REVIEWS - Official Selection

Borgman

Jimmy P

The Past

Young & Beautiful

Heli

REVIEWS - Official Selection - Un Certain Regard

Grand Central

L'inconnu du lac

Hans-Jørgen Osnes – Motlys (Norway)

Konstantin Bojanov - Argentum Lux Films (Bulgaria) 

Zaza Rusadze - Zazarfilm LTD (Georgia) 

Valon Jakupaj - Gegnia Film (Kosovo) 

Anca Puiu - Mandragora (Romania)

Labina Mitevska - Sisters and Brother Mitevski (FYR of Macedonia)

João Matos - Terratreme Films (Portugal) 

Viktor Tauš - Fog’n’Desire Films (Czech Republic) 

 Sehad Čekić - Cut-Up Production (Montenegro) 

After a few rehearsals, a conference on co-production the previous day and a copious breakfast at the hotel, the young directors and their producers found themselves face to face with potential co-producers at the famous pitching session that took place on March, 2nd.

Creativity, stageplay and humour were buzzing, making this event as pleasant as productive.

In total, 25 short films projects from scriptwriters and filmmakers aged between 18 to 35, were to be presented at this 7th edition of the European Short Pitch organised by NISI MASA.

The pitching session unrolled in good spirits and the European young talents cheerfully played the game. To pitch is to quickly present and promote your film or script, and convince people to invest in your project in just a few minutes. Creativity, stageplay and humour were buzzing, making this event as pleasant as productive. 

The Russian duo Nikita Sutyrin-Nina Belenitskaya did not hesitate to put on a show to present their project To Leave or Not to Live, a movie about the universal and timeless dilemma – a question that is even harder to answer for the young well-educated Russians: to leave or not to live? A young promising scientist who lives in a small science town not far from Moscow gets a job offer from a prestigious US institute. The whole story is his last day before his departure, and we get to realise that he’s desperately searching for an excuse to stay.

The project, partly financed by the Russian Cinema Fund, has a budget estimated at €50,000. Currently in development and pre-production phase, it will be shot in October-November 2013. Producer Nikita Sutyrin and scriptwriter-director Nina Belenitskaya are looking for a European co-producer and a distributor.

Karolis Kaupinis, a young Lithuanian director, has for his part presented his project The Noise Maker without any stageplay, but his deadpan sense of humour and his funny tone seduced the audience and enabled him to win the Best Pitch Award, that was handed to him on the same night.

In a small provincial village in the North of Lithuania, a new school bell is about to be installed in a school that is threatened of closing down as there are not enough kids enrolled. This is the scenario of the short film that tackles progress, future, and the human capacity to hide away from the truth and reality.

The film’s budget was of €58,000  and the young director, who was planning on shooting the film this autumn, is looking for European co-production partner in video and sound post-production, public and private funding, and television pre-sales.

This casual pitching session was nonetheless fruitful as it allowed 180 encounters between directors and producers thanks to one-to-one meetings.

One of the biggest novelties at this pitching session was James Schlesinger’s presentation in which Steve Evets (Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric) took part thanks to a video recording. The young British director – “deeply romantic” according to him – is trying de find a co-production with an experimented production company for his movie The Key of a Man’s Heart, a modern-day fairytale about love intricacies.

This casual pitching session was nonetheless fruitful as it allowed 180 encounters between directors and producers thanks to one-to-one meetings. Let’s hope this edition of the European Short Pitch will help these young talents to achieve their projects.

The day ended with the Best Pitch Award ceremony given, in order, to Karolis Kaupinis (Lithuanie) for The Noise Maker, Mike Forshaw (UK) for Saturday and Adina Istrate (Romania) for The Gender Reassignement Musical .

Increase in the number of short film co-productions

On March, 1st, a debate on the development of short films co-production was taking place in Luxemburg. This debate was organised by Nisi Masa, the European Network of Young Cinema, at the 7th European Short Pitch.

A few years ago the short film co-production concept was only just a dream.

Nisi Masa explains as an introduction that a few years ago the short film co-production concept was only just a dream. Today, it affects more and more shorts, even non-French producers. France is, let’s not forget, a real heaven for the financing of shorts. More and more shorts are being discovered, with sometimes two or three nationalities attached and the least expected partnerships, Slovakia and India for example.

To illustrate the subject, Nisi Masa had invited several professionals and chosen to present five recently co-produced shorts: Kristoffer Rus’s The Big Leap, a Polish-Swedish co-production; Dario Samuele Leone’s Dreaming Apecar, an Italian-Romanian co-production; Dénes Nagy’s Soft Rain, a Hungarian-Belgian-Swiss co-production; Martin Repka’s Tiger Figth, a Slovakian-Indian-Austrian co-production; and Michaela Pavlatova’s Tram, a Czech-French co-production.

Here is a review of the evening and a summary of three of the screened movies.

As soon as the debate started, Campfilm producer Marcell Gerö insisted on the difference between networking and longer term relationships. This Hungarian producer believes in friendship rather than networking. For Soft Rain, he had known the director for ten years. According to him, the people you work with are more important than the project itself. Of course, the project must be engaging and interesting, but the people come first as you will have to think together to successfully complete the movie. Marcell added that despite that, you shouldn’t neglect networking between producers.

For Dreaming Apecar, it was the script which was the starting point of the co-production. The movie is about an Italian woman who can’t find a job. She then agrees to look after an 80-years-old Romanian man. It is with this story that the Italian producers decided to get in touch with the Romanian community in Italy, even though the movie isn’t about this particular community. They were warmly welcomed. Now that this community is well integrated in Italy, they want to take part in the production of cultural works. A Romanian entrepreneur company even helped to finance the movie, together with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Italy. Moreover, the main actor, who is famous in Romania, really got involved in the project.

The producer Kaska Krosny is still amused thinking that no-one knew it was a short film.

The most striking example in this debate is without a doubt the Swedish-Polish co-production The Big Leap. “Think big,” Kaska Krosny‘s motto for the production of this movie, is one to be remembered. The film total budget was of €300,000. This short film on the financial crisis gathers a famous director, international actors, live action and animation. Polish company Wajda Studio did the promotion for Big Leap. They created a website and a Facebook page before the movie was even shot. While shooting, actors had two hours a day dedicated to answering interviews. The producer Kaśka Krośny is still amused thinking that no-one knew it was a short film.

Short films co-production and financing possibilities are increasing and broadening every day; crowdfunding still is quite recent. Today’s producers and directors are doing their best to find new ways to finance and carry through their projects. The following day, the European Short Pitch participants were to present their project in front of a panel of producers, with an extra series of ideas and outlooks on filmmaking imbedded in one corner of their brains from the previous day debates.

What to expect regarding the production of shorts in the future? 

Jure Henigman (SWEDEN)

Official Selection, films and the jury:
news, reviews, interviews

[ GLOBAL CHART ]

1. HOLY MOTORS by Leos Carax

2. THE HUNT by Thomas Vinterberg

3. AMOUR by Michael Haneke

4. TABU by Miguel Gomes

5. SKYFALL by Sam Mendes

[ INDIVIDUAL CHARTS ]

Domenico La Porta

8 PM: AWARDS CEREMONY

BEST EUROPEAN FILM

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI

BEST EUROPEAN ACTRESS

BEST EUROPEAN ACTOR

Sylvia Nagel

(Germany)

Bram Crols
Associate Directors (Belgium)

Antonio Bernal Dionis 

Inmagic (Spain)

Emily Corcoran

Cork Films (U.K.)

Michael Geidel & Annekathrin Wetzel

(Germany)

AGORA INDUSTRY is an industry event offering many networking opportunities for the global film industry in an informal, hospitable and professional atmosphere. AGORA INDUSTRY offers to its visiting industry professionals a variety of industry activities:

·       The Crossroads TIFF Co-Production Forum

·       The Agora Works in Progress - Screening of films in post-production

·       The Agora Film Market with a Digital Video Library (300 movies)

All Industry activities focus on the countries of Central Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean.

THE CROSSROADS CO-PRODUCTION FORUM

The jury grants the Two Thirty Five co-production award  (full post production image and sound) to the project:

MOTHERLAND

The producer of the winning project will also be granted a free accreditation for the PRODUCER’S NETWORK, Cannes Film Festival 2013 session.

The jury also grants the French CNC (CENTRE NATIONAL DU CINEMA ET DE L’ IMAGE ANIMÉE) Development award of 7.000 euro to the project:

PARK 

Directed by: Sofia Exarchou, Produced by: Amanda Livanou, Guanaco (Greece)

The jury also awards a Special Mention to the project ALGIERS BY NIGHT, Directed by: Yanis Koussim, Produced by: Claire Mazeau-Karoum, Une Chambre á Soi Productions, Algeria

The French development and consulting company INITIATIVE FILM headed by Isabelle Fauvel offers its services to the film project: 

PARK

Directed by: Sofia Exarchou, Produced by: Amanda Livanou, Guanaco (Greece)

and will follow its development for the next 6 months.

RAW AND COOKED 

THE AGORA WORKS IN PROGRESS

The AGORA WORKS IN PROGRESS are closed sessions for Thessaloniki’s invited industry professionals, presented to sales agents, distributors, producers and festival representatives. 12 films have been selected from the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovak Republic and Turkey.

GRAAL S.A & CINELABS GREECE awards for the third year one of the Agora Works in Progress films presented in the Agora Industry with in kind services and material in image post-production up to 70.000 euro

The jury gave the award to: 

SEABURNERS

Directed by Melisa Önel, Produced by Yamac Okur, Asli Erdem, Bulut Film, Turkey

The film was presented in Crossroads Co-production Forum 2011

The jury also gives an Honorable mention to:

MY DOG KILLER, Directed by Mira Fornay, Produced by Juraj Buzalka, Mirafox,  Slovak Republic/ Czech Republic

A HIJACKING wins in Thessaloniki

[INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION]

LOVING

The impossible drama of the matrimonial equation

OUR LITTLE DIFFERENCES

A day in the life of parenthood

Sylvie Michel - Director (OUR LITTLE DIFFERENCES)

KINSHASA KIDS

you're on your own, but you always have music

AQUI Y ALLA

Rekindling Family Ties