CineLink Producers’ Lab Participants Reveal Projects They’ll Be Pitching in Sarajevo (EXCLUSIVE)
Nineteen up-and-coming producers from 12 countries across Southeast Europe and the wider Black Sea region have been selected to take part in the first edition of the CineLink Producers’ Lab, a new networking and training program launched by the industry arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Taking place from Aug. 12-15 as part of the CineLink Industry Days program, the lab was conceived to help prepare emerging producers for a rapidly changing market, according to Sarajevo’s head of industry Maša Marković. “We really wanted to have something that is more catered to [the producers’] needs,” she said. “This is a really unique generation, and it’s a specific moment in a producer’s career.”
Marković noted how the rise of both regional and global streaming services has brought fresh investment into the region, disrupted the traditional supply chain and afforded new opportunities to local producers. She also pointed to the dramatic, paradigm-shifting events of the past two years, when the coronavirus pandemic upended the industry’s typical approach to doing business.
“You have young producers who entered the market, maybe in 2018 or 2019, and didn’t manage to build their own network of peers. They spent two years behind their desk screens,” said Marković. “A producer’s career is based on establishing contacts, and you have a bunch of emerging producers that didn’t manage to do it.”
The three-day training program will offer participants skill-building sessions with a host of veteran filmmakers and industry experts. They will also be granted access to all CineLink Industry Days events, presenting a chance to network not only with leading directors, producers, broadcasters, and financers from across the region, but industry players from around the world making the journey to the Bosnian capital.
“It’s not only a question of networking, but also giving them another perspective on the things they can work with more experienced professionals from the region,” said Marković. “We were working with producers that were helping us to establish the market for 20 years, and these producers now have their own junior producers. And these junior producers are facing completely different challenges production-wise in the region than their bosses have been. They’re creating [a new] industry.”
The participants of the first CineLink Producers’ Lab are Nazlı Bulum (Turkey); Diana Caravia, MicroFILM (Romania); Çağla Çağlar, Çağlar Motion Pictures & Film (Turkey); Mina Dreki, Marni Films (Greece); Lamija Đapo, SCCA/pro.ba (Bosnia and Herzegovina); Maria Ibrahimova, Cinex Productions (Azerbaijan); Goce Kralevski, DNF Films (North Macedonia); Marija Lero (Serbia); Miloš Ljubomirović, Servia Films (Serbia); Tekla Machavariani, Nushi Films (Georgia); Tea Matanović, Antitalent (Croatia); Elena Martín, Manifest Film (Romania); Genovéva Petrovits, Kino Alfa (Hungary); Anja Sekulić, Roundabout Montenegro (Montenegro); Fani Skartouli, Either/Or Productions (Greece); Tadej Koren Šmid, Studio Virc d.o.o. (Slovenia); Ana Vidović, Digital Cinema Environment (Croatia); Ana Voicu, Tangaj Production (Romania); and Miljan Vučelić, Bitter Frames Production (Montenegro).