In partnership with the European Film Market, ACE Producers will co-host the Consultancy Round Tables with experts from ACE Producers, aimed at all international producers attending the EFM with a professional business goal. Based on one of the core competencies of the European Film Market as a sales and distribution platform, the EFM Producers Hub provides a working environment for professionals during the Berlinale. It will be the key location for producers to meet and network with potential partners.

The EFM Producers & Projects Hub, in collaboration with ACE Producers, will offer daily round-table discussions from the 17th until the 20th of February, centred around the following themes:

Strategies on how to develop your project at International Training Platforms
Saturday, 17 February: 11:00 – 12:00
Find the consultants here.

Strategies on how to finance a project in an International Context
Sunday, 18 February: 11:00 – 12:00
Find the consultants here.

Strategies for Distribution
Monday, 19 February: 11:00 – 12:00
Find the consultants here.

Strategies on how to build Audiences (with AI)
Tuesday, 20 February: 11:00 – 12:00
Find the consultants here.

The experts are the consultants and moderators of each session, you can pre-register and indicate your preference for one of the consultants here.

Please note:

• To access the Gropius Bau and the round tables, you need to have a Berlinale Market Badge.
• Signing up for the round tables is required beforehand.
• Producers can only sign up for a maximum of two round tables.
• Registrations will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis.
• If you are selected to participate, you will receive a confirmation by email mentioning which session(s) you will join.

Thanks to its new partnership with Mifa Annecy, ACE Producers will co-host the Networking Tables Session & Cocktail Reception during 2022 Annecy Film Festival.

Tom Dercourt (ACE France) will open the session with a short case study of his film “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, a retelling of several of Murakami’s short stories premiering at the festival, followed by Networking tables which will encourage discussions between the producers and key industry players. Network members and guests are invited to join the Cocktail Reception afterwards.

ACE x Mifa Networking Tables & Cocktail Reception

Date: Tuesday 14th of June
Location: Salon Imperial, 3rd floor of Imperial Palace
17:00 – 18:30 Networking Tables
18:30 – 20:00 Cocktail Reception

Key European Film Organisations Join Forces
in New Anti-Racism Task Force

In the Summer of 2020, a group of European film industry professionals gathered to form ARTEF, the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film. Engaging over thirty organisations, our first step was an awareness training programme lead by Dr Emilia Roig, trainer, author, and founder of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin. The workshop encounters lasted between November 2020 and May 2021 online with an average of forty participants from all over Europe in each session.

With a broad and intersectional approach, ARTEF’s main aim is to dismantle racist structures and combat all forms of racism in the European film industry. Our goal is to become a task force for change: by raising awareness, by offering education and insights, by suggesting revisions to regulations and practices, as well as to weather opposition from the industry — especially from those who habitually benefit from institutionalised racism.

After its initial year, ARTEF will continue organising training programmes for European film professionals
who are keen on tackling institutionalised racism and willing to do the personal work needed to help dismantling existing structures, and help building new, inclusive ones in the decades to come. Anyone who has been or is affected by racism in the European film industry is invited to come forward and engage with ARTEF to help us build a meaningful task force together.|

Thus far, we have been laying the ground for future actions and we will be reaching out to all European
film institutions, including film festivals, film commissioning, organisations and filmmaking collectives,
asking them to join ARTEF, and commit to training, ring fencing of resources, and to turn their awareness into actions.

We invite filmmakers in every European country to write to their institutions, collectives, unions, and organisations to request they join and support ARTEF’s work, and to engage with us with ideas, suggestions and/or requests.

We are opening a line of communication via artef@artef.org.

LIST OF MEMBERS
Initiated by Matthijs Wouter Knol, the newly appointed Director of the European Film Academy,
ARTEF was also co-founded by its current Board of Directors: Helene Granqvist (producer Nordic
Film Factory and president WIFTI), Paula Alvarez Vaccaro (producer Pinball London and European
Producers Club vice president), and Marion Schmidt (co-director Documentary Association of
Europe).

Steering committee
Paula Alvarez Vaccaro
Véronique N. Doumbé
Helene Granqvist
Laurence Lascary
Regina Mosch
Marion Schmidt
Matthijs Wouter Knol

Funding partners
Bertha Foundation, British Film Institute, FOCAL, HessenFilm, MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-
Holstein, International Sámi Film Institute, Film Fund Luxemburg, Netherlands Film Fund, Norwegian
Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute and contributions from the participating organisations
ACE, EAVE, EWA, and WIFTI as well as production companies Magic Hour Films and Pinball London
and further donors.

The awareness trainings were attended by top-level representatives of the following organisations
ACE Producers
British Film Institute
Cinéastes non alignées
Collectif 50/50
Creative Diversity Network
DAE — Documentary Association of Europe
Doc Society
EAVE
European Film Academy
EFM — European Film Market
EFP — European Film Promotion
EWA — European Women’s Audiovisual Network
EPC — European Producers Club
FOCAL
International Sámi Film Institute
Magic Hour Films
MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein
Netherlands Film Fund
Norwegian Film Institute
Pinball London
Power to Transform
Programmers of Colour Collective (POC2)
ProQuote Film
Swedish Film Institute
Queer Media Society
WIFTI — Women in Film and Television International

as well as by key representatives of the supporting funds and companies

Press contact: Pascal Edelmann, European Film Academy
p.edelmann@europeanfilmacademy.org
ARTEF contact: artef@artef.org

ACE is pleased to support the European Producers Club‘s initiative to establish a Code of Fair Practices when working with the streamers for European independent producers.

The EPC has been working on this code for many months to provide this text as an answer from the European independent producers for minimum standards terms when working with the streamers. Their predominance in the European market, increased with the sanitary crisis, and their business model is seen by many as endangering the independent sector as a whole and more widely its cultural diversity.

The value of the role of an independent production company should be recognised in the producers’ relationships with VOD Services, in particular through the contractual terms regarding the funding and exploitation of each project. The Code of Fair Practices aims to establish basic parameters to be applied to VOD Services’ contracts when commissioning feature films, TV series and other audiovisual works (“originals”) from independent production companies. The code focuses on four points:

1. Fair and proportionate remuneration and economic participation for producers
2. Producers’ contribution and right to participate in future derivative works
3. Transparency and Accountability
4. Public Benefits and Fiscal Incentives

Click here to find more information.

ACE is pleased to announce the support of Unreal Engine from Epic Games. Unreal Engine will support the ACE Animation Special 1 which will take place on from the 17th till the 22nd of March in Dingle, Ireland.

Focusing primarily on the creative and financial aspects of animation production, the ACE Animation Special will offer sessions on story development and the creative dynamics of animation production, the financing scheme in an international context, discovering the marketing potential and finding an (international) audience as well as budget, financing and production planning. The workshop will give the producers a chance to network with their peers and dive deeper into the different aspects of animation production.

The workshop is held in close collaboration with Screen Skills Ireland and Animation Dingle with support from other key Irish partners alongside Unreal – Screen Ireland, BAI, Animation Skillnet, IDA and Animation Ireland, Creative Europe Desk Ireland.

Unreal Engine is a complete suite of development tools for anyone working with real-time technology. From design visualisations and cinematic experiences to high-quality games across PC, console, mobile, VR, and AR, Unreal Engine gives you everything you need to start, ship, grow, and stand out from the crowd.

Find out more information about Unreal Engine here.

Thanks to a new partnership with Film Center Serbia, the ACE 30 Financing Strategies Workshop will be held in Belgrade in June 2021.
Every September, ACE selects 18 experienced film producers, each with a project in development that is suitable for co-production and aimed at the international market, to take part in ACE’s annual programme of advanced training and then join the ACE Network. The Financing Strategies Workshop is the second of the four key training events which make up the ACE programme.

The core of the Financing Strategies Workshop, to be held in Belgrade, will be made up of interactive sessions exploring international financing opportunities and strategies through detailed analysis of producers’ finance plans, with input provided by over 40 high-grade professionals from across the industry. Consultants that have previously attended include Bobby Allen (MUBI), Sébastien Beffa (Playtime), Philippe Bober (Coproduction Office), Jonas Dornbach (Komplitzen Film), Charlotte Mickie (Celluloid Dreams), Jelena Mitrovic (Bas Celik) and Agathe Théodore (Pathé).

Speaking of the partnership, the director of Film Center Serbia, Gordan Matic says “We are very proud that FCS will host some of the most influential producers in European film, thanks to this new partnership. I believe that many ACE members will start dreaming up their new films right here, in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2021.”

One afternoon during the Financing Strategies Workshop will be open to the local industry. The event will give regional professionals the opportunity to benefit from information usually only available to ACE members, and for ACE producers and consultants to network and get a better understanding of the local audiovisual landscape.

“The Financing Strategies Workshop is at the heart of the ACE programme”, says ACE director Jacobine van der Vloed, “and it’s become part of the calendar year for many of our consultants. They are all very excited to be going to Serbia, a country whose presence in European co-productions has become more and more frequent. We are very grateful to Film Center Serbia for this opportunity.”

The ACE 30 Financing Strategies Workshop will be held from the 7th to the 12th of June 2021.