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Romanian director Raisa Razmerita’s Electing Miss Santa pitched in the Docu Rough Cut Boutique strand of CineLink, the industry platform of the Sarajevo Film Festival, was one of the stand-out projects of this year’s event, according to international attendees.

The film follows Elena, a struggling farmer in a Moldovan village who decides to run for mayor.

“I can’t remember the last time a marketplace presented such a compelling protagonist as Elena Santa,” said Polly Haythornthwaite, digital coordinator at the UK’s Java Films. “The film’s unique perspective comes not just from its focus on a rural village in Moldova,...

Across more than two decades as the parallel arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region, an incubator of talent from Southeast Europe — and, increasingly, beyond — and a crucial stop for globetrotting industry executives looking to discover fresh cinematic voices.

The mid-summer event, which this year takes place Aug. 17 – 22, traditionally comes on the heels of the Locarno Film Festival and wraps in the run-up to Venice and Toronto, occupying a perhaps fitting slot in the calendar. “Not too big, but not small at all,” is how Maša Marković, now in her third year as the festival’s head of industry, characterizes it. As a result, Sarajevo “manages to create this sense of being the place to be.”

Marković credits the event’s “curatorial approach” for ensuring that both the selection of projects for its influential...

CineLink Industry Days, the industry platform of Sarajevo Film Festival, has selected nine projects for its 2024 edition; and appointed Ishak Jalimam as its new head.

Jalimam will work with Masa Markovic, who continues as head of industry for the third year. He replaces Amra Baksic Camo, who had run CineLink since its inception in 2003, and will now focus on developing new projects under the Sarajevo Film Festival umbrella.

Scroll down for the full list of CineLink projects

A graduate of the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts, Jalimam is founder and president of Bosnian production company Realstage Productions, through which he...

UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg is to be president of Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori, running from August 28-September 7.

The jury consists of 10 former participants of the European young cinephile 27 Times Cinema programme. Jury heads in recent years have included João Pedro Rodrigues, Céline Sciamma, Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova and Nadav Lapid.

The jury decides the winner of a cash prize of €20,000, to be split equally between the filmmaker and the film’s international distributor.

Once again, the jury sessions will be coordinated by Karel Och, artistic director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under The Sign Of The Hour Glass,...

When East Meets West (Wemw), is the co-production forum of January’s Trieste Film Festival in Italy.

Fresh projects from Czeck director Barbora Chalupová, Greece’s Asimina Proedrou and Brazil’s Caru Alves de Souza are among the 18 features to be showcased at When East Meets West (Wemw), the Italian co-production forum of the Trieste Film Festival, taking place from January 21-24.

First-time feature directors Anna Llargués Lala Aliyeva, and Leo Černic will also be presenting projects at what will be the 14th edition of Wemw, to some 500 industry professionals.

Scroll down for the full list

“This year, we received an exceptional number of submissions,...

The event is an important incubator for European arthouse projects.

Feature debuts from Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania are among the 13 projects selected for the 25th anniversary edition of the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus, taking place from November 8-10 in the German town of Cottbus.

The event brings together producers from eastern and western Europe.

Producer Martina Sakova of Bratislava-based What If Films and writer-director Daniel Rihák will be presenting the coming of age comedy My World Upside Down which won the Orka Co-Production Award at last year’s Kids Kino Industry Forum in Warsaw and the PopUp Residency Visegrad...

The first 30 titles in the running for the EFAs have been announced.

The first 30 titles in the running for the 2022 European Film Awards have been revealed with a second wave of titles due to be announced in September.

Scroll down for first selection of films

The titles include Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle Of Sadness, Carla Simón’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Alcarras and Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winner Belfast. Also selected is Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl, which is Ireland’s submission for the best international feature Oscar.

Further Cannes award winners to make the first...

Borat 2 star Maria Bakalova will chair the committee selecting Bulgaria’s best international film submission for the 2022-23 Oscar race, the country’s National Film Center has confirmed.

Bakalova was Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated in the 2020-21 awards season for her performance as Borat’s daughter along Sacha Baron Cohen. She is now busy forging a career in Hollywood where subsequent credits have included The Bubble, Bodies Bodies Bodies and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

She has remained loyal to her native Bulgaria where she cut her acting teeth in its independent arthouse cinema scene.

Bakalova’s arrival on the Bulgarian Oscar selection committee follows controversy last year, after the selection of Ivaylo Hristov’s drama Fear over Cannes Un Certain Regard selection Women Do Cry, by Vesela Kazakova and Mina Mileva’s and starring Bakalova, prompted accusations of foul play.

Bakalova will be joined by director Kristina Grozeva,...

The French writer-director will help young film enthusiasts choose the best film from selection.

French director Céline Sciamma has been named jury president of this year’s Giornate degli Autori (GdA), which runs alongside the Venice Film Festival (August 31 - September 10).

Sciamma will preside over 27 young European film enthusiasts to select the recipient of the GdA Director’s award for best film from the Giornate Official Selection. The process will be coordinated by Karlovy Vary Film Festival director Karel Och.

It is the only award given at the GdA, a sidebar of the Venice Film Festival which runs independently parallel...

French director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma has been announced as jury president of Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori (GdA), running August 31 to September 10.

She will preside over a jury of 27 young European cinephiles attending GdA under the auspices of the 27 Times Cinema program, a joint initiative organized by the independent sidebar, the European Parliament’s Lux Audience Award and Europa Cinemas

This jury decides the GdA Director’s Award, the sidebar’s only official prize, under the coordination of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) director Karel Och.

“Our choice of Céline Sciamma as jury president doesn’t only mean having one of the most intriguing voices in contemporary film with us at Giornate degli Autori; most importantly, what it means is embracing her vision of reality,” said GdA artistic director Gaia Furrer of the Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and Petite Maman director.

“Céline Sciamma has always...

Specialty U.S. distributors Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures have acquired Italian director Pasquale Marrazzo’s LGBTQ drama “The Neighbor” for release in North America from Rome-based Coccinelle Film Sales.

“The Neighbor” (which is titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy) is about two young men who are in love but get bullied by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads that makes their life impossible as hatred and intolerance seeps into the rapport between their respective families.

It’s the fifth feature written and directed by Marrazzo whose debut “South of the Sun” launched from Toronto’s Discovery section in 2001. Marrazzo’s “I Dream of the World on Friday” was in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present Competition in 2009.

Marrazzo self-produced “Neighbor” does not yet have Italian distribution. Pic stars newcomer actors Michele Costabile and Jacopo Costantini as the leads and boasts a score by prizewinning Italian composer Teho Teardo.

In Cannes Coccinelle,...

The International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Iffmh) has very much captured the social, cultural and political zeitgeist with this year’s film selections, exploring such themes as female empowerment, HIV/AIDS and the post-Soviet collapse of Ukraine.

“The festival doesn’t work in topics, we are trying to show the best films, but the interesting thing is that the topics come to us through the films,” says Iffmh director Sascha Keilholz. “Obviously we are sensitive to the whole range and diversity that can be had in cinema.”

Indeed, this year’s films in the On the Rise competition section and supplemental Pushing the Boundaries sidebar, which showcases cutting-edge works by young and established filmmakers, ended up sharing unmistakable themes. Many new female voices are putting their mark in Eastern European film with stories of women rebelling against patriarchy and male structures, for example, Keilholz points out. “That was quite striking for us.

The decision to select Ivaylo Hristov’s migrant drama Fear (Страх) as Bulgaria’s International Film submission for the 94th Academy Awards has sparked controversy in the Balkan country, triggering a slew of accusations, from an illegitimate vote to “systemic racism, sexism and denialism.”

The scandal erupted when animation filmmaker Theodore Ushev wrote a scathing Facebook post two days after Fear was announced as the country’s official selection. Ushev, who lives in Canada, is the most accomplished of the seven people on the selection committee; he is member of the American Film Academy as his animated short Blind Vaysha received an Oscar nomination in 2016.

Ushev questioned the integrity of the selection procedure which was supposed to involve a discussion among the seven committee members about the four movies that had gotten to the final stage, leading to a vote. He revealed that only five of the seven — him included...

“Madeleine Collins,” the buzzy psychological drama directed by France’s Antoine Barraud (“Portrait of the Artist”) and toplined by popular Belgian actress Virginie Efira who plays the lesbian nun in Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” is among ten competition titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section.

The Venice section modeled around the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is largely made up of international first works this year. All entries are world premieres.

Besides “Madeleine” in which Efira (pictured) plays a woman who leads a double life –– and which also features Nadav Lapid, who is also the Israeli director of “Synonyms” and also Jacqueline Bisset –– the three other pics competing in Venice Days that are not first works are: the drama “Private Desert,” by Brazilian director Aly Muritiba (“Rust”) that is centered around a 40-year-old-cop’s Internet love interest who goes missing; “Dusk Stone,” by Argentina...

The final full day of screenings at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival ended with a statistic, which was delivered by Cannes General Delegate Thierry Fremaux on the stage of the Salle Debussy just before midnight on Friday:

Over the first 11 days of the festival and the thousands of Covid-19 tests administered on the premises each day, 70 people tested positive for the virus. For Fremaux and the festival, the stat – slightly more than the three-positive-tests-per-day estimate made earlier – was still one to celebrate, suggesting that the scaled-down Cannes managed to navigate a difficult time without turning into a superspreader event.

Of course, Fremaux’s announcement preceded the screening of Gaspar Noe’s “Vortex,” a movie about aging, illness and death, which perhaps made it a tricky moment to be celebrating all the negative tests.

The prize parade

According to the awards that have been handed out in Cannes, the festival’s top...

If the past year has turned Maria Bakalova into an unlikely breakout star, after a buzzy performance in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” plucked the Bulgarian actor from obscurity and landed her in the heat of an Oscar race, the 24-year-old hasn’t quite had time to process her overnight success.

“As long as I’m working on something, it doesn’t feel different,” she tells Variety. “Maybe the responsibility I have right now is a little bit bigger, because more people know about my existence.”

Bakalova might soon be impossible to miss, with a leading role in Judd Apatow’s upcoming comedy “The Bubble” for Netflix and a star turn in “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” an A24 slasher film that just wrapped shooting in New York.

But first comes the red carpet in Cannes, where she co-stars in the female-led drama “Women Do Cry,” from directing duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova.

Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) has gone from Kazakh ingenue to a Cannes contender thanks to her new film, “Women Do Cry.”

In the movie, Bakalova (pictured right), who scored Oscar, SAG, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her breakout role last year as Borat’s unsophisticated teenage daughter, is almost unrecognizable. Her blonde locks dyed brown, she plays a woman living with HIV and facing discrimination in her native Bulgaria.

The feature is set in the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia during the 2018 protests against the Istanbul convention, which sets out policies regarding violence against women. It tackles the challenges women navigate in a patriarchal society, from postpartum depression to sex discrimination and inequality.

Directed by Bulgarian duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, “Women Do Cry” was submitted to Cannes at the last minute and promptly selected for a coveted place in the Un Certain Regard section.

Mileva, a former animator,...

Un Certain Regard looks set to be hailed as The section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes has sailed over the half-way mark, with hopes high it won’t be scuttled by another wave entirely. Initially assailed by Covid-19 tests and overcome by sheer delight to be back on the Croisette, critics and buyers are now beginning to realise that while Cannes 74 is a landmark event in many ways, thus far the 24-film Competition itself, stuffed with auteurs and old friends of the festival, is not shaping up to be a vintage year (such as 2019).

Eleven films have yet to show,...

It’s hard to imagine two more charming and personable filmmakers than the Bulgarian directing-producing-writing duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova of the production company Activist38. Although slightly punchy with fatigue, they took a short break from post-production in Paris to talk to Variety about “Women Do Cry,” their second fiction feature after the Locarno fest competitor “Cat in the Wall” (2019).

Their sales agent, MK2, submitted “Women Do Cry” to Cannes at the last possible moment; it won a spot in Un Certain Regard. Mileva and Kazakova cheerfully claim, “We were not really planning for Cannes, we’re not really ready and we keep on not being ready.” But you sense that the ladies doth protest too much. Sure, there are trailers to cut, posters to design and French and English subtitles to add to the final print, but these are tough, organized women who cut their teeth in documentary...

It’s been a while, but for the first time since 2019, the Cannes Film Festival is officially happening on the Croisette. After being canceled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 Cannes Film Festival is happening right now on the French Riviera with a full slate of international features. Here’s everything to know about this year’s Cannes Film Festival, including the full lineup.

What movies are playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival?

The 2021 lineup at the Cannes Film Festival features new films from Wes Anderson, Sean Baker, Sean Penn, Leo Carax, and Tom McCarthy. But despite the usual vast pedigree of talent at Cannes, awards attention for the films that launch there is uncertain. Only twice have Palme d’Or winners subsequently won Best Picture at the Oscars (1955’s “Marty” and 2019’s “Parasite”) — although that data point could be rendered moot by the coronavirus pandemic. The...

MK2, the venerable family-owned film group which operates a leading arthouse multiplex chain in France and Spain, is emerging from the pandemic stronger, cooler and more ambitious than ever.

Nathanaël and Elisha Karmitz, who succeeded their father Marin at the helm of the company in 2005, have galvanized the MK2 brand with activities ranging from films, art, publishing, technology and lifestyle. The common threads between all these ventures are a taste for singularity, curation and a socially-minded approach.

After scoring big at Cannes in 2019 with Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” and Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which competed and won prizes, MK2 Films will again boast a fairly large presence for the festival’s comeback edition with nine films across several selections, including the competition with Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World,” the new Cannes Premiere section with Andrea Arnold’s “Cow,” Un Certain Regard...

Welcome to the first edition of Deadline’s International Distruptors, a feature where we’ll shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. With the Cannes Virtual Market warming up and July’s physical Cannes Film Festival looming, we’re kicking off with a deep dive into French cinematic institution MK2.

A few years ago, when brothers Nathanaël and Elisha Karmitz were re-evaluating the marketing strategy for their business MK2, they were discussing company values with their father Marin in their Paris-based office. The brothers, who have run the prominent French arthouse outfit since their father stepped down in 2005, turned to Marin and asked him what the main goal of the company was when he founded it in 1974.

Their father, says Elisha, turned to them, paused, exhaled deeply and then said: “The goal of the company is to resist destruction of the world.

By HollywoodNews.com On Thursday 3 June at 11am, Pierre Lescure and Thierry Frémaux presented the Official Selection of the 74th Festival de Cannes at the Ugc Normandie in Paris. The Festival de Cannes will be held from July 06 to 17, 2021 . Discover the list of selected films in Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition, Midnight Screening, Cannes Premières and Special Screenings. Competition “Ahed’s Knee” Nadav Lapid “Annette” Leos Carax – opening film “Benedetta” Paul Verhoeven “Bergman Island” Mia Hansen-Løve “Casablanca Beats” Nabil Ayouch “Compartment No. 6” Juho Kuosmanen “Drive My Car” Ryûsuke Hamaguchi “Everything Went Fine” Francois Ozon “Flag Day” Sean Penn “The French Dispatch” Wes Anderson “A Hero” Asghar Farhadi “La fracture” Catherine Corsini “Lingui” Mahamat-Saleh Haroun “Memoria” Apichatpong Weerasethakul “Nitram” Justin Kurzel “Paris, 13th District” Jacques Audiard “France” Bruno Dumont “Petrov’s Flu” Kirill Serebrennikov “Red Rocket” Sean Baker “The Restless” Joachim Lafosse “The Story of My Wife” Ildikó Enyedi...

Cannes' Official Selection for its 74th edition, running July 6-17.

In Competition

Annette, Leos Carax (France) - Opening Film

The Story of My Wife, Ildikó Enyedi (Hungary)

Benedetta, Paul Verhoeven (Netherlands)

Bergman Island, Mia-Hansen-Love (France)

Drive My Car, Rysuke Hamaguchi (Japan)

Ha’Berech (Ahed’s Knee), Nadav Lapid

Casablanca Beats, Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)

Compartment No. 6, Juho Kuosmanen (Finland)

The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier (Norway)

La Fracture, Catherine Corsini (France)

The Restless, Joachim Lafosse (Belgium)

Paris 13th District, Jacques Audiard (France)

Lingui, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad)

Memoria, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)

Nitram, Justin Kurzel (Australia)

France, Bruno Dumont (France)

Petrov’s Flu, Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia)

Red Rocket, Sean Baker (USA)

Flag Day, Sean Penn (USA)

The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson (USA)

Titane, Julia Ducournau (France)

Tre Piani, Nanni Moretti (Italy)

Tout s'est Bien Passé, François Ozon (France)

A Hero, Asghar Farhadi (Iran)

Un Certain Regard

Moneyboys, C.B. Yi (Austria)

Blue Bayou, Justin Chon (USA)

Freda, Gessica Geneus (Haiti)

Delo (House Arrest), Alexey German Jr. (Russia)

Bonne Mere, Hafsia Herzi (France)

Noche de Fuego, Tatiana Huezo (Mexico)

Lamb, Valdimar Johansson (Iceland)

Commitment Hasan, Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey)

After Yang, Kogonada (USA)

Let There Be Morning, Eran Kolirin (Israel)

Unclenching the Fists, Kira Kovalenko (Russia)

Women Do Cry, Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria)

Rehana Maryam Noor, Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Bangladesh)

Great Freedom, Sebastian Meise (Austria)

La Civil, Teodora Ana Mihai (Romania / Belgium)

Gaey’s Wa’r, Na Jiazuo (China)

The Innocents, Eskil Vogt (Norway)

Un Monde, Laura Wandel (Belgium)

Out of Competition

De Son Vivant, Emmanuelle Bercot (France)

Emergency Declaration, Han Jae-Rim (Korea)

The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes (USA)

Bac Nord, Cédric Jimenez (France)

Aline, The Voice of Love, Valérie Lemercier (France)

Stillwater, Tom McCarthy (USA)...

The number sure looks good on paper: For the first time, the Cannes Film Festival is hosting 20 female filmmakers among its Official Selection, including Competition, Un Certain Regard, and the newly-created Cannes Premiere section. And, yet, as often is the case with Cannes, the devil is in the details. And many of those devils sure look familiar.

Bouncing back from 2020 — during which the lauded festival did not host an actual event, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but did at least announce which films it would have included — Cannes has returned with a stuffed Selection, including 63 total films, accounting for a comparably large Competition section and an entirely new section in Cannes Premiere. Only 18 of those films are directed by one or more women, meaning that roughly 29 percent of the total lineup has at least one female director (two films are co-directed by two women).

This year, the festival will host...

Cannes is back in full force with the announcement of the Official Selection for the film festival’s 74th edition. Taking place in July after having been originally scheduled for May, Cannes is returning with an in-person event after the pandemic forced the festival to cancel in 2020. Spike Lee, who was supposed to head the jury and premiere his “Da 5 Bloods” out of competition last year, is returning to Cannes 2021 as jury president. Films such as Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” Leos Carax’s “Annette,” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta” were all supposed to premiere at Cannes 2020 but are now confirmed for Cannes 2021 after waiting a year to be unveiled to the world.

Given this is the first Cannes in the Covid pandemic era, there are as many questions about the event’s safety protocols as there are about the lineup. Cannes general delegate Thierry Frémaux told IndieWire...

At long last, the Cannes Film Festival returns this July. While it remains to be seen just how many journalists outside France will actually be able to attend, their lineup, with a competition jury chaired by Spike Lee, has now being unveiled.

With a few selections already confirmed––such as the highly anticipated trio of Leos Carax’s opener Annette, Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta––Pierre Lescure, President of the Cannes Film Festival, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, presented the rest of the Official Selection of the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

See the line up below and check back for Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week announcements.

Competition

Annette (Leos Carax)

The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)

Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)

A Hero (Asghar Farhadi)

Tout S’est Bien Passe (Francois Ozon)

Tre Piani (Nanni Moretti)

Titane (Julia Ducournau)

Red Rocket (Sean Baker)

Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov)

France...

Other deals include for Erik Poppe’s The Emigrants and Bille August’s The Pact.

Rikke Ennis’ Danish outfit REinvent has closed a string of deals on its slate of upcoming films at the EFM.

They include Aku Louhimies’ Finnish action thriller Omerta 6/12, which has sold to Spain (A Contracorriente). Filming is underway on the feature, which will be delivered by the end of the year, while a four-part series version of the project is also being readied for mid-2022.

The story is based on Ilkka Remes’ best-selling novel 6/12, about a hostage crisis that occurs on Finland’s Independence Day.

Female ensemble-led work is second fiction feature of “demonic duo” behind Cat In The Wall.

Paris-based mk2 films has acquired world sales rights for Bulgarian directorial duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s new film Women Do Cry exploring Bulgaria’s complicated relationship with issues of gender and gender-based violence and featuring Borat 2 co-star Maria Bakalova in the cast.

The drama revolves around a family of women united by a shared trauma who confront the family patriarch’s troubling past, against the backdrop of anti-gender and anti-equality protests in Bulgaria.

It is Mileva and Kazakova’s second fiction feature...

Co-production funds to support the directorial debuts of the two actresses.

The feature directorial debuts of actresses Charlotte Le Bon and Veerle Baetens and a drama about the Bataclan terrorist attack have secured a share of €4.1m ($5m) from European cultural support fund Eurimages.

The Melting is being directed and co-written by Baetens, who is best known internationally for her performance in Felix van Groeningen’s Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown.

The Belgium-Netherlands co-production has received €310,000 in Eurimages support, adding to a financial boost from Screen Flanders last week and the ARTEKino International Prize at the Berlinale Co-Production Market earlier this year.

New projects by Isaki Lacuesta, Vesela Kazakova and Mina Mileva, Veerle Baetens and Charlotte Le Bon, among the selection. At its 161st meeting held online, the Board of Management of the Council of Europe's Eurimages Fund agreed to support 17 feature film projects for a total amount of €4,124,000. The share of eligible projects with female directors examined at this Eurimages Board of Management meeting was 44%; 38% of the projects supported were directed by women and €1,354,000 was awarded to these projects, representing 33% of the total amount awarded. The films supported: Anna - Marco Amenta (Italy/France)Copenhagen Doesn’t Exist - Martin Skovbjerg (Denmark/Norway/Sweden)Falcon Lake - Charlotte Le Bon (France/Canada)Inside - Vasilis Katsoupis (Greece/Germany/Belgium)Mediterranean Fever - Maha Haj (Germany/Cyprus/France/Palestine)Men of Deeds - Paul Negoescu (Romania/Bulgaria)Story About Fateme - Vuk Ršumović (Serbia/Italy/Croatia)The Body - Petra Seliškar...

This week’s major BIFA nominees were all shut out by the European Film Awards.

UK producers have emphasised their commitment to European co-production on the eve of the European Film Awards (EFAs), in which UK films are conspicuous by their absence.

Two non-uk actors in UK-European productions are the sole representatives in the Efa nominations: Viggo Mortensen for Falling and Natasha Berezhnaya for Dau. Natasha.

“From a filmmaker’s point of view, we mostly are very pro-European,” said Andrea Cornwell, the producer of Rose Glass’s Saint Maud. This week the low-budget horror film received a record 17 Bifa nominations...

This year’s selection will be announced over two waves to account for pandemic conditions.

The first 32 features up for the 2020 European Films Awards has been announced with a second wave of “pandemic year” titles due to be revealed in September.

Scroll down for first selection of films

The titles include Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History Of David Copperfield and Viggo Mortensen’s Falling as well as Berlinale award-winners Undine, by Christian Petzold; Hidden Away, by Giorgio Diritti; Bad Tales, by the D’Innocenzo Brothers; Dau. Natasha, by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel; and Delete History, by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern.

This year’s iteration will take place on its original dates - May 11-15, 2020 - independently of Cannes.

20 up-and-coming producers have been selected for the European Film Promotion’s (Efp) networking platform Producers on the Move, which this year will take place online after the Cannes Film Festival was postponed.

This year’s iteration will go ahead independent of Cannes on its original dates – May 11-15, 2020 - and will include online speed meetings, roundtable sessions, case studies, and talks with experts.

Among this year’s line-up are Monica Hellström, who produced Simon Lereng Wilmont’s documentary The Distant Barking Of Dogs,...

European Film Promotion’s networking program Producers on the Move will take place as a digital edition on its original dates – from May 11 to 15 – and independently of the Cannes Film Festival, which has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Twenty up-and-coming European producers will meet online and present their projects in speed meetings and roundtable sessions. A case study as well as talks with experts will round out the program.

Efp, a network of 37 European film promotion institutions, has selected the following producers from 20 different European countries: Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria), Danijel Pek (Croatia), Mikuláš Novotny (Czech Republic), Monica Hellström (Denmark), Elina Litvinova (Estonia), Aleksi Hyvärinen (Finland), Andrea Queralt (France), Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer (Germany), John Wallace (Ireland), Giovanni Pompili (Italy), Yll Uka (Kosovo), Marija Razgutė (Lithuania), Alan R. Milligan (Norway), Marta Habior (Poland), Mário Patrocínio (Portugal), Marina Gumzi (Slovenia), Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo (Spain), Marie Kjellson (Sweden), Flavia Zanon (Switzerland) and Rupert Lloyd (U.

[Editor’s note: “Cat in the Wall” is one of more than 100 movies originally scheduled to screen at the SXSW Film Festival in March. After the coronavirus outbreak forced the festival to cancel, event organizers partnered with Amazon Prime to make seven of those features available to stream for free through Weds., May 6.]

In present-day London, a Bulgarian single mother feuds with her working-class British neighbors over the rightful ownership of an independent-minded family pet, all the while raging that the apartment she bought is being needlessly renovated against her wishes, and at great personal expense to her. The metaphors for sociopolitical tension in Brexit Britain may be mixed in “Cat in the Wall,” but that doesn’t make them any less plain.

Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s smart, bristly film makes some room for oblique everyday poetry in its depiction of immigrants asserting their ground in an unstable country, but is...

At the start of April, SXSW and Amazon announced that films from this year’s canceled SXSW would stream for free on Prime Video, giving some filmmakers the opportunity to get their projects seen by Us audiences after the Covid-19 pandemic nixed plans for the annual festival, and now the full lineup has been confirmed.

Only a small section of filmmakers who were set to debut their titles at SXSW have taken Amazon up on its streaming offer, but 39 projects will be available to watch from April 27 to May 6.

“This is really an unprecedented time. People are waiting for the new normal. And others are waiting for the return to normal,” SXSW director of film Janet Pierson remarked to THR. “We’re just trying to make best of a complicated situation. And this was a concrete and exciting offer from Amazon to give a wider swath of filmmakers an opportunity...

Online film festival to include narrative and documentary features, shorts and episodics.

Udated: A little over five percent of the 135 features originally selected for SXSW 2020 have opted in to Amazon Prime Video and SXSW’s Prime Video presents the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection, set to stream from April 27-May 6.

The online festival will comprise 39 films overall – seven narrative and documentary features, short films and episodic titles – and will be available in front of the Prime Video paywall, free to all Us audiences with or without an Amazon Prime membership.

Prior to Tuesday’s publication of the list, several leading sales...

SXSW and Amazon are moving full steam ahead with a virtual festival that is set to launch April 27.

Officially titled Prime Video presents the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection.

The slate includes 39 films, composed of narrative and documentary features, short films, and episodic titles.

Filmmakers in the official 2020 SXSW Film Festival lineup were invited to opt in to take part in this online film festival, which is set to play exclusively on Prime Video in the U.S. from April 27 to May 6.

The one-time event will be available in front of the Prime Video paywall, free to all U.S. audiences with or without an Amazon Prime membership — all that is needed is a free Amazon account.

“SXSW has always championed creators forging their own paths to success, often with just the right mix of passion, vision, and radical experimentation to make their dreams happen,” said Janet Pierson, Director of Film at SXSW.

After canceling its 2020 event, the SXSW Film Festival announced earlier this month that it would join forces with Amazon Prime Video to provide a free streaming home for selected offerings from this year’s event. The “Prime Video presents the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection” has set a launch date of April 27, and will include 39 titles. The virtual lineup includes a number of short films, both narrative and documentary, plus a handful of narrative and documentary features. It also includes three of the Episodics section’s more buzzy titles, including Amazon’s own newly launched sci-fi series “Tales from the Loop.”

“SXSW has always championed creators forging their own paths to success, often with just the right mix of passion, vision and radical experimentation to make their dreams happen,” said Janet Pierson, Director of Film, SXSW, in an official statement. “There is no one-size-fits-all, especially in these uncertain times, and we...

Amazon Prime Video has unveiled a lineup of 39 films, including narrative and documentary features, short films and episodic titles, that were meant to screen at the canceled SXSW Film Festival.

Filmmakers submitted to SXSW were invited to opt in to take part in the online film festival that will play on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. starting on April 27 and running through May 6. The films are available for free to U.S. audiences with only a free Amazon account.

The lineup includes some of the award winners that the SXSW juries announced last month despite the festival being canceled. Among them are the documentary short “No Crying at the Dinner Table,” which won the jury’s top prize, and the narrative short “Dirty,” which won a special jury recognition for acting.

Also Read: SXSW Film Festival Announces Jury, Special Awards Despite Cancellation Due to Coronavirus

“SXSW has always...

Amazon Prime Video and SXSW have set a 39-film launch on April 27-May 6 for Prime Video presents the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection. That is the virtual version of the Austin-Texas festival that got canceled in the pandemic. As Deadline reported, filmmakers accepted to SXSW were given the option to have their films play in this online film festival, and have their films viewable free to anyone who has a free Amazon account.

“SXSW has always championed creators forging their own paths to success, often with just the right mix of passion, vision and radical experimentation to make their dreams happen,” said Janet Pierson, Director of Film, SXSW. “There is no one-size-fits-all, especially in these uncertain times, and we knew this opportunity would be of interest to those filmmakers who wanted to be in front of a large audience now. We believe people will be captivated by this selection of intriguing...

The new project by Bulgaria's Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova received the Film Centre Serbia Development Award, as the event broke records this year. The tenth edition of Italian co-production forum When East Meets West, which featured 22 projects, has wrapped with the announcement of the winners of six awards. The main award, the Film Centre Serbia Development Award, valued at €5,000, was granted to the project Women Do Cry by Bulgarian directorial duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova who are also co-producing it for their company Activist38. The film tells the story of a family full of women in a society where “gender” is not a familiar word. The German-Bulgarian documentary project Strandzha by Pepa Hristova and produced by Julia Cöllen (Fünferfilm) and Martichka Bozhilova (Agitprop) picked the Flow Postproduction Award of €15,000 in post-production facilities, while the Czech project Ordinary Failures by Cristina Groșan and...

Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova are prepping a new project based on on true events.

Bulgarian filmmakers Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova received the top award at Trieste’s When East Meets West (Wemw) co-production market, which ran 19-21 Jan.

The duo were awarded the Film Center Serbia Development Prize for their second fiction project, Women Do Cry, which follows their fiction debut Cat In The Wall, which premiered at Locarno last year.

Based on true events and Kazakova’s own family history, the new feature ”will encompass what being a woman means in the backdrop of funny and absurd contradictions in current Bulgarian society,...

The 2020 edition of European Shooting Stars has unveiled the 10 young acting talents it will spotlight, with participants arriving with credits including Polish Oscar shortlisted feature Corpus Christi.

On the list is Polish actor Bartosz Bielenia, whose turn as an amateur priest in Jan Komasa’s Corpus Christi has already earned him acting awards at the Stockholm, Chicago and El Gouna film festivals.

He is selected alongside Danish actress Victoria Carmen Sonne, who has appeared in Hlynur Palmason’s Winters Brothers and Isabella Eklöf’s 2018 Sundance pic Holiday; she has won two Danish Academy awards (Bodils).

Also named is Swiss actress Ella Rumpf, who lead the cast of Julia Ducournau’s 2016 Cannes selection Raw, which won her the Révelation prize at the 2018 César Awards, and Jakob Lass’s 2017 Berlin title Tiger Girl. Rumpf will also appear this year in upcoming German Netflix series Freud.

Portuguese talent Joana Ribeiro makes the 2020 cut...

Selection includes the upcoming drama from Berlinale award-winner Radu Jude.

CineMart, the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr), has revealed the 17 feature projects to be showcased at next year’s edition.

Scroll down for full list

Held January 26-29 during the festival (which runs January 22 – February 2), CineMart invites filmmakers to pitch their projects to a host of international film professionals in tailored one-to-one meetings, as well as presentations that are open to all CineMart guests.

Notable directors in the selection include Romania’s Radu Jude, who won a Berlinale Silver Bear in 2015 with Aferim! and picked up...

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) has crowned its 2019 award winners. The respected doc event named Heidi Hassan and Patricia Pérez Fernández’s In A Whisper as best feature-length documentary. The pic, which centers on two emigrated Cuban filmmakers whose passion for film, friendship, and freedom reunites them after years apart, takes a $22,000 prize. This year, for the first time at Idfa, three new awards were presented in the competition for feature-length documentary: best directing went to Mehrdad Oskouei for his film Sunless Shadows; the best editing and cinematography prizes went to Sander Vos and Maasja Ooms respectively for their work on Punks. Elsewhere, Lucy Parker won the best first appearance award for her film Soldiarity, the Fipresci Award was given to Alyx Ayn Arumpac for Aswang, and the award for best mid-length doc went to Jalal Vafaei for Anticlockwise. Victoria Mapplebeck won the Idfa DocLab Award for Digital...

Lucy Bevan, casting director on “Cats” and “Cruella,” is among the jury members for the upcoming edition of European Film Promotion’s annual European Shooting Stars. It selects Europe’s best young acting talent, with the roster unveiled ahead of the Berlin Film Festival in February, where they will receive their awards.

Bevan will be joined on the five-strong jury by Dome Karukoski, the Finnish director of “Tolkien” and other films including “Home of the Dark Butterflies” and “Tom of Finland,” both of which have been his country’s Oscar entries. Vesela Kazakova, the actor-turned-director, whose debut feature “Cat in the Wall” premiered at Locarno, is also on board.

Slovak producer Katarína Krnáčová, vice president of the Slovak Film and Television Academy and producer of “Little Harbour,” which won the Crystal Bear at Berlin in 2017, and German film journalist Rüdiger Sturm round out the judging lineup.

The jury will choose...

Barcelona-based studio Filmax has acquired international sales rights to Avelina Prat’s feature-debut “Vasil,” which is currently in pre-production. Filmax also handles Spanish distribution.

“Vasil” is produced by Barcelona-based Distinto Films, which backed Patricia Ferreira’s “The Wild Children,” in co-production with Bulgaria’s Activist 38, which made Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s “Cat in the Wall.”

“This new Distinto Films’ project tackles very contemporary European issues , with a very personal and deep insight into the story’s characters,” said Filmax CEO Carlos Fernández.

Inspired by the director’s own experiences, the feature follows Vasil, a chess and bridge champion arriving in Spain from Bulgaria. He meets Maureen, an Irish woman who decides to help him, Yorgos, a Greek who gives him work; and Alfredo, who offers his sofa as a temporary home.

Principal photography is scheduled from May in Valencia and Barcelona.

Ivan Barnev, a best actor winner...

The Latvian film by Juris Kursietis has won out over six other Central and Eastern European movies. At the awards ceremony of the 12th edition of CinÉast, held at the Cinémathèque Luxembourg on Saturday 20 October, the international jury presided over by renowned French director-scriptwriter Jacques Doillon awarded the Grand Prix to Oleg by Juris Kursietis (Latvia/Belgium/Lithuania/France) and the Special Jury Prize to Corpus Christi by Jan Komasa (Poland/France). The rest of the jury was composed of Venice Days programmer Renata Santoro, Romanian filmmaker Marius Olteanu, Luxembourgish director-producer Adolf El Assal and Luxembourgish actress Sophie Mousel. The wins for Oleg and Corpus Christi come after a successful run on the festival circuit for both films. In the CinÉast selection, they locked horns with a strong group of movies that also included Cat in the Wall by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, Nova Lituania by Karolis Kaupinis, Scandinavian Silence by Martti.