Kaunas International Film Festival has become the official representative of the European network of film associations NISI MASA in Lithuania. The membership of the Lithuanian festival in this project will open up wide opportunities of international projects and festivals not only for young film artists and critics, but also for film students and other players of the film industry.

“NISI MASA is a European network that involves and gives access for youth to the film industry. NISI MASA activites ranges from film making workshop, script developing, and film criticism workshops. Kaunas IFF participation in the network, will hopefully inspire youth in Lithuania to take part and develop their skills in above mention fields of the film industry. We are looking forward to encourage the future generation in Lithuania to work with film,” Tomas Tengmark, Kaunas Film Festival programme producer commented on the Festival’s joining the NISI MASA network.

The name NISI MASA is a reference to 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini, in which Marcello Mastroianni repeats the phrase “Asa Nisi Masa”. The film, a European cinema classic, and the sentence, an incantation belonging to no specific language, both reflect the cinematic and cross-border spirit of the network.

NISI MASA was founded in 2001 and is financed by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and several French foundations. It unites associations, currently present in 26 countries, with a common cause – European cinema. The network of students, young professionals and film enthusiasts aims to discover new talents, develop cross-cultural audiovisual projects, extend film education and promote new European film. 

Another goal of NISI MASA is to create a platform of discussion and collaboration for young European filmmakers.  The network organises international filmmaking and scriptwriting workshops, holds various cinema-related conferences and seminars, promotes short films, and edits film critique publications produced during various international film festivals.

An international team of young critics and designers formed and trained by NISI MASA publishes a daily film critique magazine Nisimazine at the international film festival in Cannes, Torino, Helsinki, Tehran, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, etc. The magazine covers reviews of films introduced at the festivals and interviews with filmmakers.

Filmmaking workshops organised by NISI MASA’s partners include important international projects of documentaries and art-house movies. During “Cine-train”, young film professionals travel on a train for three weeks making documentaries. The “Visions Of” workshop takes place in various European cities and is aimed at producing cinematographic portraits of the cities. Besides the journalism projects and various workshops, NISI MASA also holds scriptwriting competitions and helps the winners to implement their cinematography ideas.