VALLETTA: Austrian director/writer Danielle Proskar will start shooting his TV documentary Pirates and Slaves of the Mediterranean in September 2023. This Austrian/Maltese coproduction is supported by the Malta Film Commission - Creative Malta.

VALLETTA: Maltese director/writer/DoP Peter Sant will start shooting his feature film Background Sound (working title) on 28 August 2023. Most of the filming will take place in and around St Paul’s Bay.

BELGRADE: Serbian drama series Time of Death / Vreme smrti, directed by Ivan Živković and based on the bestseller by author and politician Dobrica Ćosić, is currently in postproduction. It took a team of 400 actors and actresses, a couple of thousand extras, as well as 13 months (188 shooting days) and hundreds of locations in various parts of Serbia to shoot the 1,200 pages long screenplay.

BELGRADE: Vasilija the Beautiful / Vasilija Prekrasna directed by Žikica Jovanović, Ivica Vidanović and Vlastimir Stevanović started shooting in Serbia. The film focuses on a child, which is a rarity in Serbian cinema in this century.

BUCHAREST: Director Bogdan Theodor Olteanu and Bold Film Studio (the first film investment fund in Romania) are teaming up again after their successful comedy Taxi Drivers (2022), but their new project, the independent comedy Klaus and Barroso / Klaus si Barroso, has a collective direction, as several members of the team are involved in the directing process.

BRATISLAVA: The Slovak/Canadian historical family drama Réveillon / A máme čo sme chceli, directed by Michal Kunes Kováč and produced by B Production in coproduction with Canadian Don Carmody TV, AZYL Production and Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS), is currently in postproduction.

BELGRADE: Following a short shooting in the summer of 2022, more than 100 actors and 60 professionals are currently filming the Serbian feature and TV drama series The Children of Kozara / Djeca Kozare in the vicinity of the Serbian town of Bela Crkva. The project is directed by the renowned Yugoslav filmmaker Lordan Zafranović, thus making his first feature in this post-Yugoslav region since 1988.

PRAGUE: Czech director Pavel Soukup is putting the final touches to his latest project, the thriller #annaismissing, which will be released by Aerofilms in Czech and Slovak cinemas in August 2023. #annaismissing is a standalone film continuation of the successful series #martyisdead, produced by Bionaut for Mall.tv, which was honoured with an International Emmy Award in 2020.

TALLINN: Estonian directors Rain Tolk and Andres Maimik are currently in production with the feature film Aurora. The film is made using the character-based improvisation method, which has not yet been widely applied in Estonia. The story and the characters have been created through improvisation in real environments and real-life situations.

SOFIA: Bulgarian director/producer Boris Despodov is in postproduction with his new documentary The Sinner and the Saint. This Bulgarian/German/Serbian coproduction has been selected for the CineLink Work in Progress 2023, which will be held within the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival (11 – 18 August 2023).

TALLINN: Estonian director/actor Ingomar Vihmar is putting the final touches on his new project, the feature film Totally Boss / Tähtsad ninad, whose premiere is already set for 20 October 2023. The producer Nafta Films is currently looking for an international distributor.

LJUBLJANA: Slovenian director Ester Ivakič starts shooting her debut feature Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song / Ida, ki je pela tako grdo, da so še mrtvi vstali od mrtvih in zapeli z njo (working title Neither Voice) on 19 July 2023. The film is a Slovenian/Croatian coproduction supported by the Slovenian Film Centre.

TALLINN: Estonian director Margit Lillak is currently in production with her long documentary Becoming Roosi / Varastatud tulevik, which has been shot in Estonia, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and France.

SOFIA: Bulgarian director Dimitar Kotzev is in postproduction with his third feature film The Answer to All Questions, which he is independently producing through Kontraplan. An Indiegogo fundraising campaign launched to support the project is currently underway.

ZAGREB: Tea Vidović Dalipi is in final postproduction with her long documentary Snajka: Diary of Expectations, which is a coproduction between Croatia, Italy and Kosovo supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.

RIGA: Latvian animation director/artist Kārlis Vītols is currently in preparation with his long animated film The Northern Star / Ziemeļu Zvaigzne, whose production is due to start in September 2023.