South Eastern European countries expand joint pavilion in Cannes Marche

Eight countries of South Eastern Europe are hosting a growing joint pavillion at the Cannes Marche du Film.

Following the initiative from last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Serbia — along with Marche first-timers Albania, Cyprus and Macedonia — will present their film initiatives together in Cannes at the South-Eastern European Pavillion.

“The objective of this joint venture is to create an attractive stage for our filmmakers to present their work at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and Market,” Ivana Ivisic, the head of sales and promotion at Croatian Audiovisual Centre tells Screen. “We believe that the cooperation between our countries will certainly boost the promotion of films from across the region. The real power of the South-East European Pavilion, as the common promotional platform, is that it celebrates the diversity of our cultures through a very dynamic appearance with a bright future perspective.”

The Pavillion follows in the steps of Central European Cinema, a co-operation between the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia that took place at the Marche in the last four years. Slovenia’s move to SEE camp is logical because of increasing collaboration with other countries of former Yugoslavia.

“It was only a matter of time when the countries that have been making co-productions for years would decide to take this step,” says Nerina T. Kocjancic of the Slovenian Film Fund. “It’s not only an economic interest which is definitely important to small countries that can now share Cannes expenses, it’s also an attempt to strengthen cinemas of this part of Europe in the field of distribution of their own co-productions which is currently very weak.”

The oldest joint pavillion in Cannes is comprised of Nordic countries who have been presenting their cinemas at the Scandinavian Films stand since 1978. Since 2000, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been working together at the Baltic Films pavillion.