Under the aegis of Head of Industry Marge Liiske, the industry event held alongside the 25th Black Nights Film Festival (November 12-28) has grown into a must-attend training, networking and co-financing platform for emerging and established professionals from the Baltics and Scandinavia, invited to connect with the rest of Europe, the US, Russia & CIS countries.

Novelties this year take in a new TV co-financing market for the TV Beat Forum, with eight projects primarily from the Baltics and the Nordics, to be pitched both online and on-site.

These include Iceland’s Home Where the Heart Is (Heima er best) by actress Tinna Hrafnsdóttir (Margrete-Queen of the North, The Minister) now active as a director (Quake). The six-part drama co-written by Hrafnsdóttir and Ottó Geir Borg (The Valhalla Murders, Undercurrent) centres on a dysfunctional family, fighting over their inheritance. The project is produced by Iceland’s Polarama for Síminn.

Another Icelandic TV project - Fractures - developed as part of the Midpoint Institute training programme - will be used as case-study at the TV Beats Forum. Director Eva Sigurdardottir, co-writers Vala Thorsdottirand Kolbrun Anna Bjornsdottir will share insights on the medical drama produced by Glassriver for RÚV with backing from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

The TV Beats Forum (November 19-20) powered by Elisa Viihde Viaplay will offer inspiration talks about trends in TV drama, notably from Finnish director Dome Karukoski, NRK’s head of Drama Ivar Køhn who will discuss the Nordic 12 pubcasters alliance, DR Sales’ Mette Bjerregaard about her current slate, French group Mediawan’s Emmanuel Eckert who will discuss the role of global distributors in early stage of development.

TV Beats Forum has expanded immensely in three years,” acknowledges Liiske. “Diversity in production is what people are looking for, so with our programme we’re catering for professionals’ different needs,” she underlined.

Meanwhile the Baltic Event Co-production Market (November 24-25) will present 14 projects - half of them from female directors. Among those are Sweden’s You Can Dance directed by Katarina Launing (Battle, Dragon Girl) for Hobab, and Finland’s Lex Julia by Laura Hyppönen (Eat Die Young) produced by Greenlit Productions.

As part of Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event's focus on the UK, two UK projects will also be pitched at the BE Co-production Market: Equinox by Jonathan Birch and MS Estonia by Sarah Laita.

The BE Works in Progress session with Baltic and Finnish projects will showcase eight titles including Light Light Light by Finnish director Inari Niemi, produced by Lucy Loves Drama.

Training programme
Also making its debut in Tallinn is the Black Nights Discovery Campus (November 19-26), a new talent banner hosting different training programmes for actors, music composers, scriptwriters, young critics and production designers. The initiative is backed by the European Film Academy and funded by the European Development Fund.

Among the educational strands, the new Future to Film training programme for emerging producers, scriptwriters and directors is divided into a Script Pool competition and a Discovery Showcase to highlight emerging European filmmakers nominated for the European Discovery-Prix Fipresci at the European Film Awards.

Those include Iceland’s Valdimar Jóhannsson (Lamb) and Sweden’s Ninja Thyberg (Pleasure). Top Nordic talents invited to give inspiration talks at the Black Nights Discovery Campus include Danish production designer Sabine Hviid (Another Round, Charter), and Iceland’s director/producer Baltasar Kormákur (Trapped, Everest).

“We are considering extending the Black Nights Discovery Campus to cinematographers, VFX specialists, and in 2022, Estonia will have extra funds to re-orientate other professionals such as electricians, so that they will join the film and TV industries”, explains Liiske. “More productions from neighbouring countries Finland, Russia are coming to Tallinn, we will soon have a new filming hub and studios in Estonia [the Tallinn Film Wonderland]. But we need more skilled people to work within the audiovisual industries,” she said.

On the conference side, sessions will focus on sustainability, virtual reality and green production.

At press time, more than 500 professionals had signed up for the 20th Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event.

For the full programme, check: www.industry.poff.ee