06/05/2010

Eight countries of South-Eastern Europe will join forces at this year’s Cannes Market. Following an initiative from last year’s Regional Forum at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia will present their cinematic output to the rest of the filmmaking community under the umbrella of the South-Eastern European Regional Pavilion.

This will be the first time that Albania, Cyprus and Macedonia will be present at the Market. It is hoped that cooperation between countries with a wealth of filmmaking experience and newer entrants with fresh ideas will boost the promotion of films from across the region and allow all participants to benefit from a higher profile and pooled resources.

“The objective of this joint venture is to create an attractive stage for our filmmakers to present their work at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and Market. We believe that the cooperation between our countries will certainly boost the promotion of films from across the region. The real power of the South-East European Pavilion as a common promotional platform is that it celebrates the diversity of our cultures through a very dynamic appearance with a bright future perspective,” says Ivana Ivisic of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.

The oldest joint pavilion at Cannes is Scandinavian Films, which has been promoting the films of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland since 1978. In 2000, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania created the Baltic Films stand; and the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland have been represented by the Central European Cinema Pavilion since 2006.