Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.hollywoodreporter.com
The Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event (ITBE) market of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) returns for its 25th edition at the 30th edition of the Estonian fest. Starting on Friday, it will once again gather established film professionals and younger talents for panel discussions, masterclasses, case studies, workshops, pitch sessions and screenings – and, of course, all sorts of networking opportunities.
Marge Liiske, head of the Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, and her team have put together another program for “Northern Europe’s busiest business platform for audiovisual professionals,” offering something for everyone but too much to catch it all.
In terms of themes of this year’s panels and other presentations, the focus reflects where the industry stands and is headed. “Last year, we talked about financing,” Liiske notes. “This year, we go back to basics. We will talk about distribution and sales, audience and digital marketing, everything that is important nowadays for our biggest professional group, which is producers. We try to give them the necessary tools to increase the possibilities for films that they have been preparing and producing and make them visible to audiences.”
What role will AI play this year after getting a lot of attention in Tallinn in recent years? “We have been at the forefront when it comes to discussing AI for the last, I don’t know, five years, so this year we are doing less,” Liiske tells THR. “We are also a platform for the brilliant Mastering AI for European Film Professionals training course that has its fifth and final module in Tallinn.” The organizers of the course are the National Film School of Denmark, Filmforward, ITBE, and The Norwegian Film School, with support from the Creative Europe MEDIA program.
But gaming will get a spotlight in industry sessions. “Games were on our program exactly 10 years ago in 2016, when we did hackathons on our co-production market projects’ IPs and gaming prototypes were created within 48 hours,” Liiske highlights. But a couple of years later, industry momentum changed. “There was quite a difficult time for European gaming to find money for development, so we stopped [that focus] for a while. But now, gaming is back.”
Gaming-centric sessions will focus on the differences in financing and storytelling between games versus films and series. “We hope our audiences find something to diversify their portfolios with,” the Tallinn market head tells THR. “I think it’s becoming increasingly important that production companies and filmmakers do not have all the eggs in the same basket, also because there are new audiences. And we will see how things will develop over the next editions of the industry program.”
Protecting and further developing IP is another recurring theme across the Tallinn market program. “We will have [sessions] on adapting books and IP – how to develop and preserve your IP, and not giving away all the rights,” the ITBE head says.
In the film portion of the market, the Baltic Event Co-Production Market returns with 15 titles from 10 countries by filmmakers from across Europe. Meanwhile, the Script Pool showcases five selected scripts from producing countries Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Iran, Hungary, Romania, Ireland, Canada, France and Türkiye. The European Genre Forum is another popular offering. And a busy lineup awaits those attending the Works in Progress program, showcasing films currently in production or post-production and seeking sales agents or festival premieres. It will introduce 16 promising projects across three categories: Baltic Event Works in Progress, International Works in Progress, and Just Film Works in Progress for kids and youth movies.
Tallinn will also continue its focus on drama series in the TV Beats Co-Financing Market, which will present 10 series projects, and the third annual TV Beats Screenings.
Plus, the market’s continuing education offering Discovery Campus will be hosting 24 promising film professionals from 17 countries, including 10 rising talents featured in the 10th edition of the Black Nights Stars showcase.
This year’s ITBE will also feature the Focus: Basque, showcasing cinema from the Basque region, including in a Nov. 19 session entitled “Basque in the Spotlight.” Notes the program: “This session introduces the Basque film ecosystem: regional funding schemes, tax incentives, and the filmmakers and production companies shaping a new generation of Basque cinema.”
And the Just Film Industry Days, focused on kids and youth content, are back to discuss hot-button issues at a time when young audiences have been described as possible saviors of the box office.
Just like in the PÖFF anniversary program, Baltic content will get a spotlight in the Tallinn market. “We are proud to present Baltic films, projects and talent, because a lot of people who come here, around 40 percent, with the idea of discovering new partners or stories from the Baltic region,” Liiske emphasizes. “Even if we are not a purely regional market, our geographical position still makes the Baltic participants and those from Nordic countries the biggest group.”
There is so much going on in the market and industry program that it’s hard to even touch on most of the events. But among the more high-profile events are the Sunday, Nov. 15 international premiere of the first episode of the fifth and final season of the German drama series Babylon Berlin, set in the final days of the Weimar Republic before democracy gives way to Nazi rule. The show’s final season premiered in Germany on Sept. 10 on German public broadcaster ARD and its streaming platform. “The first season also had a premiere here in Tallinn,” Liiske notes to emphasize the full-circle moment feel that the event will bring with it.
Also, two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, The Father, Atonement), this year’s PÖFF jury president, will discuss his creative process and career in a masterclass entitled “From Stage to Screen: The Art of Adaptation.”
Among other big names attending Tallinn and its market, and being featured in sessions, this year are the likes of Sentimental Value and Triangle of Sadness casting director Yngvill Kolset Haga, Julio Macat, the cinematographer behind the likes of Home Alone and Pitch Perfect, and production designer Inbal Weinberg (Suspiria, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Lost Daughter).
And among other hot market tickets are likely to be sessions entitled “The New Underground: Film Discovery in the Age of Social Media Restrictions” and “Women, War and Witness: Cinema in Times of Global Crisis.”
All in all, Liiske and her team want Tallinn market participants to learn, discuss and be inspired. Usefulness is key for the program, but so is providing stimuli. “It’s really important to be inspired,” she tells THR. “At some points, being inspired is important for everybody, not only for emerging professionals. I think we all need that.”
