Bulgarian producers Dimitar Gotchev and Sinisa Juricic along with director Ilian Metev introduced Sofia's Last Ambulance, a hard edged look at the scarcity of ambulances in the Bulgarian capital through the eyes of three dedicated employees assigned to one ambulance. The film is a coproduction with Croatia.
Slovakia captured attention with Romanies Go to Election directed by Jaro Vojtek and produced by Tomas Kaminsky. The film's protagonist, Roma senate candidate Vlado Sendrei, won over the audience with his campaign pitch accompanied by samples of Slovak slivovic brandy. The film is mid-way through filming and goes into postproduction in January 2011, with a November 2011 premiere planned. The producers have lined up 60% of the budget.
Estonia offered The Gold Spinners from producer/director Kiur Aarma and director Hardi Volmer, a 205,000 euro film about the Communist era advertising agency located in Estonia. The film is set to go into production.
Other regional productions include an Estonian/French coproduction, The Kaplinski System, about Estonian philosopher/poet and Nobel Prize nominee Jaan Kaplinski. The film has completed shooting and is seeking funding for postproduction with a 2011 delivery date.
Poland presented Everything is Possible directed by Lidia Duda and produced by Aleksandra Derewienko and Krzysztof Kopczynski, about an elderly woman who escapes her loveless marriage through long trips hitchhiking around the world.
A Polish/Israeli/USA coproduction, Not for the Dead directed and produced by Michal Jaskulski, has completed four years of filming the story of the last Jewish pogrom in Europe. The producer has 60,000 euros in funding and is seeking an additional 120,000 euros.
Odessa, a Romanian film with German TV coproduction funding is budgeted at 86,000 euros. The film, directed by Florin Iepan and produced by Razvan Georgescu, looks at Romania's Nazi past.
Croatia presented two personal film projects: Family Meals, an autobiographical coproduction with France directed and produced by Dana Budesavljevic about her family's reaction to her homosexuality; and Naked directed by Tiha Klara Gudac and produced by Nenad Puhovski about the imprisonment of the author's grandfather in a Gulag and the effects on the family.
