New Platforms and Master Classes in Transilvania IFF’s Industry Program
Over the last few years, things have changed significantly in terms of industry opportunities at Transilvania IFF. The festival’s 14th edition offers a program for emerging filmmakers, workshops, a pitching session and a think-tank platform, among others.
These programs aim to help local filmmakers and to improve communication in terms of co-production in the area. Master classes open to the participants and to the general public will also take place during Transilvania IFF.
Transilvania Talent Lab (May 31 – June 5), a hands-on educational program for emerging filmmakers, has already reached its fourth edition, selecting eight producers, directors and / or screenwriters from Romania and Moldova to work on their fiction and documentary projects with professionals such as Martina Bleis from the Berlinale Co-Production Market and Sirkka Möller from Dok Leipzig. The filmmakers will work with the tutors to learn how to put their future projects on the right track to international cooperation.
Transilvania Pitch Stop (June 1-6, second edition), a development workshop that wraps up with a pitching session, will help develop five fiction projects: Horses at the King (Raluca Maria Rusu), The Wind-Seeker (Mihai Sofronea), Charlton Heston (Andrei Creţulescu), The Soldiers (Ivana Mladenovic) and 1985 (Bogdan Mureşanu). TPS is organized in partnership with Locarno Industry Days and Connecting Cottbus, with support from Festival Scope. This year's tutors are: Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Heretic - Producer, and Christian Routh, ScriptEast - Head of Studies. The 5 selected projects will be tutored by the two and will go through a preparatory workshop. The public pitch will take place followed by pre-booked 1:1 meetings. Two projects will be awarded and will travel to Locarno for a matchmaking session. The two awards also include, respectively: 2000 euro in cash offered by Transilvania IFF and a participation in the Connecting Cottbus East-West Co-Production Market line-up. This year's TPS jury members are: Roberto Olla (Executive Director, Eurimages), Matthieu Darras (Head of Programmes, Torino Film Lab) and Elin Erichsen (Head of Development, Norwegian Film Institute).
#FEEDback (Film Eastern Europe Dialogue) is a think-tank platform developed in partnership with Connecting Cottbus and When East Meets West co-production markets with support from EAVE – European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs. Its purpose is to enhance cross-border relations and to improve communication between small territories. For this first meeting in Cluj in partnership with Creative Europe MEDIA - Desk Romania, several representatives from national funding bodies, supranational institutions and producers will discuss innovative ways to use the public funding and possibilities on cooperation. To further enhance interest and strengthen the visibility of East-West cooperation, the results of this platform will be presented at the European Film Market at the 2016 Berlinale.
Transilvania IFF also presents within TTL a rich program of master classes with special guests – industry professionals and stars – most of which are also open to the general public. On Thursday, June 4, a Handling Ideas workshop with Paul Tyler is programmed (access for TTL&TPS participants only). Paul Tyler has driven innovation through over 370 projects for more than 65 companies across 15 countries. The Handling Ideas method gives team members a common language of their project’s goal. Also on June 4, script consultant, scriptwriter, producer and visiting lecturer at the National Film and Television School (UK) Clare Downs tackles scriptwriting in Writers’ Hour. New media marketing will be in focus thanks to documentary film producer and director Jon Reiss and his master class Connect with Audiences in the New Digital Landscape, presented by American Film Showcase and moderated by Gosia Kucharska.
On June 5, Eirik Svensson comes to talk to the audience within the NORWAVE* special program. Both of his feature films thus far - Must Have Been Love (2013) and One Night in Oslo (2014) - are part of this year's selection. Romanian director Mircea Daneliuc comes next, in a master class moderated by Festival President Turdor Giurgiu. Daneliuc is considered one of the most important Romanian artists, author of subversive films always based on contemporary reality. The master class is part of a retrospective dedicated to the auteur at this edition of Transilvania IFF. Documentary film director Timothy Wheeler closes the series on June 5, with a master class called Chasing Dreams, presented by American Film Showcase and moderated by producer and director Oana Giurgiu.
"Our intention is to keep it concentrated and to focus our energy and resources on further developing it as the industry one stop shop for talent from Romania and Moldova during Transilvania IFF. The new initiative related to policy-making and regional cooperation is a natural step that we have considered necessary to make in the current digital and European film landscape," said Alex Trăilă, Transilvania IFF's Head of Industry.
*NORWAVE is a project financed by the EEA Grants and Norway Grants, through the Bilateral National Fund, managed through the Romanian Ministry for European Funds and presented in partnership with the Norwegian Film Institute.
