Karlovy Vary Film Festival Workshops Offer Launching Pad for New Filmmakers
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Spa town Karlovy Vary is known for more than healing waters to emerging filmmakers and producers from Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Those on track to reach global audiences are well acquainted with the festival’s industry section, headlined by the Eastern Promises collection of development and marketing workshops and mentorship programs.
Aside from packed panels and talks by international veterans, such as the masterclass by indie mogul Christine Vachon of Killer Films, one of the industry program’s most buzzworthy events is the regionally focused Midpoint Institute Feature Launch.
More from Variety
This year-round training platform took off more than a decade ago to support emerging talents by helping them to integrate their projects into the marketplace. It provides them with international collaboration and networking opportunities which, as Sona Morgenthalova, Feature Launch program coordinator for Midpoint, says, have proven highly effective.
“The numbers say it all,” she notes. “Thanks to such connection with the industry, more projects are making it yearly not just into production but also to the A-list festivals.”
Midpoint’s Feature Launch, she explains, is designed for teams of directors, writers and producers who are developing their first or second feature films. “It places a strong emphasis on script development consultancy and also covers project development, financing strategies, pitching skills, packaging, marketing and distribution strategies, as well as the legal aspects of co-productions.”
“There are many unheard new voices among the filmmakers’ community, and Midpoint Institute’s mission is simple — help them be heard,” Morgenthalova says.
The industry events, which attract over 1,300 distributors, sales agents, producers and festival programmers, according to the section’s director, Hugo Rosak, bring in both European and non-European local distributors and major international sales reps hungry for new voices.
And, with the recent scaling back of major international players’ projects in the region, there are more opportunities than ever for up-and-comers, says Rosak.
One event geared toward the international indie filmmaking community returning to Karlovy Vary is First Cut+, a workshop launched by Tatino Films in 2020 in Trieste with Ukrainian producer Natalia Libet at the helm. First Cut+ takes place twice a year, with one winter session in Trieste and one summer session in Karlovy Vary, says founder Matthieu Darras. “Eight feature films are selected for each session, so 56 films have already taken part in the program since its launch,” he says.
Tatino Films identifies promising feature films that were previously workshopped through First Cut Labs when at the editing stage. Then, during First Cut+, projects receive “tailor-made consultancy in the fields of international promotion and marketing, and Karlovy Vary provides an excellent platform where our participants can promote their films to sales folk, festival programmers, etcetera.”
Because the First Cut+ selection is open to films from everywhere in the world, it’s complementary to the festival’s Works in Progress program, which has a regional focus, Darras says. “Films from last year’s First Cut+ at Karlovy Vary have gone on to premiere in Venice, Toronto, San Sebastián and Busan,” Darras adds, “and we expect to have similar successes this year.”
The program must be doing something right: Films that have advanced through First Cut+, such as Ana Rocha de Sousa’s U.K.-set immigrant family story “Listen” and Romanian institutional life tale “Immaculate” by Monica Stan and George Chiper-Lillemark, have gone on to the score best debut honors at Venice while others have made waves at Berlinale and Cannes.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
