Thessaloniki International Film Festival΄s
Agora Industry (November 7-14) is an industry event offering various networking opportunities for the global film industry in an informal, welcoming and professional atmosphere. All industry activities focus on the countries of Central Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean.
The Agora Film Market with a Digital Video Library promotes the majority of the films included in the Festival’s official program selection. This year the Digital Video Library includes 226 films from all over the world, available for viewing by the professionals who participate in the Agora Industry (producers, distributors, broadcasters, sales agents and consultants), as well as the Greek and international press representatives.
(®Trypsani Fani/Motionteam)
The
Crossroads Co-Production Forum (November 10-13), headed by
Marie-Pierre Macia, has selected 14 projects this year, based on the quality of the script, the creative team and the likelihood of it being produced. All selected projects are either produced or co-produced by a country in South-eastern and Central Europe or the Mediterranean area, or contain story elements linked to these regions. The selected projects come from the following countries: Albania, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.
The producers of these 14 projects will be introduced to a variety of industry professionals from all over the world. The program is varied and provides opportunities to meet other producers, distributors, broadcasters, sales agents and consultants. Crossroads’ goal is to support the producers of feature-length film projects that are linked to the Mediterranean and Balkan regions in finding the right partners to finance and accomplish their projects. Crossroads is supported by the
MEDIA Creative Europe program.
The Crossroads Awards are:
The Greek post-production house
Two Thirty Five (2|35 Inc) offers the main prize of a co-production award (image and sound post) to the winning project
CNC offers 10.000 euro for project development
The
Producer’s Network of the Cannes Film Festival offers a free accreditation for the Producer’s Network in the Cannes Film Festival 2016
Sofia Meetings of the Sofia IFF will select one project to be presented in March at the Sofia Meetings 2016
The Mediterranean Film Institute
Script 2 Film Workshops offers a scholarship for its next round of Script 2 Film Workshops to one of the projects
Initiative Film, a script-development consultancy firm in France, offers its services to one of the projects
CINEMED will include at least one Greek project in the
Development Grant selection according to its state of development and follow the films from
Crossroads and
Works in Progress in regards to its program selection
This year’s projects are:
The River by Haris Raftoyiannis, Production:
Eleni Kossyfidou (Blackbird Production), Greece
The Seam Line by Nir Sa΄ar, Production: Amir Harel & Ayelet Kait (Lama Films), Israel
Tide Director / Production: Hussen Ibraheem, Lebanon
Usud by Stefan Malesevic, Production: Vladimir Vasiljevic, (EED// Productions), Serbia/Bosnia-Herzegovina, In collaboration with
MFI SCRIPT 2 FILM of the Mediterranean Film Institute
The Agora Works in Progress (November 12) are closed sessions for Thessaloniki’s invited industry professionals, presented to sales agents, distributors, producers and festival representatives. 10 films have been selected from Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Palestine, Romania Serbia, Spain and Sweden.
Graal S.A. will provide the winning film of the Works in Progress section with a co-production award of post–production services.
The 2015 Agora Works in Progress Jury consists of Christos Behtsis, distributor from Seven Films (Greece), Maren Kroymann, sales agent,
M-appeal (Germany) and Fabienne Hanclot, festival programmer, Cannes Film Festival-ACID, (France).
This year’s films are:
Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim by Sherif El Bendary, Production: Hossam Elouan (Transit Films), Co-producer: Film Clinic, Egypt
The Black Pin Director/Producer: Ivan Marinović (Adriatic Western), Montenegro/Serbia
The City with No Compass by Antonio Savinelli, Producers: Antonio Savinelli, Ismael García Lopez, Spain
Fellini by
Karolos Zonaras, Production: Katia Leclerc (Zonaras Productions), Greece, Fellini participated in the Crossroads Co-production Forum in 2013.
Hristo Directors/Producers: Grigor Lefterov, Todor Matsanov (Lema Film), Co-producers: Idea Cinema, Bulgaria/Italy
Land of the Little People by Yaniv Berman, Production: Tony Copti (Fresco Film), Israel/Palestine, Out of Competition
That Trip We Took With Dad (working title) by Anca Miruna Lazarescu, Production: David Lindner Leporda (FILMALLEE GMBH), Co-producers:
Strada Films, Mirage Films, Chimney, Bayerischer Rundfunk/Arte, Germany/Romania/Hungary/Sweden, That Trip We Took With Dad won the Balkan Fund Script Development Award in 2010
Voevoda Director/Producer:
Sofia Zornitsa, Production: MQ Pictures, Bulgaria
