For ten years, European Film Promotion and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have been providing a stage for up-and-coming filmmakers during the festival. The joint programme for students and graduates from all over Europe, EFP FUTURE FRAMES, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Supported by the European Union's Media Programme, the initiative aims to focus on a bright and promising new generation of filmmakers, giving them the opportunity at one of the most prestigious A-list festivals to present their short film, which has been made either in a university context or afterwards.This also allows them to build an international network. The filmmakers are nominated by EFP members from their respective countries and selected by the Karlovy Vary programme team.
“We are delighted and very proud of this programme and are pleased about the long-standing partnership with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,ˮ says EFP's President and Head of the Czech Film Center, Markéta Šantrochová. “Ten years ago, the Future Frames programme was launched to highlight emerging directing talent from throughout Europe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Since then, it has grown into a robust industry programme. With Allwyn's support (an international lottery company), we've recently added a transatlantic element, bringing US agents to KVIFF and offering one filmmaker a month-long scholarship in LA. This evolution reflects our commitment to nurturing the next generation of European filmmakers. ˮ
“Let’s celebrate together the creativity of up-and-coming European filmmakers, their dedication to bringing more empathy through art to this complex world. Here is to the next decade of supporting talent together with our cherished collaborators and friends from the EFP, Allwyn, UTA and Range Media Partners! ˮ, says KVIFF Artistic Director Karel Och.
“Future Frames has a real impact and drives generational change by helping aspiring filmmakers realise their full potential. Allwyn is proud to support the programme and as it enters its second decade of changing lives, we look forward to helping even more young people realise their dreams. Because of its considerable cultural impact in offering greater opportunities for more diverse storytelling, Future Frames truly is a programme where we all win”, says Pavel Turek, Allwyn's Chief Officer of Global Brand, Corporate Communication, and CSR.
Until now, 104 filmmakers from 29 European countries have taken part in the programme and can proudly speak of remarkable careers. Four years after his participation in the Future Frames programme, Adam Martinec from the Czech Republic returns to the KVIFF with his first full-length film Our Lovely Pig Slaughter, which is screening in the Crystal Globe competition. Some directors have been also very successful in recent years with their first or second feature-length films, such as Halfdan Olav Ullman Tøndel from the first Future Frames crop, whose debut film Armand was presented with the Camera D'or at this year’s Festival de Cannes. Italian filmmaker Hleb Papou (FF 2018) was awarded Best Emerging Director at the 2021 Locarno Festival for his feature film debut The Legionnaire, which is based on his eponymous short film from 2018.Patrick Vollrath's debut film 7500 received the Austrian Film Award (Best Screenplay & Best Supporting Actor) in 2021. Ninna Pálmadóttir‘s debut feature film, Solitude premiered in the Discovery programme at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, while Michal Blasko‘s debut film Victim had its world premiere at the Horizons section of the 79th Venice Film Festival and was later screened at various festivals in Toronto, Kolkata, Busan and Hamburg. After her highly acclaimed debut film Dead Girls Dancing, which celebrated its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and in Munich, German director Anna Roller (FF 2019) is now shooting the film Allegro Pastell based on the eponymous novel by Leif Randt. Swedish Student Oscar winner Jonatan Etzler (FF 2019) is following the Netflix comedy One more Time with his next film Bad Apples, starring Saoirse Ronan, while the Luxembourgish director Eileen Byrne's debut feature Marianengrab, starring Luna Wedler, will be released in cinemas this autumn. Duch filmmaker Stijn Bouma's debut The Hunt of Meral Ö is also due to be released in the autumn.
Other directors continue to focus on the short film genre, such as David Pinheiro Vicente from Portugal (FF 2018), whose short film Lamb of God was screened in the short film competition at the Cannes Festival in 2020 and has been nominated for numerous prizes and won several awards. Poland's Jakub Radej (FF 2018) scored a major success with his short film Followers. Live Shooting, which received the Special Award at the 47th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2022. Lun Sevnik from the Czech Republic (FF 2019) won the PAG Jury Award at this year's Trieste Film Festival for his short film The Sea in Between.
A fruitful EFP cross-programme success story is the collaboration between the Spanish filmmaker collective (Juno Álvarez, Yaiza de Lamo, Maria Lorente, Mariona Vázquez) with the Spanish Producer on the Move of 2017, Carlo D'Ursi: they met in 2020 as a part of the Future Frames programme and their latest joint film The Revolution of Muses, or how to pose naked on some rocks will be premiered at the Atlantida Film Fest on Mallorca. Belgian director and cinematographer Karen Vázquez Guadarrama (FF 2016), who directed one episode of last year's Cannes award-winning documentary series Draw for Change, is currently writing the screenplay for her new fiction feature Pantano de Aves, which she will produce with this year's Producer on the Move from Belgium, Elisa Heene. There is another collaboration between Constanze Klaue, who will produce her feature debut Punching The World with Alexander Wadouh, a Producer on the Move of 2022.
***click here for more future frames alumni stories***
This year's anniversary selection of emerging talents includes from Austria: Matthias Krepp Strangers in the Night | Belgium/Flanders: Marthe Peters Baldilocks | Czech Republic: Marie-Magdalena Kochová 3 MWh | Denmark: William Sehested Høeg The Complaint | Germany: Hilke Rönnfeldt A Study of Empathy | Iceland: Anna Maria Jóakimsdóttir-Hutri Who Stands Up for Alvar | Italy: Emanuela Muzzupappa Love’s Servant | Romania: Bogdan Alecsandru If I Float |Slovak Republic: Katarína Gramatová A Good Mind Grows in Thorny Places | Spain: Lucía G. Romero Cura Sana
***click here for further information on this year’s selection***
EFP FUTURE FRAMES – Generation NEXT of European Cinema, in collaboration with Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), is made possible thanks to the support of Creative Europe – the MEDIA Programme of the European Union and Allwyn, a leading multi-national lottery operator, as well as the participating national film promotion institutes, EFP's member organisations: Austrian Films, Cinecittà (Italy), Czech Film Center, Danish Film Institute, Flanders Image (Belgium), German Films, Icelandic Film Centre, Romanian Film Development, Slovak Film Institute, Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales / ICAA (Spain), The main media partner is Variety, with Cineuropa and Fred Film Radio as additional media partners.
about karlovy vary international film festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is the largest film festival in the Czech Republic and the most prestigious such festival in Central and Eastern Europe. It is one of the oldest A-list film festivals (i.e., non-specialized festivals with a competition for feature-length fiction films), a category it shares with the festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, San Sebastian, Montreal, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Among filmmakers, buyers, distributors, sales agents, and journalists, KVIFF is considered to be the most important event in all of Central and Eastern Europe.
about allwyn
As a partner of KVIFF, Allwyn, a leading multi-national lottery operator, is proud to be a partner of the FUTURE FRAMES programme to elevate and empower emerging directorial talent from across Europe. Allwyn will host the Allwyn Future Frames Lounge on site at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and bring the ten emerging European talents together with industry leaders, including overseas talent agency UTA and management company Range Media Partners. Allwyn’s celebration evening will commemorate the work of all ten selected directors. In addition, one director from the group will be awarded a scholarship to Hollywood.
