Programme announced for Baltic Pitching Forum 2021

Industry professionals invited to open lectures on subjects such as film sales and festival programming.

Taking place for the ninth time in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the Baltic Pitching Forum (BPF) will run from October 7-9 2021. The three day programme dedicated to shining a light on the newest filmmaking talents from Baltic and Nordic countries will feature a wealth of events for both those participating in the BPF on-site as well as for industry professionals across the world with part of the program being open and available online for those who are pre-registered. The registration form can be found HERE.

The BPF is centred on the short film pitching sessions on October 8th in which three projects each from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia alongside three from guest country Sweden will be pitched to a panel of Industry professionals alongside the Baltic Producers’ Jury.  The full list of projects can be found at https://bpf.lt/bpf-2021/projects/.

On October 7th, pitching expert Gabriele Brunnenmeyer will coach the selected BPF participants how to present their project in her lecture Go Out and Pitch! The lecture will focus on how to discover the most interesting elements for your pitch, how to put the relevant information together and how to share your creativity with a professional audience.

This year’s BPF Panel will consist of Massimo D’orzi (director, writer and producer, representative of Torino Short Film Market, Italy), Laurent Crouzeix (coordinator of Euro Connection, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Market, France), Ben Vandendaele (producer, sales agent and distributor, founder of Bekke Films and Radiator IP Sales, Belgium), Emilie Dubois (producer, Insolence Productions, France) and Sari Volanen (TV commissioning editor at Yle TV, Finland).

They will award two projects (originating from the Baltic States) with participant rights to the European Short Film Co-production Forum Euro Connection (part of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival) and the Torino Short Film Market’s pitching session You Only Pitch Twice.

The Baltic Producers Jury will include Andreas Kask (producer, Head of Film Development department at Nafta Films, Estonia), Ieva Ūbele (producer, founder of Baltic Balkan Productions, Latvia) and Marija Razgutė (producer, founder of M-Films, Lithuania). They will select the Best Short Film Project and award it with Baltic Producers MEDIA Award –  a 1000 EUR cash prize, initiated by the Creative Europe offices in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

On October 9th, Austėja Milvydaitė, the Head of MEDIA Office at Creative Europe Desk Lithuania, will talk about new Creative Europe programme opportunities for culture and creative sectors in Europe and give a short overview of the new structure of MEDIA strand and present its clusters in her lecture MEDIA 2021-2027: What’s in there for shorts?

2021 BPF panellist Ben Vandendaele will provide a focus on the mechanism of Short Film Sales and Distribution and try to touch on all aspects of what a sales agent and a distributor can do for the success of a film. It will include case studies of his previously represented films that have been selected and awarded at multiple international film festivals, including Berlinale, Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Sundance, SXSW, Locarno and Venice.

In the panel event Anatomy of Festival Programming – the Nordic and Baltic Landscape representatives of key international short film festivals from the Nordic and Baltic regions will share vital information on how the programme comes together at their respective events.

The speakers will include Per Fikse from Minimalen Short Film Festival (Norway), Sigrid Hadenius from Uppsala Short Film Festival (Sweden), Jukka-Pekka Laakso from Tampere Film Festival (Finland), Laurence Boyce from PÖFF Shorts (Estonia) and Rimante Daugelaite from Vilnius International Short Film Festival (Lithuania). This event is organized in collaboration with Nordic-Baltic Shorts Network.

Finally, for those on-site, shorts from BPF Alumni will be screened together with a Q&A session. The program will show 5 short films: the BPF 2016 winning Riga’s Lilac (dir. Lizete Upīte, prod. Richard Van Den Boom, Sabine Andersone, Latvia), the Estonian film Ice (dir. Anna Hints, prod. Eero Talvistu), BPF 2015 pitch winner By the Pool (dir. Laurynas Bareiša, prod. Klementina Remeikaitė, Lithuania), animation Snow Shelter (dir. Robertas Nevecka, prod. Giedrė Burokaitė, Lithuania) and the Latvian fiction Castratus the Boar (dir. and prod. Raitis Ābele, Lauris Ābele, prod. Thom Palmen).

The Baltic Pitching Forum will take place on October 7-9 at the National Gallery of Art (Konstitucijos pr. 22 Vilnius) and online. Attending is free of charge but pre-registration is required. More about the program – here.

The Baltic Pitching Forum is organised by Lithuanian Short Film Agency “Lithuanian Shorts” in partnership with Riga International Film Festival, Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS, PÖFF Shorts (Tallinn International Film Festival Black Nights) and Estonian Short Film Center ShortEst. It is supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Film Center, Sweden-Lithuania Cooperation Fund and Audiovisual Works Copyright Association “AVAKA”, Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture. Partners – Nordisk Panorama Market, Uppsala Short Film Festival, Swedish Film Institute, Creative Europe Desk MEDIA Offices in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.