Daring, Caring & Youthful

Tallinn

Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF)

is Northern Europe’s most significant and only A-class film event. In 2023, the festival will take place one week earlier than usual – 3–19 November. The festival’s industry strand, Industry@ Tallinn & Baltic Event, will run from 13–17 November.

By the upcoming 27th edition, PÖFF has blazed the trail for Nordic film festivals into the A-category world. The festival represents itself as “The Wildest Film Festival in Northern Europe”, but with its easy-going formalities, daring attitude, and eternally young collective - why not worldwide? By now, the festival has five competitive sections: Official Selection, First Feature, Rebels with a Cause, Baltic Competition and freshly introduced Critics’ Picks. The submissions are open until 24 August 2023.

Fantastic Black Nights Of 2023

For the first time at Marché du Film, PÖFF participates in Fantastic 7 – an initiative connecting seven top-notch genre film festivals. Each festival presents one project from their industry programme in the fantasy genre. PÖFF showcases Restore Point, a Czech film by Robert Hloz.

The head of Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, Marge Liiske, says: “We are honoured to be invited among seven utterly fantastic festivals, and happy to present a promising film that got the sales deal with XYZ films. We hope to continue this experience, and our future plans foresee involving projects from the European Genre Forum - the only genre film projects training program in Europe run in joint forces by us, Amsterdam Imagine Fantastic Film Festival, and Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival.”

PÖFF’s participation in the fantasy genre initiative is not accidental - fantasy/horror stories are an eternal part of the dark Estonian winters, and have a well-deserved place in Estonian film. Just before Cannes, the satellite festival of PÖFF – Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival (HÕFF), wrapped up its 18th edition. HÕFF is a part of Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF), and coincides with Walpurgis Night, a traditional pagan holiday in Northern Europe, adding a fantastic ambience to the event. The head of HÕFF, Helmut Jänes, is a true-head horror, fantasy, and Sci-Fi fan who also curates the Midnight Shivers programme at PÖFF. “Through the decades, people have been wishing to escape from reality. Fantasy is the oldest film genre, and maybe that’s why the uncertain borders of reality have a special place in our heads,” said Jänes.

Slovenia, and North Macedonia. Festival director Tiina Lokk explains the choice: “In Estonia and overall Northern Europe, Balkan cinema has been rather undiscovered. To give historical schooling, we also show films from the Yugoslavian Black Wave from the 60s-70s, besides contemporary cinema”.

NEXT FOCUS: SERBIA WITH FRIENDS

Each PÖFF has its own focus country that is substantially represented in all the competitions, side programmes, and industry sections. This year, the approach is quite new: the focus is on Serbia and its trusted partners: Croatia,

Miroljub Vučković, the Head of International Relations & Promotion at Film Center Serbia, says: “In addition to being the only south-eastern European country selected for the Cannes programme, it’s a nice acknowledgement from Tallinn to present Serbia as PÖFF focus country in 2023.” The mentioned selected title is Lost Country - the second feature by Vladimir Perisic, competing in the Semaine de la Critique programme at Cannes. Vučković adds: “The co-produc- tion of Lost Country is multilateral. Co-production is our destiny, credo and reality, but also intentional choice. The focus countries share a common destiny, and even in turbulent times, filmmakers find a way to work together”.

Black Nights Goes To Cannes

The selected projects include up-andcoming fiction projects worldwide, from the Baltics to South America. The program curator Triin Tramberg explains: “This is our third year PÖFF Goes to Cannes, and this selection is becoming more like the face of our Works In Progress in November. Presenting fresh regional and international titles together with projects that participated in our market during the development phase, we feel there is something for each taste”.

The five projects included are Autumn by Antonio Sequeira, Broken by Facundo Escudero Salinas, Five and a Half Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius by Tomas Vengris, One-Dimensional Man by Andres Puustusmaa and Two Sisters by Lukasz Karwowski.

New Competition Line For The Youngest Filmmakers At Just Film

For the first time at PÖFF, young people worldwide are welcome to submit their films to the #youngfilmmaker international competition programme at Just Film Festival, the sub-festival of Tallinn Black Nights dedicated exclusively for youth and children’s films. The #youngfilmmaker was introduced in 2021 aiming to bring short films by Estonian young people to the big screen. Accompanied by a massive success, Just Film opens the door to all young film enthusiasts around the world aged 7–19 years. Just Film programme director Mikk Granström: “Just Film is a global meeting place for young filmmakers and a world-class youth film festival. You always have to dream and think big. Thus, we are taking the #youngfilmmaker programme to the international arena, for school children all over the world to apply to an A-category youth festival and be part of our events.” Moreover the first-ever Just Film Industry Days (14.–15.11.2023) with talks, workshops and works in progress for children and youth projects will take place during the Industry@Tallinn and Baltic Event. One of the most significant and constantly growing events in Northern Europe for the audiovisual sector, welcoming film professionals to Tallinn for five days full of meetings, projects presentations, masterclasses and workshops, conferences, talent labs and networking opportunities. In 2022, the summit hosted 760 guests from 48 countries, and presented 69 projects.

As always, ITBE takes a close look at the hottest topics and trends in the film industry. In 2023, the main focus will be AI and its impact. In addition to the co-production and co-financing markets for projects and engaging panel discussions with leading experts, the conference programme includes TV Beats Forum focusing on the series market, and Industry Innovation Forum Tallinn replacing the annual European Film Forum.

Emerging film professionals are invited to join the revamped Black Nights Discovery Campus. It is launching a set of masterclasses for young DOPs, whilst the Music Meets Film takes the form of a training program for composers. The programme also includes designated workshops and masterclasses for emerging actors (Black Nights Stars), for up-andcoming directors, scriptwriters and producers (Script Pool), and Black Room exploring the visual language of cinema. EF

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Connect with like-minded film professionals and stay up-to-date on industry developments.

Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity!

Just Film Industry Days is part of Industry@ Tallinn & Baltic Event 13.11–17.11.2023

For project submission, accreditation etc. check for updates on industry.po .ee or scan: