News

250 industry execs set to attend market this week.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) kicks off the 15th edition of its international co-production market Tfl Meeting Event this week, showcasing 30 feature film projects between November 24-26.

Tfl Meeting Event will present 20 titles that have taken part in Tfl’s nine-month scriptwriting programme ScriptLab, comprising 14 debut scripts, two sophomore titles and four mature projects. Each participant has been guided on the development of their scripts through five online and residential workshops. The ScriptLab titles were revealed in March.

Another 10 projects will be presented from Tfl’s FeatureLab strand for films at a more advanced stage.

Mother, the Bulgarian submission for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar race, has been deemed ineligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film’s director, Zornitsa Sophia, announced the decision on social media this week.

Academy sources confirmed to Deadline that Mother has been rejected due to more than 50 of the spoken dialogue track being in the English language.

In her post, Zornitsa Sophia, whose 2004 film Mila From Mars was Bulgaria’s Oscar entry that year, explained that Mother‘s producing team had reached out to the Academy asking for clarification of the eligibility rule, which stipulates that “the recording of the original dialogue track as well as the completed picture must be predominantly (more than 50) in a language or languages other than English.”

She said that the Academy’s response was that eligibility is determined by timing the duration of the English and non-English dialogue,...

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,...

Tfl has also unveiled the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has unveiled the 20 new projects selected for its 2022 ScriptLab, and the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The ScriptLab is a nine-month scriptwriting programme involving feature films at an early stage of development. This year’s iteration focused on comedies, with eight of the 20 projects written by women.

Composed of two week-long residential workshops, one in Turin and one in Finland, as well as three online modules, the ScriptLab also feeds in to TorinoFilmLab annual industry event the Tfl Meeting.

Rounds, The Pig, Sister and Cat in the Wall were also among the winners of this year’s edition. After winning the Crystal Globe at this year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's The Father has picked up several awards at the 37th edition of the Golden Rose Film Festival, including Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Actor (for Ivan Barnev and Ivan Savov). With one exception, all of the awards and Special Mentions were given to films that have already been seen at international film festivals, such as Stephan Komandarev’s Rounds, Dragomir Sholev’s The Pig, Svetla Tsotsorkova’s Sister, and Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s Cat in the Wall. The international jury was led by Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov. Thirteen features and 17 short films competed at this edition of the festival, which was organised by the country's National Film Center. Many of.

13 Bulgarian productions and co-productions are about to compete for the festival's awards. Thirteen features and 17 short films will screen in the official competition of the 37th edition of the Golden Rose Film Festival, a true who's who of Bulgarian cinema organised by the country's National Film Center. The competing features are Svetla Tsotsorkova's Sister (Bulgaria/Qatar), Lachezar Avramov's A Picture with Yuki (Bulgaria/Japan), Stanislav Donchev's Letters from Antarctica (Bulgaria), Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's The Father (Bulgaria/Greece), Dragomir Sholev's The Pig (Bulgaria/Romania), Marian Valev's Bad Girl (Bulgaria), Borislav Mihailovski's Love, Boyden (Bulgaria), Stephan Komandarev's Rounds (Bulgaria/Serbia), Radoslav Iliev's Action (Bulgaria), Anri Koulev's Once Upon a War (Bulgaria/Monaco), Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova's Cat in the Wall (Bulgaria/UK/France), Iliya Kostov's A Travelling Cinema (Bulgaria) and one minority co-production, Mahmut Fazil Coşkun's The Announcement...

News announced at the annual Sofia Meetings and Sofia International Film Festival.

Bulgaria is poised to launch a financial incentive to attract high-budget international film and TV production to the south-eastern European country. The news was announced at last week’s Sofia Meetings (March 13-17) the biggest annual event of the Bulgarian film industry which runs as part of the Sofia International Film Festival (Mach 7-17).

“Bulgaria is practically the only country in Europe which doesn’t yet have an incentive but at the end of 2018 the government declared they are willing to do this and very fast,” said Jana Karaivanova,...

€5m funding is shared between 17 fiction, 2 animation and 1 documentary films.

Following its 150th meeting in Yerevan, Armenia from March 13-16, European cinema body Eurimages has awarded funding to 20 film projects.

Of the supported titles, 17 are fiction, two are animated and one is a documentary. 30% of those receiving support have female directors, who cumulatively receive 34% of the total money awarded.

See below for the full list of projects

Among the projects are Bergman Island, the next film from French director Mia Hansen-Løve (Things To Come). Launched at Cannes last year, the story centres on an American filmmaking couple who find the...

Israeli title Fig Tree among selection.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 11-18) has revealed its line-up of Work in Progress titles set to participate at the event’s industry strand CineLink.

The 10 titles include Balkan projects, as well as several from further afield, such as Alamork Davidian’s Fig Tree, which recently won an award at Jerusalem Film Festival’s Pitch Point competition, and Reem Saleh’s Lebanon-Egypt doc What Comes Around.

The projects will be presented to around 40 industry delegates, and a jury consisting of Paolo Bertolin (Venice Film Festival), Paz Lazaro (Berlin International Film Festival), Hedi Zardi (LuxBox), Petra Gobel (The Post Republic) and Serkan Yildirim (Trt) will award three prizes: the Post Republic Award (€50,000 in kind), the CineLink Restart Award (€20,000 in kind), and the Turkish National Radio Television Award (€30,000 in cash).

Sarajevo’s head of industry Jovan Marjanovic commented: “The CineLink Work in Progress strand has proved to be incredibly effective for both the...

The Lesson by co-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov was the big winner at this year’s Sofia International Film Festival in Bulgaria.

The duo’s feature debut became the second Bulgarian feature in Siff’s 19-year history to receive the international jury’s Grand Prix after Dragomir Sholev’s Shelter in 2011.

The Lesson also picked up the Audience Award, the Fipresci International Critics’ Prize and the award for the Best Bulgarian Feature Film.

Accepting the award, Valchanov pointed to the importance of the Sofia Meetings where The Lesson had originally been pitched and said that this event should be ¨an example¨ to the Bulgarian state to develop a long-term and sustainable film policy for the future.

The sentiment was echoed by international jury president Stephan Komanderev (The Judgement) when he presented the ¨Sofia City Of Film¨ Grand Prix to the young directors.

The Lesson, which is handled internationally by Wide Management, premiered last year...

Madrid -- Fifteen films from 17 countries including the United States, Romania, China, Chile and Denmark will contend for the €90,000 ($120,000) Zabaltegi-New Directors Award at next month's San Sebastian International Film Festival, organizers announced on Monday.

Representing the U.S. will be debutante director Shawn Ku's "Beautiful Boy" starring Maria Bello and Michael Sheen as the parents of a youth who carries out a mass shooting at a university.

Two films from host country Spain are also in the lineup: "Blog", by Elena Trape, about a group of upper middle-class girls with a secret plan, and "Stars to Wish Upon", by Mikel Rueda, which tells the story of a mother who loses her child in the Spanish Civil War.

Other western European productions include France's "Elsewhere" by Frederic Pelle; the Belgian-German co-production "Marieke, Marieke", by Sophie Schoukens; "Dusk", by Dutch director Hanro Smitsman, and from Denmark, Mikkel Munch-Fals' "Nothing's All Bad.