18/03/2021 - The second workshop of the eight edition of SOFA – School of Film Advancement will take place 22-26 March

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, SOFA – School of Film Advancement will hold its Tbilisi workshop for the second time in a digital form. With the experience of three online workshops in 2020, SOFA is putting great effort into preparing the best possible digital edition for their participants and guests.

The workshop, set to take place 22-26 March, will focus on marketing and finance strategies for the participants’ projects. Since the workshop cannot take place in Georgia, the team made an effort to bring the experience of this country and its culture closer to the digital realm.

SOFA Director Nikolaj Nikitin says: “SOFA and Georgia will online remain a perfect match. We are very happy to cooperate with our precious Georgian partners whose spirit and professional perspective constantly proves to be a huge benefit for projects and participants.”

The ten participants with nine projects of the 2020/2021 edition, who will e-meet a selected round of experts and tutors, are: Victoria Aleksanyan (Armenia), Elkjana Gjipali (Albania), Stefanie Gödicke (Germany), Rufat Hasanov (Azerbaijan), Leonid Kalitenya (Belarus), Jasna Pintarič (Slovenia), Janka Pozsonyi (Hungary), Philipp Maurice Raube (Germany), Willy Rollé (Germany/France) and Rita Stanelytė (Lithuania). For more details on their projects, read the news.

The adapted and further developed curriculum of the digital Tbilisi workshop will be supported by a team of experts: Renaud Redien-Collot (Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Léonard de Vinci Business School, Paris), Peter Rommel, (Rommel Film, Berlin) Sabine Schmitt (social media marketing expert, Berlin), Tamara Tatishvili (MEDICI Head of Training, Georgia/Belgium), Levan Nanobashvili (lawyer in the field of international media law, Georgia), Carolina Jochheim (German Federal Foreign Office, Berlin) and Wato Tsereteli (artist and curator, Georgia).

“Now it is more important than ever to organise the SOFA marketing workshop in Georgia, even if it is online,” explains Tamara Tatishvili, SOFA’s regional coordinator and mentor. “Eastern Partnership countries face severe realities as a result of the global health crisis. It unfolds on political, social and cultural levels and endangers fragile local film structures and their functioning. Due to this, individual cultural practitioners are at risk and need greater support. With the SOFA workshop, we will signal that established international partnerships are there for all participants, we will bring new speakers to the region and we will demonstrate the solidarity which is lacking locally.”

In addition to lectures, participants and guests of the “e-Tbilisi” workshop will have an opportunity to get acquainted with Georgian culture through cooking lessons and online screenings of Georgian animated films.

In the meantime, two projects of the SOFA 2019/2020 edition have been officially launched: Since February 2021, Irena Gruca-Rozbicka’s project Crew United Poland is online, and Viki Antonopoulou’s company Endorphin Film Sales has premiered its first international acquisition, Bebia, à mon seul désir [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juja Dobrachkous
film profile] by Georgian director Juja Dobrachkous, in Rotterdam's Tiger Competition.