The nine selected projects and three development executives that are set to participate in the upcoming MIDPOINT Series Launch 2022 have been announced. The event is being organised in partnership with Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event. As is the case at every edition, the “idea to market” series project development programme is focusing on creative teams of professionals hailing from Central and Eastern Europe. During this workshop, the writers, directors and producers will make their series ideas into marketable projects. They will learn how to improve their script as well as their skills, and will find out about possible funding opportunities.

Alexandra Gabrižová, Series Launch programme coordinator, mentioned: “I see one of the most significant aspects of this year’s selection in its diversity and inclusivity, and the tenderness of the authors towards their protagonists. The selection consists of stories that we find it important to talk about within the context of contemporary society – to speak to (and about) various age groups, to care about minorities flooding the Western world with their different types of broken English accents, to discover the possibilities of living in progressive eco-villages (while children can assume the constitutional power), and to give voice to important stories from Ukrainian culture, such as the powerful life story of renowned painter Marie Bashkirtseff, included in this year’s selection. Europe is going through a serious test of moral and democratic values nowadays, and we strongly believe that the cultivating of storytelling remains a strong tool in fighting against polarisation.”

The programme schedule starts with an online project pre-training session from 11-14 April, while the development-executive participants will have a head start one week prior to that. The first workshop focusing on the series concept will be held in Breznice, Czech Republic, and all of the participants will attend from 7-13 May. This will be followed by a series of online consultations. According to the current plans, the second workshop, which will develop the season arc and mini-bible, will unspool from 26 June-3 July in Bratislava, Slovakia, and online consultations will follow afterwards. The third and final one, aimed at pitching and acquiring partners, will run during Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event in November, as part of the upcoming Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where the projects will also be pitched as part of the Season Finale platform.

Hungarian writer and creative producer Gábor Krigler is the head of studies and one of the three dedicated group leaders, alongside German script reader and scriptwriter Katrin Merkel, and Swedish creative consultant, lecturer and coach Tatjana Samopjan, who are both joining the MIDPOINT team this year, while Steve Matthews will be the development-executive mentor. Furthermore, the four guest tutors for the first two workshops are Maggie Murphy, Benjamin Harris, Ben Morris and Cyril Tysz.

The MIDPOINT TV Launch 2022 selection is as follows:

45° (Greece)
Writer: Simon Coss
Director: Georgis Grigorakis
Producer: Jack Thomas-O’Brien

A Remarkable Woman (France/UK/Ukraine)
Writer: Anastasia Starova
Producer: Cristian Nicolescu

Childocracy (Latvia)
Writer: Elza Gauja
Writer/director/producer: Andris Gauja

Gray Divorce (Serbia)
Writer: Lea Stanković
Writer/producer: Ivan Knežević

IQUTE (Poland)
Writer: Monika Franczak
Director: Pawel Maslona
Producer: Anna Różalska

Kanun (Italy/Albania)
Writer: Giulio Rizzo
Writer/producer: Ariens Damsi

Nino and Iliko (Georgia)
Writers: Maka Kukulava, Uta Beria
Producer: Nino Chichua

Other White (Slovakia/UK)
Writer/director: Matus Krajnak
Producers: Lucia Brutovska, Matej Sotník

Splashing Around (Slovenia)
Writer/director: Hanna Szentpeteri
Producer: Zala Opara

Development-executive participants

Nađa Lapčević (Serbia)
Dagmar Sedlácková (Czech Republic)
Sasha Vyshnevska (Ukraine)