First Cut+, the new program created for boosting the competitiveness and marketability of feature films that previously participated First Cut Lab, is gearing up for its first edition that will take place from 16-20 January 2020 during Trieste’s When East Meets West. First Cut+ consists in the promotion of a portfolio of 16 fiction feature films at the stage of post-production, predominantly from countries with a low production capacity (at least 75% of the films) and with a focus on Central & Eastern Europe. The range of films will be large: from both debut & experienced directors, small and larger budgets. 8 projects will be presented in Trieste, another 8 will take part in the summer session during Karlovy Vary’s Eastern Promises.

First Cut Lab, the workshop for fiction feature films in editing phase run by Tatino Films, will enhance its support through a new program addition called First Cut+ with the support of the Access to Market scheme of Creative Europe’s MEDIA program. First Cut+ will promote a portfolio of 16 fiction feature films in post-production from low production capacity countries with a focus on Central & Eastern Europe. First Cut+ is the only brand-new action to receive financial support from the Access to Markets scheme this year.

Two Czech short animations were selected to the Short Film Program at Sundance Film Festival 2020, the largest independent film festival in USA. The films were selected from unbelievable 10 397 submissions from all over the world. For both Daughter by Daria Kascheeva and SH_T HAPPENS by Dávid Štumpf and Michaela Mihályi it is not the first international success. Daughterhas won Student Academy Award for best short animation and SH_T HAPPENS was showcased in Venice IFF Orizzonti section. 

D

aughter was produced by Zuzana Roháčová at Prague's FAMU in co-production with MAUR film, a Czech production company with many years of experience in the field of animation. The production of the film was supported by the Czech Film Fund as part of a package of three short animations called Three Voices, altogether with amount of EUR 15,294.

SH_T HAPPENS is thirteen minutes long film directed by Michaela Mihályi and Dávid Štumpf, produced by BFILM.cz and co-produced by Bagan Films (FR), BFILM (SK) and FAMU (CZ). The film was supported by the Czech Film Fund with EUR 21,923 and is a loose adaptation of a well-known biblia story transformed into a contemporary ironic narrative about how the world sometimes works.

It is not the first participation of Czech films at Sundance Film Festival. Director Ondřej Hudeček has won the Directing Award for his short fiction film Peacock in 2016 and Bohdan Sláma has presented his feature length film Four Suns in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition four years earlier.
Sundance Film Festival will take place from January 23 till February 2, 2020.

About the films

Daughter
CZ 2019 / 15 min
Directed by: Daria Kascheeva
Produced by: FAMU (CZ), MAUR film (CZ)

A girl was hurt as a child and keeps alive the memory of it. She lacked love and empathy from her father and now she is not able to share her feelings with him. She can’t get rid of the painful memories taking her back to when she brought home a little dead bird and her father didn’t support her. Sometimes it's too hard to open your feelings and share it with a close one. Sometimes it's too late. Let your painful memory fly away like a free little bird.

SH_T HAPPENS
CZ, SK, FR 2019 / 13 min
Directed by: Michaela Mihályi, Dávid Štumpf
Produced by: BFILM.cz, Bagan Films (FR), BFILM (SK), FAMU (CZ)

An apartment building full of self-centred inhabitants. Utterly exhausted caretaker and his sexually frustrated wife. Widowed deer drowning his sorrows in loads of alcohol... While trying to cope with their problems, they find themselves in a hard to solve triangle asking for absurd and irrational solutions. The consequences can easily become permanent, sometimes maybe too permanent. The film is a loose adaptation of a well-known biblical story while transforming it into a contemporary ironic narrative about how the world sometimes works.

DEADLINE: January 29th , 2020

The North Macedonia Film Agency announced the second deadline decisions for production grants for feature, short, animation films and documentaries on 6 December 2019.

Wrapping last Sunday, the 23rd edition of Black Nights saw the festival break several of its records as the attendance had reached 90 000 already a day before the end, while the global potential media audience rose by over 900 million people and the number of accredited guests and industry delegates increased by 20%.

Already a day before wrapping on Sunday, Black Nights had crossed the 90 000 attendance mark with the final figure remains to be calculated. This means an over 10% rise from the 80 000 - the number that had remained more or less the same for the past four editions before that. 

The attendance numbers of both of the sub-festivals of Black Nights also soared as youth and children’s Just Film crossed the 20 000 adding more than 2000 attendances from the previous record and the shorts and animation film festival PÖFF Shorts gained 4200 visits.

The newly launched side-festival Kinoff that screened films in Eastern Estonian cities Narva and Kohtla-Järve gained 1500 attendances.

Another big step forward for Black Nights was the 20% rise of the festival guests and industry delegates that rose from 1162 to 1400. This includes 174 journalists, out of which 68 foreign and 118 Estonian.

There has also been a significant rise in the online media coverage of the festival as the estimated potential global media reach from the 1st of January until the 4th of November stood at 2,4 billion people (a 60% rise from the 1,5 billion in 2018) according to Meltwater monitoring services.

Additional statistics
The number of films in the main programme of Black Nights:  200 + 8 series
The number of premieres: 31 world and 31 international premieres
The number of countries films originated from: 77
The number of films in the programme of Children's Youth film festival Just Film: 55, including 2 world and 1 international premiere
The number of short films and animations at PÖFF Shorts: 315
The number of volunteers at Black Nights and the side-festival Kinoff: 487

PHOTOS

All festival photo galleris can be found in FLICKR.

Award ceremony of Black Nights. Photo by: Aron Urb

PRESS OFFICE CONTACTS

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