News

Lithuanian filmmaker and editor Gabrielė Urbonaitė explores the pressures on young women in her feature directorial debut Renovation, which will world premiere in the Proxima Competition lineup of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The movie stars Žygimante Elena Jakštaitė (European Shooting Star 2021), Šarūnas Zenkevičius (European Shooting Star 2025) and up-and-coming Ukrainian talent Roman Lutskyi (Under the Volcano by Damian Kocur, 2024). The film’s cinematographer Vytautas Katkus will also be in Karlovy Vary, premiering his directorial debut feature The Visitor in the festival’s main competition.

Now, THR can exclusively reveal the first trailer for the movie about a young woman feeling the pressure to be settled and successful by the time she turns 30.

Ilona, a perfectionist 29-year-old, lives in present-day Vilnius, Lithuania. “At this turning point in her life, she begins to question how she truly wants to live. She moves into a seemingly perfect apartment with her boyfriend Matas,...

Feature documentary Night Mayor, from Ukrainian filmmaker Kate Tiuri and producers Hanna Burdina and Mira Oyetoro, won the €5,000 best project in development prize at the works-in-progress section of Meeting Point Vilnius (Mpv), while another documentary Scarecrows. from seasoned director Laila Pakalnina picked up the €5,000 best production award.

It was the first year the works in progress section was split into two separate parts, development and production. Mpv is the industry programme of Lithuania’s Vilnius International Film Festival (Viff), also known as Kino Pavasaris.

Night Mayor focuses on an immigrant from Greece in Ukraine who is also the titular night...

Maverick Minds

London’s Raindance Film Festival has unveiled its 13-title longlist for the BIFA (British Independent Film Awards) Raindance Maverick Award, recognizing independent films made with budgets under £1 million ($1.3 million).

The lineup includes “Grand Theft Hamlet,” shot entirely within “Grand Theft Auto,” following two unemployed actors staging Shakespeare in the game’s virtual world, and “Strike: An Uncivil War,” which won Sheffield DocFest’s best documentary audience award for its examination of the 1984/85 miners’ strike.

Raindance founder Elliot Grove said: “The Raindance Maverick Award longlist captures the essence of independent cinema at its purest, rebellious and unapologetic best.”

Full longlist:

“The Ceremony”

“The Flight of Bryan”

“Grand Theft Hamlet”

“King Baby”

“Reawakening”

“Restless”

“Satu – Year of the Rabbit” (Joshua Trigg)

“Silent Men” (Duncan Cowles)

“The Stimming Pool”

“Strike: An Uncivil War”

“Tops”

“Treading Water”

“Witches”

The nominations will be announced Nov. 5, with winners revealed at the BIFA ceremony on Dec.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff) has selected a further 14 features, including 11 world premieres, to complete the lineup of its Official Selection Competition.

The new titles include the world premiere of Serhii Kastornykh’s Ukrainian feature The Mousetrap. Shot during a break between Kastornykh’s military service periods, the film follows a soldier trapped alone in a bunker on the frontline of the Russian war.

Scroll down for the full list of Poff Official Selection Competition titles

Also selected is the world premiere of Juris Kursietis’ third feature The Exalted, in which a world-renowned German organist uncovers her Latvian husband...

U.K.-French film company Alief has boarded Cinélatino winner Victoria Linares Villegas’ upcoming horror debut “No salgas” (“Stay Quiet”) as its world sales agent and co-producer, teaming up with El Perro de Argento, the Dominican Republic-based production company founded by Linares Villegas and Carlos Marranzini.

Alief partners Brett Walker and Miguel Angel Govea are heading to Cannes with a sizzle reel to meet with potential buyers and post-production partners at the Marché du Film. Pic is slated for completion by winter 2024, in time for the festival circuit.

Currently filming in the Dominican Republic, the queer coming-of-age horror pic stars Camila Issa (Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark”) Cecile van Welie (San Sebastian’s New Directors Award winner “Carajita”) and Camila Santana (Berlinale Generation’s “Ramona”) as well as newcomer Gabriela Cortés.

In “No salgas,” van Welie portrays Liz, a college student grappling with her sexual identity. While...

Gabi Șarga and Cătălin Rotaru’s Where Elephants Go will world premiere at the second edition of Smart7, a travelling competition across seven European film festivals.

The titles, one from each festival’s respective country, will screen together at Transilvania International Film Festival; Poland’s New Horizons; Portugal’s IndieLisboa; Greece’s Thessaloniki; Spain’s Filmadrid; Iceland’s Reykjavik; and Lithuania’s Vilnius Iff Kino Pavasaris.

Where Elephants Go is the debut feature from Romanian duo Șarga and Rotaru, whose short film 4:15. The End Of The World screened in competition at Cannes 2016 and won the jury prize. It is...

Project Market Awards Winners

The QCinema Project Market, the industry initiative that accompanies The Philippines’ QCinema International Film Festival, revealed its winners list on Tuesday delivering almost $500,000 of grants and in-kind support.

The prizes followed a two-day networking and pitching event on Nov. 18 and 19 for 19 feature-length fiction film projects from Southeast Asia.

Two projects received the QCinema Project Market – Philippines Co-production Grant, with both collecting $55,000 (PHP3 million). They were: “The Remotes” from director-producer John Torres; and “Filipiñana,” by director Rafael Manuel. “Filipinana,” a black comedy set on a golf course, won a second prize on the night worth another $18,000. At the recent Asian Project Market in Busan it had also been a multiple prize winner.

Two film projects also received the QCinema Project Market – Philippines Co-production Grant worth $27,000 (PHP1.5 million) each: “The Boy and the Fight of Spiders (Diwalwal)” by director Jarell Serencio and “Ella Arcangel: Ballad of Tooth and...

Uljana Kim, the Korean-Kyrgyzstani producer of such acclaimed documentaries as Mariupolis and The Natural History of Destruction, will be honored at this year’s European Film Awards with the 2023 Eurimages International Co-Production award.

The award is backed by pan-European co-production fund Eurimages.

Born to a Korean family in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, Kim is one of Eastern Europe’s leading film producers. Her production and distribution company Studio Uljana Kim, based in Vilnius, Lithuania, has produced 34 feature and documentary films, most of which premiered at the most important international film festivals.

Some of her most successful features include Ignas Jonynas’ thriller The Gambler (2013), Kristijonas Vildžiūnas’ The Lease (2002), and Tomas Vengris’s Five and a Half Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius from this year.

Kim has co-produced 10 films with Eurimages’ support, six of which as a majority producer.

In a statement, the European Film Academy said Kim was being honored...

Lithuanian-based producer Uljana Kim’s credits include Mantas Kvedaravičius’ ‘Mairupolis’ documentaries

Lithuanian-based producer Uljana Kim, whose credits include the Mariupolis documentaries, will be honoured with the Eurimages Co-Production award at the European Film Awards, held in Berlin on December 9.

The producer, who was born in Korea, founded her production company Studio Uljana Kim in 1997 and was the first female producer in Lithuania at the time.

Her earlier credits include Valdas Navasaitis’ Courtyard, which premiered in Cannes Director’s Fortnight in 1999, as well as Kristijonas Vildžiūnas’ The Lease and You Am I in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

Kim went on to produce Mantas...

At the Award Ceremony of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), awards were presented to the winners of the festival’s five competition programmes and PÖFF’s youth and children’s film sub-festival Just Film.

The jury of the Official Selection Competition, headed by Trine Dyrholm, selected Emma Dante’s drama Misericordia as their favourite, handing the film the Grand Prix for Best Film.

Dante adapted her own play of the same name, telling the story of three prostitutes who live in the wasteland by the sea, where a village of outcasts has emerged. Its star Simone Zambelli also scooped the Best Actor Award.

The jury commented on the film with the following statement: “A powerful film about how to stay supportive and, above all, exhibit humanity in a marginalised environment. Beautifully directed, shot and acted, the Best Film Award goes to Misericordia.”

The Best Director Award went toManuel Martín CuencaforAndrea’s Love.

Titles include Kah Wai Lim’s Japanese feature ‘Everything, Everywhere’.

Eight features will have world premieres in the Rebels With A Cause strand of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff), including new films from Kah Wai Lim and Matias Rojas Valencia.

The competitive section includes 11 features, with two further films playing out of competition.

Scroll down for the full Rebels With A Cause selection

Japanese director Lim presents Everything, Everywhere, a semi-improvised road movie set in the Balkans where Lim typically films, in which Japanese star Shogen plays a fictionalized version of the director.

Lim’s previous films include 2022 comedy-drama...

The project is being presented at the 2022 European Genre Forum in Tallinn.

Hamburg-based producer Sebastian Weyland of Heimathafen Film & Medien is reuniting with Lithuanian filmmaker Tomas Vengris for The True Story Of Earth And Sky which is being pitched to potential partners at the European Genre Forum at the Black Nights International Film Festival in Tallinn this week.

The English-language project is in early development. Described as “a lyrical allegory set in the not-too-distant future”, The True Story Of Earth And Sky centres on a low-level server technician for a power hub who can’t help but think that there...

Selection also includes seven projects from Ukrainian production companies.

Projects from Agnieszka Holland, Tomas Vengris and Dzintars Dreibergs are among 24 being pitched at a new co-production forum focusing on filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe at Warsaw’s Heart of Europe international festival from November 15-17.

Holland’s six-part series Emma, is inspired by the true story of Emma Altrichterová, the first female colonel in the Czech Army who embarked on a dangerous mission to save 40 children from advancing German troops during the Second World War.

It is being produced by Jan Maxa, director of content and new media at Czech TV,...

New films from Cristian Mungiu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bertrand Bonello and Nikolaj Arcel have also receieved funding.

French director Houda Benyamina’s All For One and Austrian Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero are two of the 37 European co-productions set to receive of a share of Eurimage’s latest round of funding, totalling €9.1m ($10.3).

Benyamina’s All For One will receive €500,000, the largest share of funding, The co-production between France and Belgium (Versus Production) is the second feature from from Benyamina, whose debut Divines won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes 2016. Her latest title is a Three Muskateers-style adventure, with a female focus.

New films from Cristian Mungiu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bertrand Bonello and Nikolaj Arcel have also receieved funding.

French director Houda Benyamina’s All For One and Austrian Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero are two of the 37 European co-productions set to receive of a share of Eurimage’s latest round of funding, totalling €9.1m ($10.3).

Benyamina’s All For One will receive €500,000, the largest share of funding, The co-production between France and Belgium (Versus Production) is the second feature from from Benyamina, whose debut Divines won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes 2016. Her latest title is a Three Muskateers-style adventure, with a female focus.

Lithuanian filmmaker Tomas Vengris’s feature debut has taken home the prize handed out by internet users in 45 countries during the fifth edition of the online European film festival. Organised in December by Arte in conjunction with Festival Scope (and with the support of Creative Europe), and after having allowed internet users from 45 countries in Europe to view ten top-notch features free of charge from 1-31 December 2020, the fifth ArteKino Festival has seen Motherland by Lithuania’s Tomas Vengris take home the European Audience Award. The filmmaker’s feature debut, which was first unveiled at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, was produced by Lithuania’s Studio Uljana Kim and Latvia’s Locomotive Productions together with German outfit Heimathafen Film and Greece’s Faliro House. Its international sales have been entrusted to French firm Alpha Violet.Handed out for...

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.

The Parisian outfit has notably closed sales on Uncle and Motherland, and is now preparing the ground for Apples, The Cemil Show and Abu Omar. Somewhat uncertain before embarking upon the unprecedented experience of the Cannes Film Festival’s Online Marché du Film, the French international sales agency Alpha Violet - a dedicated discoverer of young, international and high-potential film auteurs - has swiftly found its feet in this virtual environment and has already struck a number of high notes, closing sales in the opening days of the Market. Indeed, the team led by Virginie Devesa and Keiko Funato has sold Uncle by Danish director Frelle Petersen (an 88 Miles production) to HBO Eastern Europe, and to Alfhaville Cinema for Mexico; Motherland by the American of Lithuanian origin Tomas Vengris, for Japan (Uzumasa); Identifying Features by Fernanda Valadez (awarded Sundance’s Audience Award with its screenplay scooping a Special Prize from the.

Buenos Aires — Paris-based Alpha Violet has acquired international rights to Fernanda Valadez’s feature debut, “Identifying Features,” which world premieres in World Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Announced this week, the Sundance selection comes on top of a Films in Progress Prize at this September’s San Sebastian Festival.

Studying at Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, (Ccc), Valadez directed the short film “400 Maletas,” that earned nominations for the Student Academy Awards and Mexico’s Ariel Awards.

“Identifying Features” follows a mother searching desperately for her son, who has gone missing en route to the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead, she meets the young Miguel, recently deported from the U.S., who is eager to be reunited with his mother in Mexico, a country he hardly recognizes.

The two strike up a sense of companionship as they wander through a desolate, violence-ravaged townships and landscapes of today’s Mexico,...

Other winners include the UK’s ‘Looted’ and the Philippines’ ‘Kalel, 15’.

Japanese drama Kontora has won the grand prix at the 23rd Black Nights Film Festival, held in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The black-and-white feature, produced by Kowatanda Films, received its world premiere at the festival and marks the second live-action feature of India-born animator Anshul Chauhan. The story centres on a teenager who searches for a mysterious trove, guided by her grandfather’s WWII-era diary.

Chauhan, who was in Tallinn to accept the honour at an awards ceremony tonight, will receive...

Other winners include the UK’s ‘Looted’ and the Philippines’ ‘Kalel, 15’.

Japanese drama Kontora has won the grand prix at the 23rd Black Nights Film Festival, held in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The black-and-white feature, produced by Kowatanda Films, received its world premiere at the festival and marks the second live-action feature of India-born animator Anshul Chauhan. The story centres on a teenager who searches for a mysterious trove, guided by her grandfather’s WWII-era diary.

Chauhan, who was in Tallinn to accept the honour at an awards ceremony tonight, will receive...

Lab Projects to support unconventional films.

European Cinema Support Fund Eurimages is to launch a new initiative from January 2016 titled Lab Projects, which will be aimed at co-productions that are innovative both in terms of their artistic expression and production.

Speaking to ScreenDaily at this week’s Baltic Event in Tallinn, Eurimages’ executive director Roberto Olla explained: ¨We are going to reserve a little bit of money every year to support projects that are not conventional, both dramaturgically because they are not scripted as they are at the crossroads of different forms of artistic expression.

“It can be from visual arts or theatre, but it will still be films and cinema - although influenced by other art forms.”

¨These kinds of projects are normally not supported by national funds and therefore cannot come to us at Eurimages, and so we are losing them,¨ Olla said, pointing out that the filmmakers would be allowed to already start shooting...

Estonian project Erik Stoneheart wins Screen Best Pitch Award.

Lithuania was the big winner at this year’s Baltic Event when the awards were handed out during a ceremony in Tallinn’s historical town centre on Tuesday evening.

The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award - with a non-reimbursable subsidy of €20,000 to be used exclusively to cover project development costs - was presented for the first time this year in Tallinn.

A jury consisting of Petri Kemppinen, CEO of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, and Dorien van de Pas, head of New Screen Nl and a consultant for talent development at the Netherlands Film Fund, chose the feature debut project Motherland by American Film Institute graduate Tomas Vengris, the son of Lithuanian immigrants living in the Us

The €950,000 coming of age story will be produced by Uljana Kim’s Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim and already has Locomotive Productions from neighbouring Latvia attached as a co-producer...

Former winners of Screen International’s Best Pitch Award are among the producers with projects at the co-production market during the 14th edition of Tallinn’s Baltic Event (Nov 16-18).Scroll down for full list of projects

Finnish producers Kaarle Aho and Kai Nordberg of Making Movies Oy, who won the Screen award on two occasions (most recently, last year for the comedy Impaled Rektum) will be coming to the Baltic Event with Klaus Harö’s next feature project, the grandfather-grandson drama Dark Christ.

Making Movies is the producer of Harö’s The Fencer, Finland’s submission for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar.

Another of Harö’s feature projects, Never Alone, to be produced by Mrp Productions’ Ilkka Matila, received Screen’s best pitch award in 2011.

Meanwhile, Lithuanian producer Uljana Kim, whose production of Kristijonas Vildziunas’ Seneca’s Day took the award home from the 2013 edition of the Baltic Event, will be back...

It's a heavy Austin film news week, so here are some other news tidbits, courtesy of Mike and Jette.

Right on the heels of Jette's Cinematic Guide to Texas Politics, news hit yesterday that the producers of the Austin-shot film Machete (Jette's review) have filed suit in Travis County District Court against the Texas Film Commission. After being awarded $8 million in incentives to produce the film in Texas, the budget of Robert Rodriguez's film was increased, but the funds were pulled after the commission determined that "inappropriate" content of the film disqualified it from the grant. A sequel to the film, Machete Kills, also filmed in Texas, is opening Fantastic Fest this year. [Ms]Drafthouse Films announced its acquisition of the North American rights to the Danish hit comedy series Klown. The complete 60-episode TV series, which ran from 2005-2009, is now available on Hulu and Hulu Plus, and will be downloadable from www.