Thessaloniki Fest Live Streams Pitch Forum in Response to Coronavirus Postponement

In an indication of how the worldwide movie trade is already adapting to a brand new actuality, the Thessaloniki Documentary Competition started live-streaming the pitching discussion board of its annual Agora Doc Market on Monday, simply days after the pageant’s 22nd version was postponed amid rising considerations round a world coronavirus outbreak.

With a whole lot of friends from throughout the globe unable to attend, imperilling a slate of trade occasions geared towards supporting new filmmakers and boosting manufacturing in Southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Center East, organizers scrambled to place collectively a web based platform to host this week’s pitching classes.

Thessaloniki convened 40 producers, administrators, commissioning editors, pageant programmers and different trade professionals throughout 16 international locations for Monday’s on-line discussion board. “It was troublesome to coordinate all these folks in many alternative international locations, however all of them responded actually (rapidly), and had been glad to do it,” says Yianna Sarri, head of the pageant’s trade arm, Agora.

Final week, organizers had been pressured to postpone this 12 months’s pageant because the coronavirus started its sweep of Europe. They stated in an announcement on the time: “The security of the working workers, the viewers, town’s residents and the pageant’s friends from each Greece and overseas are our top-notch precedence.”

Thessaloniki’s digital innovation follows related pursuits within the movie and TV trade on the again of coronavirus-related postponements and cancellations. Final week, following Cannes-set TV market MipTV’s cancellation, numerous distributors revealed they’d be organising digital showcases for consumers.

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Twelve documentary movie tasks in early phases of improvement took half in Monday’s Thessaloniki Pitching Discussion board. Eleven documentary tasks may also be introduced over the following two days as a part of the pageant’s Docs in Progress pitching session. Awards and money prizes can be introduced on Thursday, whereas organizers stay hopeful the pageant can nonetheless happen in late Might or early June.

Organizers say it’s the primary time such a pitching discussion board has taken place totally on-line. Because the coronavirus continues to unfold throughout the globe, prompting extra festivals and trade gatherings to cancel or postpone, different occasions are certain to observe in its wake.

“It was a simple determination for us, as a result of we didn’t wish to miss the chance for all these tasks that we had been imagined to current in Thessaloniki,” says Sarri. “It’s essential for us to provide (filmmakers) the chance to current their movies, as a result of…they entrust their tasks to us. Now we have an obligation.”

The Thessaloniki Documentary Competition, which was slated to run March 5-15, is amongst a wave of movie festivals to be postponed or canceled in latest days, as a result of rising world well being disaster. On Friday, SXSW pulled the plug on its 2020 version.

Earlier on Monday, the Beijing Worldwide Movie Competition, which was initially scheduled for late April, introduced it might be postponed till an unknown later date as Chinese language authorities proceed to scramble to include that nation’s coronavirus outbreak.

A complete of 73 circumstances of coronavirus have been confirmed in Greece so far, with authorities well being officers warning this weekend that the quantity is predicted to rise within the coming days. Colleges have been shuttered within the nation’s hardest-hit western areas, and the federal government introduced new measures on Sunday to attempt to include the virus, together with a month-long ban on all conferences and a two-week moratorium on reside audiences for sporting occasions.

The nation’s first case, a 38-year-old lady coming back from northern Italy, was recorded in Thessaloniki on Feb. 26.