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BERLINALE 2021 EFM

Creative Europe - MEDIA presents three projects nurturing European storytelling talents

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- BERLINALE 2021: The workshop focused on three Creative Europe projects: Less is More, the European Short Film Festival Network and the TV series The Last Socialist Artefact

Creative Europe - MEDIA presents three projects nurturing European storytelling talents
Doris Bauer and Harald Trettenbrein during the workshop

On the last day of this year's European Film Market (5 March), Creative Europe - MEDIA organised a dedicated event to showcase three of its projects nurturing European storytelling, entitled “MEDIA presents: Stories and Talent.” In detail, the projects were the training initiative Less is More, the European Short Film Festival Network and the TV series The Last Socialist Artefact. The session was moderated and introduced by Harald Trettenbrein.

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Antoine Le Bos spoke about the role of Less is More, a European development programme for limited budget features. “The main idea behind it is that limitations – and self-limitations – can stimulate a healthy approach to work during development,” he explained. Less is More is a pan-European effort and was launched five years ago by Le Groupe Ouest. Next, he touched upon the troubled state of independent cinema, which was so even before the pandemic, and mentioned the wide audience loss caused by increasing competition. Lastly, Le Bos spoke about the Less is More manifesto and its four main initiatives: the Annual Training Programme, the Prewriting workshops, StoryTANK and the LIM showcase event.

Ankica Jurić Tilić is one of the producers of the TV series The Last Socialist Artefact, co-financed by Creative Europe MEDIA programme. Jurić Tilić showed a teaser of the production and went through a timeline of her project, which kicked off in 2016 and received development support from Creative Europe in 2018. Production backing came from Croatia and Slovenia in 2019, and from the MEDIA TV programming fund one year later. Principal photography took place from September to December 2020, whilst the first broadcast is planned for October 2021. She also described the project's main challenges and the difficulties of filming during the pandemic; the outbreak forced the team to push the shoot to earlier dates, implement strict health measures, film with no insurance and face a big dilemma between the people's right to work and the possible health risks. Despite the pandemic, the production numbers were very impressive; 75 crew members were involved, along with 73 actors from five different countries and 600 extras. In total, the project took 56 shooting days.

The last speaker was Doris Bauer, co-director of Vienna Shorts, in charge of presenting the work of the European Short Film Festival Network. The network was founded in 2018, “with the ambition of using technological development to keep short film festivals sustainable,” as well as to make the short film form more accessible and shareable, to both audiences and professionals. She also introduced the other three festival partners, namely Go Short, Short Waves and Oberhausen. Bauer announced that the four partner festivals are also developing a shared streaming platform called This is Short, which will also feature a common programme, made of six different sections (“New Point of View,” “Film of the Day,” “Four Perspectives,” “Festival Windows,” “Insider's Insights” and “European Visions”). Viewers will be able to watch over 300 titles as well as gain full access to the four member festivals. The platform will be available in English, German, Dutch and Polish, and ticket sales are set to kick off on 10 March.

The event was brought to a close by a short Q&A session.

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