16/11/2021 - The TV projects will end their seven-month cycle of training and development with Season Finale, a tailor-made pitching session

The MIDPOINT Institute’s series development programme, TV Launch, is reaching its conclusion, with its third and final workshop (15-21 November) set to be held during the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and, more precisely, within the context of its industry section, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event.

Known for being the only residential, project-based training programme in existence that targets its content at, and tailors it for, creative teams of emerging professionals hailing from the Central and Eastern European region, this year, MIDPOINT TV Launch was forced to run mostly online. The first workshop unspooled from 3-14 May, with the second stop for the participating teams taking place from 19-30 July.

The final workshop and the pitching event will happen in Tallinn. The third workshop will mainly be focused on marketing, promotion and distribution issues as well as pitching training. The programme also consists of various lectures, master classes and case studies held within the TV Beats Forum (the entire TV Beats programme can be found here).

Katarina Tomkova, the programme coordinator, sums up the seven-month development journey as follows: “We started our journey with these nine wonderful projects and their teams, alongside the three talented development executive participants, online – so we're thrilled to be meeting in person after the immense work and amazing energy these participants have put into not only their projects, but also into developing themselves as talents and their professional skills. I'm grateful and excited to watch them present themselves and their stories within the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event platform and the TV Beats Forum.”

Nine TV series projects hailing from Hungary, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania will be showcased at Season Finale, a tailor-made pitching event that will be presented on 19 November. Also set to be introduced are the three development executive participants who took part in all sessions of the programme, accompanying the projects on their development journey, and learning and honing their script-editing and feedback-giving skills. As at the previous events, the pitching session will be open to industry professionals, who will also be able to arrange meetings afterwards.

The Best Series Project in the MIDPOINT TV Launch 2021 programme will receive the HBO Europe Award, worth $5,000, which will be handed out during the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event awards ceremony.

The MIDPOINT TV Launch 2021 projects are as follows:

'C' FOR CANCEL (Lithuania)
Writer: Lina Lužytė
Writer/producer: Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė

Amrita (Hungary)
Writer: Kristina Jilly
Producer: Zita Kisgergely

Elephant (Hungary)
Writer: Dávid Csicskár
Producer: Balázs Zachar

Killswitch (Slovakia)
Writer: Anastasia Hoppanová
Producer: Lukáš Teren

The Last Baroness (Slovakia)
Writer: Diana Kacarová
Producers: Katarína Krnáčová, Nataša Ďuričová

NON-CITIZENS (Lithuania)
Writer: Aistė Ptakauskė
Producer: Margarita Veberaite

The Marcelots (Romania)
Writer: Ema Stere
Director: Adrian Sitaru
Producers: Carla Fotea, Ada Solomon, Diana Caravia

Offside (Slovenia)
Writer: Juš Premrov
Writer/director: Nejc Pohar
Producer: Andraž Jerič

SABRE (Serbia)
Writer/director: Goran Stanković
Writer/director: Vladimir Tagić
Producer: Snežana van Houwelingen

Development-executive participants

Marijana Martelock (Croatia)
Lenka Szántó (Czech Republic)
Olga Zhurzhenko (Ukraine)