BALTIC SHORTS RESIDENCY 2023 opens call for submissions
Film directors and scriptwriters from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are invited to submit short film scripts to the fifth edition of the script development programme “Baltic Shorts Residency”.
The three-week intensive script development program Baltic Shorts Residency, organised by the Lithuanian Short Film Agency Lithuanian Shorts, will once again create a platform for filmmakers from Baltic countries to help improve their writing skills and hone their ideas.
Three selected participants will meet on 1–18 June in Kintai, a small town in West Lithuania, where together with an experienced scriptwriting consultant Anna Ciennik will develop their newest short film projects.
Established in 2019, the Baltic Shorts Residency is the only short film script writing residency in the Baltic region. It aims to develop writing skills, explore ideas and to give participants opportunities to network with international colleagues. Alumni of the previous four residencies have already reaped the benefits of their participation with plaudits and success at many industry events and festivals. These include Latvian filmmaker Tīna Zariņa and her project Limo, Estonian director Sander Joon and his animation Offside and Estonian filmmaker Jaanika Aarum and her project Skin of a Mandarin all of which have won prizes at the prestigious Baltic Pitching Forum. The Trip by Lithuanian director Jorūnė Greičiūtė had been selected at many film festivals while fellow Lithuanian filmmaker Akvilė Gelažiūtė will eagerly await the premiere of her project Standard Pressure: 34 PSI later this year.
This year, the Residency will welcome French Polish script consultant Anna Ciennik. Based in Paris she works for – amongst others – Ikusmira Berriak Residency, La Résidence du Festival de Cannes, Locarno Residency, Open Doors, Torino Film Lab, Cinemart and European Short Pitch. Her feature credits include Clara Sola by Nathalie Álvares Mesén (Director’s Fortnight 2021) and Amparo by Simón Mesa Soto (Cannes Critics’ Week 2021). She has been the Industry Village Manager of Les Arcs Films Festival and curated five of its coproduction event editions between 2017 and 2021. Anna is a member of Collectif 5050.
The Baltic Shorts Residency 2023 will take place in Kintai, which is situated in a rural environment on the coast of the Curonian Lagoon. Participants will be accommodated at the residency space called “Kintai Arts”, which has a mission to actualize, develop and explore the unique heritage of the Pomeranian region and to foster creativity, reflection and exchange of ideas in the spheres of contemporary art and music.
Eligible applicants are film directors and scriptwriters who are citizens of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, have previously produced a short film and are developing a new one which is fiction, animation or a hybrid of the two.
The submitted project must be in its early script development stage, up to 30 minutes long and aimed at an international audience.
The Baltic Shorts Residency 2023 attendees will be committed to apply with their projects to the Baltic Pitching Forum held in Vilnius in October.
The Baltic Shorts Residency is supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture, Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture in partnership with Kintai Arts, PÖFF Shorts | Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Riga International Film Festival, Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS and Latvian Animation Association.
Application deadline – 16 April, 2023. Register HERE.
The Residency’s regulations can be found HERE.
For more information visit here.
