Network of the Festivals in the Adriatic Region

ended

The Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF), a leading film festival in Southeast Europe, launched a network of festivals operating on the territory of common language of the former Yugoslavia in 2020 (supported by CE MEDIA programme). Alongside SFF, the network initially gathered together prominent festivals from Croatia (Zagreb Film Festival – ZFF), Montenegro (Montenegro / Herceg Novi Film Festival – MFF) and Serbia (Auteur Film Festival – AFF). The Network’s strategic plan foresaw geographical extension to other territories of Former Yugoslavia, thus starting from 2022 a fifth partner from Slovenia has been introduced (Ljubljana International Film Festival - LIFF). Though these five festivals vary in size, scale and programming, they share a mission to promote and circulate European audio-visual content and talent. These festivals have collaborated in the past, both formally and informally, but health crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak has cemented this collaboration in the formalised structure of a festival network. The governing principles that have emerged during last two years: a high level of solidarity towards filmmakers; the launching of collaboration activities among festivals that enable circulation of content and promotion of the European talent; the stimulation of financial exploitation for given titles to secure fair monetisation; to secure more job’s opportunities for the professionals involved in the festival sector and to bring more sustainable practice in our daily operations. the “Network of festivals in the Adriatic region – seeks to encourage audience retention, to cultivate new audiences and to raise the overall organisational and operational capacities of its partners by introducing the latest technological advances.