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- INFO
About CineLink
CineLink, the backbone of the festival’s Industry Section, is a development and financing platform for carefully selected feature projects from Southeast Europe suited for European co-production.
Its activities are spread throughout the year and its aim is to provide a platform designed to meet the current needs and expectations of Southeast Europe’s film industry in reshaping.
CineLink is attended by around 500 industry professionals from across Europe and presents in total around 25 carefully selected projects open for co-production, as well as workshops, networking opportunities and a major regional forum in collaboration with Screen International.
With an average conversion rate of its selected projects from development to production at 60% over the past decade, CineLink has grown into one of the most successful development and financing platforms in Europe. With its CineLink, CineLink Plus and Work in Progress sections it caters for projects in all stages of development, as well as projects in production and postproduction. CineLink also offers an awards fund of over 160,000 Euros in cash and services.
Initiated in 2003, the CineLink activities currently includes:
• Development & Training Workshops
• Co-Production Market
• Work in Progress
• Industry Events
• Industry Office Activities
At the beginning of every year, CineLink selects around 15 most promising film projects in the region through a public call for applications and direct selection. The selection committee focuses on authentic stories with international potential, emerging talent and modern cinematic language, and the projects are selected in two sections: CineLink and CineLink Plus.
During the month of June, projects in the CineLink section participate in the CineLink Project Development Workshop. Structured as a series of development workshops, the Workshop provides consulting services for the script development, production issues and financial and marketing strategy for each of the projects. The consultants are experienced regional and European film industry experts.
CineLink Plus includes projects which, by their quality and author’s strength, deserve to be presented at CineLink, but due to pre-production phase being well underway or specific characteristics of the project not fitting into the frame of the Workshop, and therefore do not participate at the Workshop, but are presented straight at the Market.
The CineLink activities reach their peak in the last three days of the Sarajevo Film Festival, when over 500 professionals from the region and the rest of Europe gather in search of talented filmmakers and promising film projects. This event, the CineLink Co-production Market, is open for participants from all spheres of the film business ready to network, discover talent, co-produce or commission new projects, and creates an annual hub for regional as well as international film professionals.
For the representatives of projects in both CineLink sections, CineLink arranges a series of meetings with potential partners – co-producers, fund representatives, film commissioning editors, sales agents and distributors. The meetings last for 25 minutes and are scheduled during these three days. Every year, over 700 registered meetings are held for the 25 projects presented and CineLink monitors and evaluates the results of the meetings. On the last day of the Market, the CineLink Jury awards a number of major development awards.
In addition, CineLink organizes a number of industry events, from conferences to cocktails, with the aim of pushing presentational and networking possibilities of the regional film industry to the European level.
CineLink’s focus on local productions with international potential, emerging talent and contemporary cinematic language has proved essential to the program's raised profile in the film industry.
Films developed and financed through CineLink such as BUICK RIVERA by Goran Rušinović, KENJAC by Antonio Nuić, HONEY by Semih Kaplanoglu, IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE by Florin Serban and LOVERBOY by Catalin Mitulescu are now a part of prestigious film festivals’ selections and distribution catalogues throughout Europe. Screen International, one of the most important industry publications, has repeatedly listed CineLink Co-Production Market among the top most successful film co-production markets in the world.
CineLink is open for feature-length fiction film projects with potential for theatrical distribution, created by filmmakers from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey.
Project schedule 2012
December – February: CineLink Call for Entries
March - April: CineLink Selection Process
May – June: Work in Progress Call for Entries
June: CineLink Project Development Workshop
June: Work in Progress Selection Process
July 11th-14th: CineLink Co-Production Market
