Running from 17 to 20 July the Film Industry Office, the industry section of the 9^th Odesa International Film Festival, organizes events for film professionals. Aiming to support and develop the Ukrainian film industry and to promote internationally the Ukrainian cinema. Among other sections, are included: a Pitching competition and Work in Progress section, a number of presentations and panel discussions, the ScriptEast Series Pitching session, and the Actor’s Workshop.

An overview of the 2018 Film Industry Office schedule:

July 17 - The second networking event of film commissions with the topic “Cinema for tourism, cinema about tourism, tourism for cinema” will be held. Also, the third day of the educational program Actor’s Workshop, supervised by actor and filmmaker Ivan Shvedoff will be running. You can find out more about the program and the 14 Ukrainian actors and actresses have been selected at our previous announcement.

July 18 - Art gallery “Invogue” holds a conference “Gender Equality – Myth and Reality”. The event will be moderated by Tamara Tatishvili, Georgian Representative to Eurimages and European Film Promotion. It will be followed up by an industry debate where gender equality issues in cinema will be explored, participating Viktoria Tigipko, the president of OIFF, founder of TA Ventures, Julia Sinkevych, general producer of OIFF, Ewa Puszczynska, Polish producer and Oscar laureate, Jaroslava Kravchenko, founder of Wild theatre, and others. Also, Odesa film studio conducts the presentation “Eurimages – cultural support fund of the Council of Europe. How does it work?” and a seminar ‘Film festivals between civil society values and politics” supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.

On the same day, writers, directors and showrunners will pitch their TV Drama series that participate at Odesa IFF ScripTeast Series Projects session. The competition is organized by Odesa International Film Festival, supported by Star Media, the biggest international film company of Ukraine and ScriptTeast European master training program for scriptwriters of the Eastern Europe, organized by Independent film foundation. The best pitch will be awarded with a post-production service package worth $20,000 and provided by Star Media.

July 19 – On the third day of the Film Industry Office, the Pitching session will be held. Ten Ukrainian and co-produced with Ukraine feature film projects on the pre-production stage will compete for a prize of UAH 60,000 from the Odesa International Film Festival while one project will be presented out of competition.

There will also be a number of presentations. Starting with the program "School of film Agents" (SOFA); following up with a panel to present the European co-production platforms (Berlinale Co-Production Market, IFFR Cinemart, Baltic Event, When East Meets West, Connecting Cottbus); and closing with Dentons presentation on legal standards for co-production.

July 20 – The fourth day will be dedicated to the Work in Progress session, a presentation of the completed feature-length films by their producers and directors to be distributed in 2018-2019. For this edition 11 feature film projects have been selected to compete, and one is out-of-competition. All the projects are in the final stage of shooting or in post-production and are produced in Ukraine or in co-production with Ukraine. The best project will be awarded with the main prize: plane tickets worth €2,000 by the number one airline in Ukraine – the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), the exclusive airline of the Odesa International Film Festival. The second prize is sponsored by the official fuel partner WOG.

Also, the Polish-Ukrainian co-production meeting will be held with the support of the Polish Film Institute and Open Poland program and a panel discussion on "New Financial Opportunities in Ukraine". Closing the industry section program, the best projects of ScripTeast Series Projects, Pitching and Work in progress of the Film Industry Office will be announced and awarded.

The complete program of the professional section can be found on the official site of OIFF.