The workshop will target a specially chosen, exclusive group of "upcoming film professionals from Middle and Eastern Europe, Germany, Central Asia and the republics of Caucasus," the Nikitin told FNE. "Poland and Wroclaw, situated in the heart and center of Europe, form a bridge between the West and the East and make an ideal place for our initiative."
The first participants will include Melinda Boros (distributor, Cluj-Napoca), Gábor Böszörményi (distributor, Budapest), Ketie Danielia (executive manager, Ablabuda Film LLC ablabudafilm.net/, Tbilisi), Leana Jalukse (dramaturg and project manager, Tallinn), Ivan Kozlenko (director of the film archive at National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Centre www.dovzhenkocentre.org,, Kiev), Eva Krizkova and Eva Pavlovicova (founders of the film magazine Kinecko and distribution company Filmtopia www.filmtopia.sk, Bratislava), Jan Naszewski (CEO of New Europe Film Sales http://www.neweuropefilmsales.com/, Warsaw), Johannes Rexin (producer at HEIMATFILM www.heimatfilm.biz, Cologne), Mira Staleva (vice director, Sofia International Film Festival siff.bg, Sofia) and Sonja Topalovic (festival and marketing director at Soulfood http://www.soulfoodfilms.com, Belgrade).
Attendees will consult with top international film professionals on developing projects during and after the workshop. The list of lecturers includes Claudia Dillman (deutsches-filminstitut.de), Marion Doering (European Film Academy www.europeanfilmacademy.org, Tudor Giurgiu (Transilvania IFF tiff.ro) , Renate Rose (European Film Promotion www.efp-online.com), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund http://www.filmfund.org.il) and Ewa Puszczyńska (Opus Film www.opusfilm.com).
SOFA is a Filmplus UG project, organized in co-operation with the City of Wrocław, the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl) and the New Horizons Association (www.nowehoryzonty.pl). "We are very excited that this high-scale professional workshop will take place in Poland and in Wrocław, the European Capital of Culture 2016," said Izabela Kiszka-Hoflik, head of international relations at Polish Film Institute. The project will give attendees "instant access to the most important and knowledgeable professionals in the business and that is priceless," she added. "The Polish Film Institute is prepared to give long-term support for this very promising endeavor."
The workshops are co-financed by the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture (www.norden.org), the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation (fwpn.org.pl), the International Visegrad Fund (visegradfund.org), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Media Desk Poland (mediadeskpoland.eu) and the Goethe Institute in Cracow (www.goethe.de). They are also supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (iam.pl), the Goethe Institute in Georgia, Romania and Hungary, the Cinema Development Foundation (http://www.frk.org.pl) and the consulate general of Germany in Wrocław.
