Film Forum Sarajevo Looks at How to Boost the Presence of European Films in South-Eastern Europe

Film Forum Sarajevo looks at how to boost the presence of European ﬁlms in south-eastern Europe

The south-eastern European film sector is vital and growing, with remarkable creative talents emerging every year. Five films which have received EU investment are in the competition at this year's Sarajevo Film festival. Meanwhile, a recent report shows that up to 90 percent of cinema admissions in Romania and Bulgaria come from US films. A European Film Forum event will explore how the Creative Europe MEDIA programme can help European films reach audiences in south- eastern Europe.

European Film Forum event

Countries in south-eastern Europe and the Balkans have suffered a significant loss of cinema theatres since the fall of communism. At the moment private companies are building more and more multiplexes in the region, but with little room for European films. The independent sector is still small, but it is vital and growing.

How to help European ﬁlms reach audiences in this region will be one of the main topics of the European Film forum at the Sarajevo Film Festival August 20th to 21st this year. The Sarajevo Film Festival is the most important ﬁlm festival in the region and gathers a growing number of professionals and a large audience.

At the Film Forum event, experts from the region and the rest of Europe will be looking closer at the recent exciting developments in the south-eastern European cinema sector, and on co-production across the borders in a borderless digital world.

A first panel will look at cinema exhibition sector, opportunities and challenges in south-eastern Europe. A second panel deals with coproduction in a world that is becoming ever more borderless with the new cross-border VOD platforms like Netflix. The very notion of territoriality on which the current coproduction system is based, is consequently under pressure. Which legal or financial instruments can public and private bodies which support national film industries use to work together better under the circumstances? This panel is called "Public funding for coproductions: cooperating better across the borders in the borderless digital world". More details on speakers and the venue.

MEDIA-funded ﬁlms in the running

This year, ﬁve ﬁlms which have together received more than €200,000 investment through the Creative Europe MEDIA programme are in the competition:

The High Sun / Zvizdan is about the dangers, but also about the power of forbidden love. The story that spans three decades is set in two neighbouring villages burdened by a long history of conflict, tensions and intolerance. It is directed by Dalibor Matanić and is a Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia production TITITÁ, is a documentary, directed by Tamás Almási which tells the story of Anti, a 19-year-old Roma boy, who loves to play the guitar. He is presented with the opportunity to break out of a rundown Roma slum in a remote corner of Hungary, and travels to the Snétberger Music Talent Center, where he has been selected for his talent, along with sixty other Roma youths. He now has the chance of a better life. The question is whether he can make the most of this golden opportunity? Does he possess the ability to change his seemingly predestined life? Cain's Children / Káin Gyermekei is a documentary looking at three men who all committed murder as children. They passed their entire youth in communist Hungary’s most brutal prison, where they were first filmed. Disturbing archive footage shows them confessing details of their crime, and sharing their plans for the future. Thirty years on, the filmmaker goes out to find them and discovers untold secrets and a Hungary he has never known. Fate, sin, and legacy – seen through the eyes of Cain’s children. It is directed by Marcell Gerőand and is a Hungary, France production Chevalier A group of men is returning from a winter fishing trip on a yacht. When a mechanical problem leaves them trapped on their boat, somewhere in the gulf of Saronikos, they kill their time playing a game they devise, called Chevalier. Chevalier is an entertaining and highly competitive game. No one intends to get off the yacht without being crowned its winner. The film is directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari and is a Greek production Son Of Saul October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the corpse of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child's body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial. Directed by László Nemes. Hungarian production

Background

The Sarajevo Film Festival is supported by Creative Europe MEDIA through the schemes for festival and market support. The European Film Forum is an initiative from the European Commission, designed to create a structured dialogue between the policy makers and the stakeholders in the audiovisual sector. Screen International, a long-term partner of the Forum, is publishing a special report and statistics supplement in connection with the conference.