The second edition of the Balkan Film Market[BFM] will take place in Tirana, from October 3rd to 7th.
The event brings together audio-visual professionals from European and Balkan countries to share stories, foster professional relations and strengthen the marketing efforts of local productions.
BFM’s ultimate goal is to boost co-production and distribution in this rich and diverse region with so much yet untapped potential.
The project is backed by the Albanian National Center of Cinematography and, explains the president, Ilir Butka, “is organized with the support of EURIMAGES, together with MiBACT (Italian Ministry of Culture and Tourism) and ANICA (Italian Association of Cinema Professionals), who understood the importance of this initiative from the beginning, given that Italy is our natural partner. This edition, in addition to the Italian Embassy and the Italian Institute of Culture in Tirana features the partnership and support of the ICE (Italian Trade Agency), which is helping us a lot with the network of Italian agencies operating in Albania, like the Italian Agency For Cooperation And Development (Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione e lo Sviluppo). Our partners also include regional institutions, like the Apulia Film Commission and the Roma Lazio Film Commission who launched the Balkan Days with us during the last Berlinale.”
The first Balkan Days meeting was held at the Cannes Film Festival. The second will take place during BFM and will then be replicated at MIAin Rome.
“We are hard at work turning BFM into a regional hub and a cross-Adriatic bridge that facilitates the flow of production and distribution in both ways” explains the market’s director Andamion Murataj, who also underlines the links with Italy. “Among the projects selected for Pitch Balkans the new project co-produced by Andrea Magnani(“Drajcici, a village at the edge of Europe” by Otto Lazic-Reuschel) who, after the David di Donatello nomination in 2018, is again producing in partnership with the Balkans (Croatia). We will also have the directorial debut of Romanian Andreea Valean who penned the Palme d’Or short film “Traffic”.
New this year is the collaborationwith European Film Promotion which saw the Balkan film Market send invitations to alumni of the Producers on the Move program who are interested in working in and with talent from the region.
The market will also host the General Assembly of the South Eastern Europe (SEE) Cinema Network during which the 18 projects applying from 8 countries will be discussed, 8 of which will win the Network’s development support. There will be a panel on environmental cinema that deals with filming in protected natural sites and a presentation event for Matera Capital of Culture 2019 related to cinema.