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This year, Latvia is sharing a spotlight with neighboring Lithuania and Estonia at the European Film Market, which has dedicated its 2023 Country in Focus Spotlight to the Baltic nations. It’s a sign of the tremendous strides the country has taken to put itself on the world cinema map, with the screen industries both producing more films and TV series than ever before and luring increasingly ambitious international projects to Northeastern Europe.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top Latvian projects in the pipeline that their producers will be pitching in Berlin:

Blue Blood

Director: Juris Kursietis

Producers: White Picture, Stellar Film, Asterisk*

The follow-up to Kursietis’ Cannes Directors’ Fortnight player “Oleg” is the story of a successful couple whose comfortable life is turned upside-down when the husband is implicated in a massive corruption scandal.

Sales: N/A

Soviet Milk

Director: Ināra Kolmane

Producers: Jānis Juhņēvičs, Marta Romanova-Jēkabsone...

IDFA is one of many festivals to have strong Ukrainian line-up - but can this continue?

While hundreds of filmmakers, sales agents and distributors were descending on Amsterdam for IDFA’s industry event The Forum over the weekend, another documentary festival was taking place far away in war-torn Ukraine.

The Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival was held in Kyiv, lasting only from 11-13 November, with few international guests in attendance and no industry events.

Films screening included Oleksiy Radynski’s Infinity: According To Florian, Pawel Lozinski’s The Balcony and Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere.

The...

Hackers posted a message saying “fuck, u ve been hacked”.

Russian hackers have targeted the website of the Czech Film Commission, taking down a page that laid out details of safe film production in the Czech Republic, according to Film Commission head Pavlina Zipkova today in Karlovy Vary.

“Please don’t visit the Czech Film Commission website, because it has been attacked by a virus – actually from Russia,” said Zipkova, who was speaking on a panel about ‘The Impact of the War in Ukraine on the International Film Industry’, as part of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) industry offering.

Butterfly Vision (completed)

Director: Maksym Nakonechnyi

Producers: Darya Bassel, Yelizaveta Smith

Production: Tabor Productions, 4 Film, Masterfilm, Sisyfos

Sales: Wild Bunch

Lilia, held as a prisoner of war for months, finally returns home. But she is struggling to resume her life as a soldier and wife, while discovering she is pregnant.

Chrysanthemum Day

Director: Simon Mozgovyi

Producers: Alex Chepiga, Artem Koliubaiev

Production: Mainstream Pictures

Young doctor encounters an old woman, known as a healer, who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion. But she loses her memory and identity along the way.

Company of Steel (documentary)

Director: Yuliia Hontaruk

Producers: Yuliia Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Igor Savychenko

Production: Babylon’13, Directory Films

Three veterans return home and try to understand how to live as civilians. The film is an attempt to feel and see the world through the eyes of people who went through war.

Demons

Director: Natalya Vorozhbyt

Producers: Dmytro Minzianov,...

Ukrainian Films Now aims to provide financial and practical support to the Ukrainian industry.

Film funds from France, Germany and Italy are among 12 organisations uniting for Ukrainian Films Now, a fundraising and networking event at Cannes in support of Ukrainian films in post-production.

The event will take place as part of the Marche du Film’s official programme, with the nine Ukrainian works-in-progress presented on May 22 to an audience of industry professionals.

The aim is to connect the Ukrainian film teams with potential European producers and partners. A cash prize of €30,000 will be awarded to one of the nine films,...