This year, Latvia is sharing a spotlight with neighboring Lithuania and Estonia at the European Film Market, which has dedicated its 2023 Country in Focus Spotlight to the Baltic nations. It’s a sign of the tremendous strides the country has taken to put itself on the world cinema map, with the screen industries both producing more films and TV series than ever before and luring increasingly ambitious international projects to Northeastern Europe.
Here’s a rundown of some of the top Latvian projects in the pipeline that their producers will be pitching in Berlin:
Blue Blood
Director: Juris Kursietis
Producers: White Picture, Stellar Film, Asterisk*
The follow-up to Kursietis’ Cannes Directors’ Fortnight player “Oleg” is the story of a successful couple whose comfortable life is turned upside-down when the husband is implicated in a massive corruption scandal.
Sales: N/A
Soviet Milk
Director: Ināra Kolmane
Producers: Jānis Juhņēvičs, Marta Romanova-Jēkabsone...
Here’s a rundown of some of the top Latvian projects in the pipeline that their producers will be pitching in Berlin:
Blue Blood
Director: Juris Kursietis
Producers: White Picture, Stellar Film, Asterisk*
The follow-up to Kursietis’ Cannes Directors’ Fortnight player “Oleg” is the story of a successful couple whose comfortable life is turned upside-down when the husband is implicated in a massive corruption scandal.
Sales: N/A
Soviet Milk
Director: Ināra Kolmane
Producers: Jānis Juhņēvičs, Marta Romanova-Jēkabsone...
- 2/17/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
IDFA is one of many festivals to have strong Ukrainian line-up - but can this continue?
While hundreds of filmmakers, sales agents and distributors were descending on Amsterdam for IDFA’s industry event The Forum over the weekend, another documentary festival was taking place far away in war-torn Ukraine.
The Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival was held in Kyiv, lasting only from 11-13 November, with few international guests in attendance and no industry events.
Films screening included Oleksiy Radynski’s Infinity: According To Florian, Pawel Lozinski’s The Balcony and Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere.
The...
While hundreds of filmmakers, sales agents and distributors were descending on Amsterdam for IDFA’s industry event The Forum over the weekend, another documentary festival was taking place far away in war-torn Ukraine.
The Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival was held in Kyiv, lasting only from 11-13 November, with few international guests in attendance and no industry events.
Films screening included Oleksiy Radynski’s Infinity: According To Florian, Pawel Lozinski’s The Balcony and Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere.
The...
- 11/17/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
The journey to the Lido has been longer than most for Ukrainian director Antonio Lukich, whose sophomore feature, “Luxembourg, Luxembourg,” has its world premiere Sep. 7 in the Horizons strand at the Venice Film Festival.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Lukich’s life has been upended. Forced to flee Kyiv at the start of the war, the director spoke to Variety from Sweden, where he’s among four Ukrainian filmmakers who were granted a residency with the support of the Göteborg Film Fund.
It is, he acknowledges, a world removed from the one he left behind. “It’s a great opportunity to develop Ukrainian stories when you cannot develop them right now in Ukraine,” he said.
“Luxembourg, Luxembourg” stars real-life rap duo Ramil and Amil Nasirov as twin brothers who grow up in the shadow of their missing father, a small-time crook who vanishes one day without a trace.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Lukich’s life has been upended. Forced to flee Kyiv at the start of the war, the director spoke to Variety from Sweden, where he’s among four Ukrainian filmmakers who were granted a residency with the support of the Göteborg Film Fund.
It is, he acknowledges, a world removed from the one he left behind. “It’s a great opportunity to develop Ukrainian stories when you cannot develop them right now in Ukraine,” he said.
“Luxembourg, Luxembourg” stars real-life rap duo Ramil and Amil Nasirov as twin brothers who grow up in the shadow of their missing father, a small-time crook who vanishes one day without a trace.
- 9/6/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Butterfly Vision (completed)
Director: Maksym Nakonechnyi
Producers: Darya Bassel, Yelizaveta Smith
Production: Tabor Productions, 4 Film, Masterfilm, Sisyfos
Sales: Wild Bunch
Lilia, held as a prisoner of war for months, finally returns home. But she is struggling to resume her life as a soldier and wife, while discovering she is pregnant.
Chrysanthemum Day
Director: Simon Mozgovyi
Producers: Alex Chepiga, Artem Koliubaiev
Production: Mainstream Pictures
Young doctor encounters an old woman, known as a healer, who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion. But she loses her memory and identity along the way.
Company of Steel (documentary)
Director: Yuliia Hontaruk
Producers: Yuliia Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Igor Savychenko
Production: Babylon’13, Directory Films
Three veterans return home and try to understand how to live as civilians. The film is an attempt to feel and see the world through the eyes of people who went through war.
Demons
Director: Natalya Vorozhbyt
Producers: Dmytro Minzianov,...
Director: Maksym Nakonechnyi
Producers: Darya Bassel, Yelizaveta Smith
Production: Tabor Productions, 4 Film, Masterfilm, Sisyfos
Sales: Wild Bunch
Lilia, held as a prisoner of war for months, finally returns home. But she is struggling to resume her life as a soldier and wife, while discovering she is pregnant.
Chrysanthemum Day
Director: Simon Mozgovyi
Producers: Alex Chepiga, Artem Koliubaiev
Production: Mainstream Pictures
Young doctor encounters an old woman, known as a healer, who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion. But she loses her memory and identity along the way.
Company of Steel (documentary)
Director: Yuliia Hontaruk
Producers: Yuliia Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Igor Savychenko
Production: Babylon’13, Directory Films
Three veterans return home and try to understand how to live as civilians. The film is an attempt to feel and see the world through the eyes of people who went through war.
Demons
Director: Natalya Vorozhbyt
Producers: Dmytro Minzianov,...
- 5/20/2022
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Ukrainian Films Now aims to provide financial and practical support to the Ukrainian industry.
Film funds from France, Germany and Italy are among 12 organisations uniting for Ukrainian Films Now, a fundraising and networking event at Cannes in support of Ukrainian films in post-production.
The event will take place as part of the Marche du Film’s official programme, with the nine Ukrainian works-in-progress presented on May 22 to an audience of industry professionals.
The aim is to connect the Ukrainian film teams with potential European producers and partners. A cash prize of €30,000 will be awarded to one of the nine films,...
Film funds from France, Germany and Italy are among 12 organisations uniting for Ukrainian Films Now, a fundraising and networking event at Cannes in support of Ukrainian films in post-production.
The event will take place as part of the Marche du Film’s official programme, with the nine Ukrainian works-in-progress presented on May 22 to an audience of industry professionals.
The aim is to connect the Ukrainian film teams with potential European producers and partners. A cash prize of €30,000 will be awarded to one of the nine films,...
- 5/11/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The Cannes Film Marché has unveiled the full lineup of its Ukraine in Focus program which will provide Ukrainian filmmakers and producers with networking, pitching and co-financing opportunities over two days during the Cannes Film Festival, on May 21 and 22.
Under the program, key market initiatives such as Goes to Cannes, Cannes Docs Showcase and the Producers Network will be skewed towards projects and executives from Ukraine in order to support the country which was invaded by Russia on Feb. 24 and has been at war since then. Deadline first reported the news that Cannes was planning a focus on Ukraine program.
The Producers’ Network, organized in collaboration with the Ukrainian Institute, will include six producers, including Denis Ivanov from Arthouse Traffic, Darya Bassel from Moon Man, Natalia Libet from Digital Religion, Sashko Chubko from Pronto Film, Olga Beskhmelnytsina from Esse Production House and Vladimir Yatsenko from ForeFilms.
Docs in Progress, presented...
Under the program, key market initiatives such as Goes to Cannes, Cannes Docs Showcase and the Producers Network will be skewed towards projects and executives from Ukraine in order to support the country which was invaded by Russia on Feb. 24 and has been at war since then. Deadline first reported the news that Cannes was planning a focus on Ukraine program.
The Producers’ Network, organized in collaboration with the Ukrainian Institute, will include six producers, including Denis Ivanov from Arthouse Traffic, Darya Bassel from Moon Man, Natalia Libet from Digital Religion, Sashko Chubko from Pronto Film, Olga Beskhmelnytsina from Esse Production House and Vladimir Yatsenko from ForeFilms.
Docs in Progress, presented...
- 4/13/2022
- by Patrick Frater and Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
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