Baltics and Finland in the spotlight at Les Arcs Film Festival

For the first time in the history of the popular Les Arcs Film Festival, a valued meeting place for professionals of independent European cinema, four countries will be in the spotlight as part of the festival’s traditional Focus, usually reserved to just one territory.

Dedicated to The Baltic states (Lituania, Estonia and Latvia) & Finland, this 11th edition (taking place from December 14 to 21) will thus showcase, in the sports resort of the Savoie, features and short films from this region of Europe that has grown more and more active in terms of production.

The dynamics of European co-production of these four territories will also be closely examined at the heart of the Industry Village (attracting more than 550 professionals every year, and programmed from December 14 to 18), a very efficient platform for films in development that has now officially launched its call for submissions to the Coproduction Village of 2019. The deadline is September 6 and 20 projects in development seeking co-producers and financing partners will be selected.

Notable recent films already under the belt of the Arcs Film Festival’s Coproduction Village are Oleg, from Latvian director Juris Kursietis, and The Orphanage, from Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, both of which had their world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival last month. Worth mentioning, among other films selected in the Village’s previous editions, are Son of Saul, from Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes (Village 2010), The Wonders from Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (Village 2012), Rams from Icelandic director Grimur Hakonarson (Village 2013), Summer 1993 from Spanish director Carla Simón (Village 2014), The High Sun from Croatian director Dalibor Matanic (Village 2011), The Wakhan Front from French director Clément Cogitore (Village 2013), One Step Behind the Seraphim  from Romanian director Daniel Sandu (Village 2014), and Echo from Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson (Village 2017) (read the news) which we will soon discover.

Source: cineuropa.org