Grbavica is an important film for the Balkan Fund, because it was the first to capture the interest of the international public while simultaneously triumphing over prejudice.

Already three years old, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s script development fund has helped screenwriters not only in the form of financial rewards but also with essential support for their work. Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic reported inter alia that without the help of the Balkan Fund she would not have been able to complete the script or the film, let alone achieve the high quality of the finished product. The fund constitutes a guarantee of quality for the films it finances, helps filmmakers to recover money already spent and gain extra funding from Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany and Croatia. ‘Grbavica is a good example of how priceless the professional development of scripts is and for which scriptwriters can receive funds such as ours,’ said Christina Kallas-Kalogeropoulou, artistic director of the Balkan Fund.

After the success of the films Grbavica and Tuning (previously Red Horizons) by Slovenian director Igor Sterk, which was also nominated for the Balkan Fund awards in 2003 and went on to receive the main prize at the Mannheim Film Festival and the Best Feature Film award at the Napoli Film Festival, the Balkan Fund is witnessing a substantial increase in interest this year, as it has now established its position as an important and inspiring event in the development and collaboration of new filmmaking in the Balkans, ensuring the market’s trust regarding the quality of the projects selected.

Potential and prospects

The Balkan Fund is continuing on its successful course for the fourth consecutive year and is ultimately one of the main consistent attractions for international film industry professionals at the TIFF, underlining the Greek presence in the booming and flourishing cinema of the Balkan region. Twelve new projects were nominated and will be presented by their writers, directors and producers during this year’s three-day event at the 47th TIFF, from November 18 to 20.

‘The Balkan area, and that of Southeastern Europe in general, is very important to the TIFF and is therefore at the center of our activities, strengthening the TIFF’s role in the wider area, as well as the role of Thessaloniki as a center for culture and development,’ said TIFF director Despina Mouzaki. She continued: ‘For this reason we have developed a wide range of activities, at the center of which is the Balkan Fund, the script development fund for this area, which in turn is developing in an exceedingly creative and effective manner. Our policy for Balkan cinema is also supported by the Balkan Survey section of the program, with the presentation of recent productions from the Balkans, as well as with this year’s new initiative, Works in Progress, by which works in progress from the area searching for collaborators are presented to the international market. Balkan cinema has great potential and prospects, and the TIFF is here to give it a chance in the international market.’

The Balkan Fund projects will be presented to an international five-member jury, who, after the three-day workshop and open discussion with each applicant, will grant four out of the 12 projects a 10,000-euro grant each, thus contributing to the development of their scripts. In the meantime, the applicants will have the opportunity to meet and discuss individually with a selected number of film professionals such as fund directors, producers, distributors and sales agents who are specifically invited to Thessaloniki to attend the proceedings of the Balkan Fund.

The success of the Balkan Fund lies partly in the open discussion/presentation meetings with the international jury, which are followed by fruitful individual co-development and co-production meetings, scheduled for every participant with the representatives of production and distribution companies who participate in the workshop. Having said that, one of the main goals of the Balkan Fund is for all nominated projects to benefit from their participation at the workshop, regardless of the jury’s decision on the awards, giving them the opportunity to communicate and present their ideas in the presence of international film professionals who can thus evaluate and eventually participate in the conclusion of their film projects.

With programs such as the Balkan Fund, the city of Thessaloniki retains its position as one of the most important cultural centers of Southeastern Europe, at least as far as cinema and the important issue of script development are concerned. It also helps the Greek film industry, in the sense that the nominated projects which belong to the best Greek projects in development at the moment are included in a greater international context together with projects of similar budget and production background. Furthermore, the Balkan Fund contributes to the reconstitution of the Balkans, a fact that is confirmed by the presence of several representatives from political institutions. After the success of the first three years and the positive response from the international film industry, the Balkan Fund workshop is undoubtedly one of the most important events of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. 

Further, a new initiative, ‘Balkan Fund Presents’ is being added this year to the Balkan Fund. This year it will be a ‘Conference on European Screenwriting’ organized in collaboration with the Federation of Scriptwriters in Europe (FSE) and in association with the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the European Film Academy.

The conference will serve as a platform to discuss the situation and profession of European screenwriters as well as the nature and state of European screenwriting at a time of rapid change due to digitalization and globalization. Screenwriters and representatives of writers’ guilds from all over Western and Eastern Europe will come together to discuss their art and the state of the industry in relation to effective and relevant storytelling for the screen.

By Natassa Mastorakou
Natassa Mastorakou is a journalist.