Editor

Black Market and Baltic Event provides important industry focus for the 14th Black Nights Film Festival

The 14th Black Nights Film Festival will once again prove to be an important meeting point for industry professionals from across the world interested in discovering the very best projects coming out of North Eastern Europe with the Black Market (for films and projects for North East Europe) and Baltic Event (concentrating on films and projects from the Baltic regions). With the chance for those in the film industry to network (with more than 300 accredited film professionals from 34 countries at the 2009 events alone) and see some of the latest films from one of the most exciting filmmaking regions in the world, it is the biggest film and co-production market in the region


Black Market Industry Screenings (which runs from 1st-4th December) and the Baltic Event Screenings (showcasing films from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania between 1st and 2nd December) will introduce 16 new works from the Baltic regions, Finland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Baltics, Russia, Central-Asia and South-Caucus. Filmmakers from these regions will be on hand to present their new films and works-in-progress whilst distributors will present their own line-ups.

In addition, on December 1st, a new business platform Black Market Online will be launched to support the event. A business-to-business environment, the Black Market Online will allow film professionals to watch films online and access additional information including film industry contacts, country overviews about film industries, new coming-soon and lineups and new films from the North East European regions.

This year’s special focus will be on Russian cinema as a special roundtable called Industry Day will be held on December 1st to discuss co-production, financing and film distribution issues in contemporary Russia. Some of the most important figures in the Russian film industry will be in attendance including Dimitry Rudovsky from Art Pictures Group/Art Pictures Media, Dimitri Meskhiev a chief producer from Russian World Studios and Sergei Selyanov from CTB Film Company amongst many others. This will be a golden opportunity to access the top players in one of the most vital film territories in the world

On December 2nd, the Literary Rights Market Books To Films will promote literature for film adaption from the Baltic and Nordic countries, Russia and Eastern Europe. There will be 12 selected books presented whilst the event will be accompanied by lectures on intellectual property rights: please see notes at the end for the full list of titles presented.

The Baltic Event Co-production market will present 12 highlighted projects from the Baltic countries, Scandinavia, Central - Eastern Europe and Russia whilst the new initiative Baltic Event for East will see the presentation of 4 projects from Ukraine and Russia.

The Head of Black Market Tiina Lokk said:
“It’s exciting to welcome so many important figures from the film industry from North East Europe and beyond for the Black Market and Baltic Event. The region is one of the most important and vital hubs for filmmaking and the events are providing a crucial focus for discussion whilst giving the opportunity for important deals and contacts to be made,”

For more information on the Black Market go to http://market.poff.ee/est and for the Baltic Event go to http://be.poff.ee/index.html

The full Black Nights Film Festival programme is now available at www.poff.ee.