Agora, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s (TIFF) industry section, is now accepting submissions for its programmes, namely the Agora Film Market, the Crossroads Co-production Forum and the Agora Works in Progress. Moreover, the new Lab Project Award for unconventional projects (read the news) will be inaugurated at the 57^th TIFF, dishing out €50,000 in post-production services to a film project participating in the TIFF’s Agora Works in Progress section.

Bestowed by Eurimages’ European Cinema Support Fund, the Lab Project Award is presented solely at the TIFF, the Les Arcs European Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, and represents the highest funding sum ever to be handed out by Eurimages to movies at their development stage.

As well as the Lab Project Award, projects participating in the Agora Works in Progress section will also be vying for the co-production award of post-production services offered by local post-production house Graal for the sixth consecutive year. Meanwhile, the projects will also be presented to a select handful of invited sales agents, distributors, producers and festival programmers, thus securing vital exposure to key players in the film industry. The deadline for submissions is 5 September.

The Crossroads Co-production Forum, headed by producer Marie Pierre Marcia, will once again aim to support producers of feature-length fiction projects that originate from and/or deal with the Mediterranean, Central and South-Eastern European regions, at any stage of pre-production. Selected projects will be shown to a variety of industry professionals from around the world, attending the 12^th Crossroads Co-production Forum, which will be open for submissions until 31 July.

The Agora Film Market, which promotes the majority of the films participating in the various TIFF official sections, along with films from present and past editions of the Agora’s Crossroads section, will be open to submissions until 16 September.

Countries eligible for the Agora sections are Albania, Algeria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, FYROM, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.