage of Marona – another film by the pioneer of animated features Ancy Damian (RO) about unconditional dog love or the adventures of a young boy who shrank to the size of an insect called Captain Morten and the Spider Queen (dir. Kaspar Jancis, EE).
All of these resounding names are great news for the animation industry in Central and Eastern Europe. Thanks to these individuals and their original work – and the animation tradition as well – VAF has decided to hold the first ever competition of feature-length projects that are still in the development phase from the Central and Eastern European region.
For the pilot year, projects were selected by experienced producers and national co-ordinators of the Visegrad Animation Forum. They know the film production of their countries in great detail, a fact which has enabled them to choose the most suitable representatives for this presentation.
The first one of the six competition entries is the Polish family adventure story of a Portuguese girl Fatima and the Secret Treasure, presented by one of the directors Barter Kik together with the producer Urszula Łuczak. Hungarian animation is represented by the film Helka - dir. László Nyikos. The Czech director Ondřej Pecha is presenting his feature film in progress Jack Russel the Planet Saviour (producer Miloslav Šmídmajer), inspired by the work of the famous artist Vladimír Jiránek. This year's selection will also be enriched by the first ever Macedonian animated feature film – the fantasy John Vardar vs. the Galaxy (dir.
Goce Cvetanovski, producer Alan Castillo). The successful co-production duo of Juraj Krasnohorsky and Martin Vandas will present a co-production short story film Of Unwanted Things and People, based on a book by Czech writer Arnošt Goldflam. The group of six is completed by the Polish Schlemiel (producer Włodzimierz Matuszewski), a story of courage and friendship in difficult times.
The international jury will consist of experienced film professionals – Moe Honan (Noah Is Gone, Moetion Films, Ireland), Manon Messiant (Tram by Michaela Pavlátová, Sacrebleu Productions, France), Marc Bonny (My Life as a Zucchini, Gebeka Films, France) or Andres Mänd (Nukufilm Studios, Estonia).
"Film makers and original projects from Central and Eastern Europe attract and enchant the whole world. We are delighted that in the past six years the Visegrad Animation Forum has become the heart of animation in the region. These two facts have enabled us to conclude a unique partnership agreement with the prestigious Cartoon Movie, a pitching and co-production forum for feature-length animated films," Anna Vášová, head of the VAF feature film section, explains.
Thus, the winning animated feature project will then proceed directly to Cartoon Movie 2019 (Bordeaux, FR), where it will compete with 60 other projects in front of more than 850 cinema professionals (distributors, sales agents, investors) from 40 countries and have a chance to gain key partners for the film. The Třeboň audience will choose a winner of the special Nespresso award from among the six competitors.
The competition will take place at the Puppet Theatre in Třeboň at 3.15 p.m. on the 2nd May during the Anifilm Festival, which has decided to transform the Work in Progress programme section into a more formal pitching of feature films. "With the growing interest in feature-length animated films, we have decided in Anifilm to join forces with the Visegrad Animation Forum. We strongly hope that this format will prove to be the right way and encourage the encounters of professionals at the festival, as well as the proliferation of animated feature production in Central Europe," the director of the Anifilm festival Tomáš Rychecký concluded.
There will also be a ceremonial presentation by the Visegrad Animation Forum of another year of VAF New Talents – a selection of short films created by promising young authors from the Central and Eastern European region.
List of selected feature film projects:
- Fatima and the Secret Treasure
Directors: Bartek Kik, Damian Nenow (Poland)
Executive Producers: Piotr Sikora, Jarosław Sawko, Producers: Sofia Miranda, Magdalena Bargieł, Line Producer: Urszula Łuczak (Poland) - Helka
Directors: Nyikos, László, Fazekas, Csaba (Hungary)
Producer: Csortos Szabó, Sándor (Hungary) - Jack Russel the Planet Rescuer
Director: Ondřej Pecha (Czech Republic)
Producer: Miloslav Šmídmajer (Czech Republic) - John Vardar vs the Galaxy
Directors: Goce Cvetanovski, Macedonia
Producer: Alan Castillo, Macedonia
Coproducers: Kalin Kalinov (Bulgaria), Didier Falk (France), Per Rosendal (Denmark), Miljana Dragicevic (Croatia) - Of Unwanted Things and People
Directors: David Súkup (Czech Republic), Ivana Laučíková (Slovakia), Leon Vidmar (Slovenia), Agata Gorządek (Poland)
Producers: Martin Vandas (Czech Republic), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovakia), Kolja Saskida (Slovenia), Wojtek Leszczynski (Poland) - Schlemiel
Director: vacant
Producer: Włodzimierz Matuszewski (Poland)
Find out more about the event VAF Třeboň at http://visegradanimation.com/selected-projects/
