GAIFF Pro announces selections

ArmInfo. Below is an announcement on the official website of the Golden Apricot film  festival: 

GAIFF Pro, the co-production and financing event held under the wing  of the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, will  introduce new projects by emerging filmmakers from the Western Asia  region. The Industry Platform is proud to unveil a curated list of 17  projects - 12 in development and 5 in the work-in-progress stage -  bringing together filmmakers and producers from over 15 countries.  The lineup includes projects from Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Georgia,  Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, and Armenia, with co-production partner  countries including France, Serbia, Germany, the United States, and  Belgium.

    GAIFF Pro Industry Platform was pleased to receive many strong  applications from Western Asia, and the selection process was quite  competitive, led by independent readers - international leading  professionals with diverse expertise and background.

    For 2023, the Industry Platform welcomes its Special Guests and Jury  members, including Henrik Underbjerg, Regional Team Lead and advisor  for IMS Documentary Film at International Media Support and producer  with wins and nominations at IDFA, Emmy, Sundance, Berlinale, Hot  Docs, Grierson, Sheffield and many others; producer Marianne Ostrat  whose recent documentary "Smoke Sauna Sisterhood" has enjoyed  international success: Sundance Directing Award, European Film Award,  IDA Award and Ostrat being nominated to the Producer's Guild of  America PGA Award in 2024.  Among the Guests are the French producer  Dominique Welinski who develops films in Israel, India, Philippines,  etc. and curates and produces the Factory program at Director's  Fortnight in Cannes; Yorgos Tsourgiannis who has worked with  directors such as Emin Alper ("Burning Days," "A Tale of Three  Sisters"), Yiannis Veslemes ("Norway"), and Yorgos Lanthimos  ("Dogtooth"); Majlinda Tafa who worked 11 years at the Albanian CNC,  representing Albania at Eurimages, EFP, and SEE Cinema Network aand  coordinated 8 editions of the Balkan Film Market; and Kamen Balkanski  who in 2015 worked as the acting director of the Bulgarian National  Film Centre (2015-2017 and 2021-2022) and is currently the head of  the Creative Europe MEDIA desk in Bulgaria.

    GAIFF Pro Industry Platform will take place between July 8-12, 2024  in Yerevan, Armenia, in parallel to the film festival. The 2024  edition is brought to life by a collaboration between Golden Apricot  International Film Festival and IMS, and in partnership with AGBU,  with a special focus on documentary films.

    IMS operates with the fundamental belief that documentary film is a  tool for change.  Recognising the unique power of documentaries to  raise awareness, they propose solutions and inspire action. IMS  believes that documentaries have become one of the most influential  ways of telling stories in a time of unprecedented disruption in the  media and in the world. Building partnerships with independent  filmmakers and film institutions in some of the world's most  challenged regions is the organisation's primary methodology. They  strive to influence audiences and power holders to react and  contribute to meaningful and positive change.

    Moreover, GAIFF Pro is proud to present Short Cuts Nest for its  second edition - a market for Armenian short film projects with an  objective of boosting the development of the local short film sector.  Its aim is to enhance the influence of short films on the wider film  industry and to foster the emergence of fresh cinema authors and  artists. The teams of the selected five projects will compete for a  special Equipment Prize by Kinoket during the Pitching Sessions. 

  Furthermore, for the third year in a row, the Industry Platform  welcomes film critic Leonardo Goi who will lead a carefully-designed  GAIFF Pro Critics Campus programme for the selected film critics.  Goi, who is a columnist at MUBI Notebook, runs a handful of other  prominent film criticism academies around Europe, including the  Berlinale Talent Press, and the workshops held at the Ljubljana's  Short Film Festival and Lago Film Fest. He returns to GAIFF Pro to  share his industry know-how and walk participants through a full  programme of events including film screenings, workshops and  practical feedback sessions for aspiring film writers. The best  articles emerging from the workshop will be published in the Golden  Apricot Daily, which is distributed to festival attendees. 

  The GAIFF Pro Industry Platform emerged in 2018 as a successor to the  successful Directors Across Borders Program that had an incredible  ten-year run. It is a co- production event that serves as a vital  platform for the development and financing of exceptional film  projects that embrace creativity and possess captivating visual  qualities.  The Platform offers pitching sessions, highly tailored  one-on-one meetings with the decision-makers, year-round master  classes with award-winning professionals, and pitching and  film/script development workshops. The event brings together  prominent industry professionals and producers from Western Asia and  around the world, all with a shared purpose of discovering the latest  and most innovative works. GAIFF Pro is committed to nurturing a  variety of voices and aesthetic expressions of the fiction,  animation, hybrid and documentary genres.

For more information follow link:  

https://gaiff.am/tpost/im77o98p41-gaiff-pro-announces-selections