April 16, 2019, 13:10
The Festival has strived to help create new opportunities for talented filmmakers from the Central and Eastern Europe. Apart from the time-tested competition section East of the West showing the first or second films of the region's directors in world premieres, it is just as important to support local producers as they often set out on a very complex mission when gathering funds to finance films in the CEE region as well as in the Middle East.
Since last year, the newly titled KVIFF Eastern Promises has worked to make it even more comfortable for film buyers to pick some as yet incomplete film projects still looking for investors. Programmers of major international film festivals are welcome to select potential prospects for their international premieres.
The festival wishes to offer a wide and varied range of film projects to choose from, motivating the region's best to participate through giving them a chance to win one of the awards bestowed by international juries. The Works in Development — Feature Launch platform presents projects in development, i.e. completed scripts developed in MIDPOINT programme, where filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe benefit from expert feedback and the possibility to approach potential co-producers, while producers learn about new carefully treated stories. The best project will leave with the prize amounting to EUR 10,000.
The traditional Works in Progress will present projects in post-production stage — i.e. films that will premiere sometime next year. Upon careful consideration of a large number of submissions, the festival selects projects to compete for a prestigious prize, namely a post-production package amounting to EUR 100,000 to complete the post-production with the help of UPP, Soundsquare and Barrandov Studio. Documentary films will be similarly presented at Docs in Progress, with their filmmakers competing for the prize of EUR 5,000. Films leaning towards the experimental will be introduced at Eurimages Lab Project Award, whose winner will be — this year for the fourth time — leaving with EUR 50,000.
Three projects selected by KVIFF Eastern Promises last year have met with a great success at Berlinale; one project has won Sofia International Film Festival, and it is safe to assume that some of the completed films will be screened at this year's edition of the Karlovy Vary IFF. Some documentary films have received financial backing from major film institutes. These achievements are exactly what the festival's Film Industry aspires to, making it its priority to support the region's film projects.
This year's new feature, First Cut Lab workshop, which also continues to be hosted by the Italian industry platform When East Meets West, will now find its second hub at the festival, giving three carefully selected films in rough cut stage the opportunity to be presented before a panel of international experts and to benefit from some timely advice on editing. Such advice aims at helping attract international audience as well as suggesting a strategy to the film's marketing and distribution.
Projects can be submitted until mid-May.
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