COVID-19: EU response

25/02: Sassoli on the pandemic: “There can be no return to how things were before” – European Parliament

David Sassoli called on EU leaders to continue the common approach to Covid-19 vaccines in a speech to the European Council.

25/02:  Statement by President von der Leyen at the joint press conference with President Michel, following the videoconference of the members of the European Council – Council of the EU

22/02: Economic policy priorities for a post-pandemic recovery – European Parliament

A high-profile panel warned of the economic difficulties stemming from the pandemic, whilst noting that this crisis could offer the chance to rebuild EU economies.

16/02: Remarks by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis at the informal ECOFIN press conference – European Commission

Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive

17/02: TDM exceptions and trust in AI - Kluwer Copyright Blog

Will the text and data mining (TDM) exceptions, introduced in arts 3 and 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) and currently being implemented by the EU Member States, serve its purpose of promoting the development of AI technologies or will they remain (another) set of meaningless black letter rules?

16/02: Five considerations for the transposition and application of Article 17 of the DSM Directive - IPKat

Nearly two years have passed since the adoption of the Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market 2019/790 (DSM Directive). As it was probably bound to happen, the discussion of its content – notably of its Article 17 – is no less heated now than in 2016-2019, that is the period between the release of the Commission’s original Proposal and the adoption of this piece of EU copyright legislation.

Czech Republic

24/02: State aid: Commission approves €115 million Czech rent compensation scheme to support businesses affected by the coronavirus outbreak – European Commission

The European Commission approved an approximately €115 million (CZK 3 billion) Czech scheme to support retail businesses and service companies which are using rented premises and whose activities were limited or not allowed to be carried out in the context of the coronavirus outbreak.

Estonia

26/02: Commission proposes to provide €230 million to Estonia under SURE – European Commission

The European Commission has today presented a proposal to the Council for a decision to grant €230 million in financial support to Estonia under the SURE instrument.

Poland

22/02: Poland Proposes Advertising Revenues Levy – Film New Europe

The Polish government has proposed a levy on advertising revenues aimed mainly at multinationals operating in Poland that pay only a small fraction of their revenues in the form of corporate income tax. The tax will not apply to smaller, local or regional media.

Recent studies:

European Parliament - Cultural and creative sectors in post COVID-19 Europe - February 2021

Events:

1 – 5 March: Berlinale’s European Film Market

4 March: ITRE Committee on the Digital Services Act

8 – 11 March: European Parliament Plenary

10 March: Virtual stakeholder meeting on the new Creative Europe MEDIA

11 March: European Audiovisual Observatory Advisory Board meeting

12 March: Informal video conference of Home Affairs Ministers

15 March: Eurogroup

15 -16 March: CULT Meeting

17 – 18 March: IMCO Meeting

Opening this month, Tallinn Black Nights (PÖFF) launches an online cinema where films can be watched all year round throughout Estonia's territory. The kick-off event will screen five films of the Women's Nights Film Festival, followed by films from the programme of the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival.

As is the case every year, in mid-February passed the deadline for submitting films to the Krakow Film Festival. In spite of the pandemic, the film-makers managed to finish their works on time and to send nearly 2,500 documentary, short and animated films from all over the world to Krakow. The director, Krzysztof Gierat, with a team of selectors, will choose the best of them, which will be shown at the cinemas in Krakow and online during this year’s Festival from the 30th of May to the 6th of June.

We are pleased to announce the 2021 digital edition of e-Meeting Point – Vilnius (eMPV) that will be held on April 14–16.

eMPV is the international Work-in-Progress pitching forum for debut films and the best platform to discover, develop and support European talents and upcoming debut films. It aims to build a network between different European macro-regions: from the Baltics to the South East, from the Caucasus to West-ern Europe.

The upcoming edition of eMPV will offer a combination of digital initiatives: pitching forum, industry screenings, one-to-one meetings, panels, and inspirational events.

The calls for applications for COMING SOON and INDUSTRY SCREENINGS platforms are finally open!

Today, the event “Media and artistic freedom under attack - Europe has to act” organized by the S&D  Group in the EU Parliament brought much-needed focus on a worrisome trend of undemocratic  interference in the media and cultural sectors in Europe.  

As an organization representing filmmakers at European level and advocating for their cultural,  creative and economic interests at national and European level, FERA welcomes this initiative which  sheds light on the absolute need to ensure creators’ artistic freedom in 21st century Europe, without  which European filmmakers’ unique yet diverse creative voices would cease to exist.  

Dear friends,

For many weeks we have been intensively preparing the 21st edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival. In an effort to ensure the highest quality in terms of programming and organization we are planning for this year's event to be a hybrid edition - cinema screenings will of course be the heart of the festival, but some films will be available online.

Due to the still serious pandemic, many international spring festivals are changing their dates. Cannes is one of them, and this year it will be held in July, very close to our festival's originally planned date. Since the Cannes festival significantly influences the New Horizons program and its industry events (including Polish Days), we decided to hold our festival a little later. Therefore, the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival will be held on August 12-22, 2021, in Wrocław, of course.

Tickets for the stationary part of the festival go on sale March 10. The upcoming edition will include, among others, the retrospectives of Chantal Akerman, Angela Schanelec and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In recent months, our programmers have participated in festivals in Venice, Tallinn, Rotterdam, Gothenburg and Sundance. We already have over 80 confirmed titles and we still have the Berlinale, the aforementioned Cannes, and hundreds of submitted titles to watch. Movies for the 21st New Horizons International Film Festival will certainly be expressive and boldly comment on the complex reality we face every day.

Thank you for your understanding and support. We are convinced that this year's edition will be unforgettable, full of meetings and discussions in cinemas and, what is extremely important to us, safe.

Kind regards,

Roman Gutek, Marcin Pieńkowski and the entire New Horizons International Film Festival team

Special edition of our MIDPOINT Intensive program was tailored for Sofia Meetings (running online, March 17–24, 2021), the international co-production market which takes place online during the Sofia International Film Festival. 

MIDPOINT Intensive Sofia Meetings is a one-off online training program open to 1st and 2nd feature film projects in the early stage of development from Central and Eastern Europe.

Film submissions to the 25th Ji.hlava IDFF are now open!

We are now receiving submissions for the 25th Ji.hlava IDFF and look forward to seeing your films. We accept feature-length and short films, animated and interactive documentaries. The films premiered in Jihlava have a chance to be nominated for the European Film Academy Awards and the winners at the Ji.hlava IDFF are also eligible for Oscar® consideration in the Documentary Short Subject and Documentary Feature Subject categories. Check out the deadlines now.

60 Years of Manned Space Flight– Homage to Yuri Gagarin // Pop-Up Culture at the Pan-European Picnic // Anti-Oscar Night with Radu Jude and Dan Perjovschi // Accreditation and Press Conference

As Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin set off from Kazakhstan’s Tyuratam spaceport on 12 April 1961, on the first manned spaceflight in human history, he is reported to have shouted a simple "Let's go!" (“Поехали”) right beforelift-off. Today the exclamation still serves as a popular Russian toast for the region's drinkers. goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film has decided to seize the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Gagarin's trip around the Earth to organise an outer space programme of its own this April. Attendees of the festival, hosted by DFF – DeutschesFilminstitut & Filmmuseum, can look forward to films gathered from all co-ordinates throughout Central and Eastern Europe.