Poland’s U.S. in Progress Event Looks to Open Doors in Europe for Independent American Filmmakers

Christopher Vourlias
·3 min read
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Building a bridge between American independent filmmakers and the European market is the goal of U.S. in Progress, which is hosted each year during the American Film Festival (AFF) in Wrocław, Poland.

The event presents a carefully curated selection of roughly half a dozen American indie titles in the final stages of production to sales agents, distributors and festival programmers. This year’s edition takes place Nov. 9 – 11.

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Along with offering a showcase of those films for European buyers, U.S. in Progress each year invites leading Polish post-production companies to the event, with Fixafilm, Orka Studio, Black Photon, XANF and Soundflower Studio this year each offering a $10,000 in-kind award. That’s alongside a newly added $50,000 cash award being handed out by the Polish Film Institute, to be spent by the winning filmmaker on post-production, image, sound and/or VFX in Poland.

It’s an attempt to underscore some of the opportunities available to U.S. filmmakers in the host country, which offers a 30% cash rebate, and to highlight “the value that we have as an industry in Poland,” according to American Film Festival director Ula Śniegowska.

For American filmmakers dipping a toe into the European market for the first time, she added, simply getting exposure to the European industry presents “a huge perk for every one of the filmmakers.”

“It just broadens their minds,” she said. “These are people who work on their own. They invest so much of their lives and their hearts into those films without any formal form of support that we have here in Europe.”

Recent noteworthy U.S. in Progress alumni include “Jethica” (pictured), by Pete Ohs, which was color graded at Black Photon in Warsaw and premiered at SXSW, and “Quantum Cowboys,” by Geoff Marslett, winner of the Audience Choice Award at the Champs Elysees Film Festival as well as Best Original Music at the Annecy Film Festival for the work of composer Maciej Zielinski, who was introduced to Marslett through the U.S. in Progress event.

Other notable past participants include Amy Seimetz, the director of Neon’s horror movie “She Dies Tomorrow,” whose first feature participated in the event; and Adele Romanski, one of the producers behind Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning “Moonlight.”

There is no entry fee, and films can be submitted through the U.S. in Progress website. The final deadline is Sep. 18.

Ohs, who also participated in U.S. in Progress in 2016 with “Everything Beautiful Is Far Away,” said the event came along at a critical stage in his budding career, describing it as one of the first times he sat across the table from sales agents and other industry professionals, “hearing what it sounds like to be in one of these conversations.”

“There’s all this growth happening from it,” he said, “which I think is one of the really great things about the program for independent filmmakers.”

The American Film Festival takes place Nov. 8 – 13.

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