International industry attendees have praised the European Genre Forum as a highlight of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (POFF), which closed its 27th edition on Sunday, November 19.
The Forum is a pan-European development event organised with Imagine Fantastic Film Festival in the Netherlands and Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival, that closes its three-lab structure with a marketing and packaging lab in Tallinn.
As head of Montreal-based distributor Attraction Distribution, Xiaojuan Zhou travelled further than most to Estonia, finding the trip worthwhile. “The quality of the pitches was quite high; the teams were passionate and experienced,” said Zhou.
She was echoed by Justyna Koronkiewicz, founder of Berlin-based sales agency MediaMove. “The most interesting projects were pitched during the Forum,” said Koronkiewicz, who said she had heard the same from fellow attendees. “The room during those pitches was absolutely packed – some people didn’t make it in! It seems like high time to give these pitches a place at a cinema, and not in a hotel room. As well as the most interesting and best thought-out, I thought the projects there were the best pitched.”
Sean McConville, director and producer at UK production company Frenzy Films, attended the Forum two years ago with werewolf horror The Last Wolf, which is now on schedule to shoot in April-May 2024. “We love to see a light being shone on genre projects at A-list festivals. This year again, the pitches were of a high calibre,” said McConville, who picked out Yfke van Berckelaer’s Netherlands magical realism title The Girl With The Green Eyes as a favourite of himself and his producing partner Stephanie Joalland.
In the Baltic Event co-production market, multiple attendees highlighted Hannes Vartiainen and Joonas Berghall’s Finnish project The Elf, a festive family feature which is currently at script stage. “They managed to hit the holy grail of making a commercial project, with the potential to sell in every territory around the world; all whilst still crafting a unique and touching story that attracted support from national film institutions,” said Richard Kondal, co-founder and director at UK-based financier Creativity Capital, and a regular POFF attendee. “In today’s market seeing filmmakers producing meaningful IP that they retain ownership in such as this, should be championed and an example to all other producers.”
“As a big Christmas geek, I am excited to see that film,” said Jarod Neece, senior programmer at Tribeca Film Festival and a member of the co-production jury that awarded The Elf the best Baltic project award on Friday.
“The Elf is very promising – it leaves the beaten paths of Christmas movies, but still delivers a heartfelt and imaginative Christmas fairytale for younger children and older audiences,” added Martin Scheider, international sales & acquisitions coordinator at Germany’s GlobalScreen.
Denis Krupnov, co-founder and co-managing director of UK sales company Reason8 Films, attended POFF with Nicholas Parish’s The Old Man And The Land in Critics’ Picks; but had time to catch Work in Progress projects. He highlighted Philippe Prouff’s road movie Truth Or Consequences as “a French movie that doesn’t look like a French movie, shot using virtual production and exploring the theme of fakeness”; with Ida Storm, marketing manager at Denmark’s ReInvent, also crediting it as “a very original and interesting piece of French modern cinema.”
Festival hits
From the festival programme, Aylin Tezel’s Scotland-set romance Falling Into Place in the First Feature Competition caught the eye of several attendees. “It’s a beautifully crafted romantic drama,” said New York-based Estonian composer Jonas Tarm. “When I saw it the theatre was full, with some audience members seeing it more than once. I think it will continue to do very well.”
“As a Scottish filmmaker who lives on an island I’m always interested to see how other people choose to represent our island communities and topographies,” said Alasdair Satchel. “It’s a tale that many of us have lived before, that will connect very strongly with audiences all over the world. Considering that the central actor also wrote and directed the film, there’s very little ego – it feels like a really team-made effort.” Global Screen handles sales on the title, which had its world premiere at Filmfest Hamburg.
Juan Castro, CEO at Netherlands-based distributor Latin Quarter, said that Edgar de Luque Jacome’s First Feature title The Fisherman’s Daughter will appeal to his audience looking for Latinx and Spanish-language films; while Frank L. Stavik, managing director of Norway’s Fidalgo Films Distribution, described it as “an excellent festival film with a fascinating mix of elements.”
International relations
Pre-festival, POFF founder Tiina Lokk and industry head Marge Liiske told Screen how the Tallinn aims to make up for its limited budget by remaining “warm and welcoming” – which resonated with many guests this year. “The festival and market’s friendliness and level of hospitality are unparalleled,” said McConville, while Neece credited “how the festival has grown but maintained its identity and overall vibe.”
With international conflicts ongoing in both Europe and the Middle East, several attendees highlighted the festival’s efforts to bridge such divides. “Despite the terrible war in Ukraine, Central and Eastern European producers and broadcasters seem to be rather upbeat and keen to tell their stories,” said Jeffrey Haverkamp, director of international content partnerships at Germany’s ZDF Studios. “It is a well-organised, good-natured festival where you can have very good, focused meetings.”
“I found many Ukrainian narrative works-in-progress are redefining how to share meaningful human stories during the realities of war,” added Tarm, highlighting Ukraine-UK co-production Mother about a Ukrainian who returns from the UK to his homeland to save his mother once the war begins. “While it seems much of the world is experiencing war narrative fatigue, the Ukrainian filmmakers I met had great awareness of impactful storytelling at a global scale.”
French-Moroccan producer Caroline Locardi of A2L Production Films attended the festival with Abdelhai Laraki’s Critics’ Picks title Fez Summer ’55, one of few films from the Arabic world at POFF. “In this tragic period of conflict in the Middle East, some festivals have had to cancel or postpone their editions. A festival like Tallinn is all the more important today for discovering auteur works, and proposing a world cinema based on human rights and acceptance of the other,” said Locardi.
She noted she and her North African team spent one breakfast at the festival with a team of Israeli filmmakers, where they shared an “invaluable” discussion about the situation in Gaza. “The magic of Tiina Lokk’s festival lies in the fact that all the guests live in the same place – they eat, gather, swim and take a sauna together every day.”
No comments yet