Collaborative Video Project for WIFTI Summit
Call for Collaborative Video Project for WIFTI Summit produced by WIF LA
A letter from Ukrainian producer Aleksandra Kostina
A letter from Ukrainian producer Aleksandra Kostina
To be a filmmaker you need a lot of grit, consistency, and hard work to create and tell great stories in a powerful way that resonates with an audience, using all available resources to bring your idea to life. To be a female filmmaker means to work twice as hard. And to be a female filmmaker in a war-torn country is to make life-changing choices each day. Ukrainian filmmakers nowadays are forced to use their communication, leadership, creative thinking and organizational skills not to lead and develop film projects, but to find a safe place for kids and old parents, to rescue family members trapped in the war zones, to supply army and civilians according to their needs, to help people in need and defend our country in all possible ways. Premiere of my producers debut fiction feature PAMFIR in Directors’ Fortnight this May in Cannes was a surreal experience. As it’s impossible to believe, that the rest of the world continues to live a normal life, when our world changed so dramatically and our lives will never be the same again. As it’s mentioned on your website, the strength of WIFTI is based on the strength coming from every member of every chapter all around the world. I really believe in it, and I’m grateful for this possibility to speak to you, and to ask you to reunite all forces to find the way to support Ukraine.
Since the Russian Federation has been waging war against Ukraine all public financial sources were reallocated to the army support and humanitarian needs. And in the following 3-5 years they will be spent to rebuild hospitals, roads, schools, and to provide care for those who need it. Ukrainian State Film Agency, and other public funding initiatives have dried up and will not have opportunity to ensure the existence of the film industry. The last decade was marked by the rise of a new wave of Ukrainian filmmakers. It was bright, diverse and strongly represented by female talent. Films of Yelizaveta Smith (School #3), Kateryna Gornostai (Stop-Zemlia), Alina Gorlova (This Rain Will Never Stop), Iryna Tsilyk (The Earth Is Blue as an Orange), Maryna Er Gorbach (Klondike), Nadia Parfan (Heat Singers), Marysia Nikitiuk (When The Trees Fall), Marina Stepanska (Falling), and other great Ukrainian authors were premiered and awarded at the festivals all over the world (Berlinale, Sundance, IDFA, Karlovy Vary, Visions Du Reel). And now the future of Ukrainian cinema is uncertain. We need your help to save the modern and diverse community of talented people.
In Cannes I was asked lots of times about the way, how the world can support Ukrainian filmmakers in their work continuing, and here are possible ways to make it happen:
- to check the Ukrainian State Film Agency initiatives by the following link https://usfa.gov.ua/stand-with-ukraine
- to create additional funding initiatives with minimum budgets for development and support of co-productions with Ukraine;
- to help Ukraine receive the full-membership status in Creative Europe with a possibility to apply for all MEDIA programs without exception;
- to abolish the mandatory condition for Ukrainian projects to have secured financing from local public fund to apply for co-production support to European film funds and Eurimages;
- to create a base for Ukrainian professionals who were replaced to other countries, and to give them a chance, to be hired by your company
- to check the list of Ukrainian films at the final stage of production as a possibility to find an interesting project for co-production https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yk-YeVyblESfyNebTCeWXhmvfhqDWN_d/view
- to support local documentary films productions that are happening now despite the war https://docudays.ua/eng/help/
- to create documentary films in co-production with Ukraine, that can bring unique creative and artistic input in your projects;
- to support film screenings of Ukrainian films all over the world and to present them at the international film festivals to ensure that Ukrainian filmmakers voices are not forgotten;
- to organise residencies for Ukrainian authors, as they don’t have the possibility to work in calm and safe places;
- to support education of young Ukrainian filmmakers;
- to create a special fund for Ukrainian filmmakers, who are defending our country in the army now, which would give them the possibility to secure their film projects in the future.
It’s not about help but a partnership that you’ll enjoy to be involved in. We know how to create the projects that the world is interested in, but we can’t make films right now. To move forward we need your support. Making films is a bridge between realities, a fine thread that binds us with normal life and gives us a hope that one day we can be back to our usual activities. We can’t stop as culture is our strongest weapon. If we do not rebuild our culture, we will not rebuild our country, especially in this moment, when our self-identity plays the key role in the struggle against the aggressor.
ALEKSANDRA KOSTINA. PRODUCER
Aleksandra Kostina is a Ukrainian producer. Graduated from The Kyiv National Economic University in 2008 with master’s degree in Economics. Since 2007 works in the film industry. At first as a line producer, producing TV films, documentaries, and TV shows. Since 2013 works as a freelance line and executive producer on the numerous feature films, mostly international co-productions, premiered in Cannes, Venice, Tallinn and other A-class festivals. Participant of the Midpoint, TorinoFilmLab, Less Is More, EWA mentoring programme, MAIA, EAVE marketing workshop. In 2018 she established production company BOSONFILM. Her debut project as a producer, feature fiction film PAMFIR, by Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, is a Ukrainian-French-Polish-Chilean-Luxembourg-German co-production, developed in Cinéfondation Residence, TorinoFilmLab, Midpoint and premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2022. And her upcoming project is VACUUM by award-winning Ukrainian director Yelizaveta Smith, whose previous film “School #3” received The Grand Prix of the Generation 14+ for the Best Film at Berlinale 2017.
Presidents Call June 2022
Presidents Call: Who can we be for each other in times of crisis?
A kind invitation to all our WIFT Presidents, Executive Directors and Leaders to join us for the next Presidents Call on
June 15th
10.30am-11.30am Pacific Time
1.30pm-2.30pm Eastern Time
7.30pm-8.30pm Central European Time
June 16th
3.30am-4.30am Australian Eastern Standard Time
5.30am-6.30am New Zealand Standard Time
In these times of severe crises, we are discussing how we can be there for each other as individuals and as networks. We hope to see you there.
This was WIFTI x Cannes 2022
This was WIFTI x Cannes 2022!
Thanks to all who joined us at our various events during Cannes Film Festival 2022, it was fantastic to see you and catch up, share stories and experience, and gather our collective strength!
IMDbPro Roadshow Follow-up
IMDbPro Roadshow Follow-up
Thank you to all who attended the IMDbPro Roadshow on 4/28/22! Please find the follow-up materials here with a breakdown of the items discussed in more detail.
As a WITI member, you are eligible to receive a 30% discount off your monthly or annual IMDbPro membership. To redeem this benefit, email Regina via assistant@wifti.net
Watch the meeting recording here.
Watch Salma Hayek Pinault’s acceptance of our IMDb “Icon” STARmeter award here.
Watch a fun sizzle reel celebrating IMDbPro’s 20th anniversary here.
Follow IMDbPro on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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Join us in Cannes!
Join us this month for two events at the Cannes Film Festival!
You can meet WIFT representatives from our global community during two events in Cannes. The annual WIFT panel, organised by WIFT Israel, takes place on May 20th and our grand WIFTI reception takes place on May 22 (invitation only). We cannot wait to see you again in real life!
Information for our reception on May 22nd will follow soon, keep an eye out here and via our newsletter!
A letter from Russia
A letter from Russia
Hi from nowhere, my name Maria Kuvshinova, before Feb 24 I used to be a Russian film critic and a cofounder of a feminist cinema web site which is now frozen or even closed (I really don’t know). I see no use (and no right) in covering Russian cinema after the horror of Bucha, Mariupol and many other cities of Ukraine. One of my Ukranian friends wrote on Facebook, that Russian culture has a moral obligation to be silent for at least 10 years only reflecting its imperial essence and exploring of the roots of evil manifested by the Russian army in Ukraine (and before Ukraine in Chechnya, Georgia and many other places of the former empire). I agree with him.
As thousands of Russians I left the country after being arrested during an anti-war rally in Saint Petersburg on February 27. After the first days of intense anti-war protests, no possibility left even to call the current war a “war” publicly and not risking to be arrested with a potential of a 15 years term in prison due to a new “anti-fake’ law (officially it’s not a war, but a “special operation”). People who had no chance to leave the country are now checking their clothes for yellow and blue (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) before going out, as far as the police arresting people dressed in these two colors or wearing a greed band (symbol of protest) or something white-blue-white (a project for a new Russian flag without it’s blood-red bottom stripe). Anyone with any poster in hands with any text (or even without text, sometimes people just use 8 stars — *** ***** — which means “no to war’, “нет войне”) are being captured by police in seconds. People are being fired or/and arrested for spreading any information about this war on the internet. The price of a protest still low (a penalty or few weeks in prison), but tortures and humiliation is not a rare thing at the police stations and two arrests in a row would lead to a stronger punishment. And we don’t know how the repressive machine will act in a couple of months.
So, they are doing everything to shut down any protest. But people are still protesting and getting arrested every single day.
Surprisingly for many (but not for me) the most powerful, creative and organized ant-war movement in Russia nowadyas is a Feminist Anti-War Resistance emerged on Feb 25, the second day of war. Their telegram group includes 30 000 readers and participants, inventing more and more forms of protest on a daily basis, absorbing upcoming ideas of anonymous activists from dozens of Russian cities. They’re successfully trying to break through the lies broadcasted by the state propaganda by changing price tags in the supermarkets with anti-war messages, writing “no to war” on banknotes and contracting improvised memorials marked with a burial crosses in their yards. They are wearing black clothes each Friday (and also being arrested for that), supporting the strike fund (unfortunately no strikes yet), publishing evidence from Ukrainian women and inspiring readers to invent their own forms of protest. There are some public figures behind the FAR-group such as Daria Serenko, a poet, and Ella Rossman, a scholar (both are outside of Russia), but the movement is constructed as a horizontal no-leader organization easy to join only by willing to join.
Why the Feminist Anti-War Resistance is so successful (not in stopping this war by now, but in giving hope to many)? Russian authorities have been erasing all forms of political protest for years, but the growing feminist movement was never taken seriously by the men in power. The state ignored the demands of laws protecting women from the domestic violence or representation of women in power structures (or even on screen). Feminists were pariahs in mainstream media, and film industry, and literature circles and everywhere else. They were mocked by elites and constantly persecuted by far-right villains. But for all these years they (we) were raising their (ours) voice against violence and creating networks. Russian feminists already knew the enemy Ukraine is facing today: Russian militarism and imperial chauvinism they’re facing for years. Russian feminists know very well how all forms of violence are interconnected.
I really don’t know the future. I just want the war to be over and I don’t even bother with the Russian future or even with my own future. But every time I open the FAR channel on telegram I think that we may still have some future.
Нет войне.
Maria Kuvshinova (1978), Russian film critic from Saint Petersburg. Cofounder of KKBBD.com
Update on WIFTI Summit 2022
August 30th, 31st 2022 · WIFTI Summit 2022
Celebrating Women in Film & Television International’s 25 year anniversary, the 2022 WIFTI Summit will take place as an online event happening from Lagos/Nigeria on August 30th and 31st, 2022.
This year’s WIFTI summit is the first one on the African continent ever and it will be part of the African Creative Market (ACM), an event that brings major stakeholders in the African and international creative industries together for creative trade. Due to Covid-19, the WIFTI Summit will be held as an online event with a delegation of WIFTI members in Lagos while our members of WIFT chapters all over the world connect online for talks, networking, panels etc.
His Imperial Majesty the Ooni of Ife is supporting the WIFTI Summit as we explore cross-cultural storytelling.
Our ongoing goal for the annual WIFTI event is to strengthen every single member within our thriving global network so the programming of the 2022 Summit will be as inclusive and multifaceted as always while honoring our 25th anniversary.
Further details about the program will be communicated through all WIFT channels once final schedules are confirmed. Meanwhile, please save the date.
Dear Filmmakers All Over The World
Dear Filmmakers All Over The World
We are all shocked by Russia’s brutal attack on independent Ukraine, but our indignation should be backed up by concrete, responsible help for our Ukrainian sisters and brothers. Poland has become a natural place of refuge for many of them. Among them are also professionals working in film industry, majority of whom are women. They need a housing, food, basic necessities and also mental health services. In the future, we need to help them to return to work in their professions.
Polish film organizations are trying to provide help on an ongoing basis and work in cooperation with Ukrainian friends. First of all, our sisters and brothers need to rest. They often wait up to four days at the border. We are creating a list of organizations, companies and individuals that can provide refugees with temporary and later permanent housing. We are also creating a database of those who can later hire them in various film professions, who can also provide language lessons and professional skills for other markets. The Polish film industry is relatively small, so the help of filmmakers from all over the world will certainly be needed.
Many inhabitants of Ukraine fled as they were, without documents and money. We can help with the process of immigration paperwork now, even if they would like to move on.
We must remember that there are many filmmakers in Ukraine who do not want to flee. Who want to stay in Ukraine and provide us with documentary eyewitness accounts, cataloging the impact of the Russian invasion. Knowing how many influential people there are in the film world, they write from bunkers in their cities hoping to be heard and appealing to the whole world for help. They count on film industry leaders to pressure on international organizations and politicians, not to wait for the destruction of their country. They plea for support in making Ukraine a member of the European Union and NATO, and not succumb to the blackmail of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
We will send you a list of specific needs and addresses to which you can submit offers of your assistance.
Attached you will find the appeal of Ukrainian filmmakers from the Kyiv metro.
On behalf of Women in Film Poland
Renata Czarnkowska-Listoś
President
WIFTI Worldwide Webinar with WIFT Bhutan
WIFTI Worldwide Webinar in collaboration with WIFT Bhutan
Women filmmakers make up only a tiny percentage of the whole industry in Bhutan; they are also less visible and marginalized within a male-dominated field.
Being Bhutan’s first female director, Karma Deki faced many challenges and fortunately, this propelled her to initiate Bhutanese Women in Film and Television to support women in the industry and to amplify their voices and work.
Her dream is to support every woman working in the film industry by highlighting women’s achievements, providing professional development support, and advocating for equity and women’s empowerment in this male-dominated industry.
Meet the inspiring women that are making films and advocating for women’s filmmaking craft in Bhutan!
February 21, 10am Central European Time / 3pm Bhutanese Time
Namgay Zam is an independent journalist, and also the Executive Director of the Journalists’ Association of Bhutan. She has more than a decade’s experience in all forms of media. Zam is a trainer and consultant for media and gender issues. She is a mental health advocate and an LGBTIQ ally as well. Zam is a Young Asia Leader and a Fulbright Humphrey Fellow.
Nyema Zam is the Founder and CEO of Samuh, the first of its kind OTT platform in Bhutan. She is a communication and media specialist with over two decades of experience in Media. She has worked with the National Broadcaster of Bhutan, BBS as a News Anchor, News Editor and as the Head of Marketing and Public Relation Division. She has also worked as a media and communication consultant for UNDP Bhutan, Tourism Council of Bhutan and Ministry of Economic Affairs. Nyema has a masters degree in strategic communications from the University of Western Australia and is passionate about collaborating with a wide range of agencies and communities in developing an inclusive creative eco-system in Bhutan. She is a mother to two teenage boys and loves reading, travelling and listening to music during her free time.
Sonam Yangzom is one of the few women filmmaker in Bhutan. She is a videographer, video editor, director and documentary filmmaker. She has devoted most of her career in film making. Her documentary, The Curse has won the Best Documentary in American Academy of Neurology 2016 and best documentary in Beskop Tshechu. Her documentary Lyonpo Ugyen Tshering’s milestones and Parkinson won the best documentary award in Bhutan Film Festival, 2017.