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Festival description
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GENERAL INFORMATION

Tirana International Film Festival, which is implemented by the Tirana Film Institute,  is the biggest and the oldest Film Festival in Albania, placed in the capital city Tirana. The Festival was created in 2003 (it was the first film festival after 1 decade of gap from the official state film festival organized during the communism regime until 1990). The Festival is internationally recognized and screens every year more than 200 movies of all genres (feature, short, fiction, documentaries, animation, video art, experimental, student films from all over the world) devised in various sections that compete and with eight international juries, including FIPRESCI,  that award the films in competitions.

The Festival yearly getting thousands of submissions from submitting online in our website and other online platforms as: FilmFreeway, WithoutaBox, Reelport, Festhome, Click4Festivals, FilmFestivalLife from across Europe (countries participating in the Media programme) more than 30 european countries and from around  120 countries around the world which applies for being selected.

TIFF is the only international festival in Albania and one of the few in the region to apply Entry Fee, and the outstanding number of first time applications during the last year in our website and online platforms was encouraging - as well as an indicator of great interest from cinematographers all over the world to become part of the official selection of TIFF.

TIFF was included in the list of the 103 best festivals in the world which are observed by Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Organizer of Golden Globe Awards) – where A category festivals are included, such as the Cannes Festival, Berlin Festival, Venezia, Sundance, Tribeca, Karlovi Vary, Locarno, Moska, Busan, etc.

We are thrilled and honored to be approved as an official Academy Awards® qualifying festival, it’s truly a tremendous opportunity for our fi­lmmakers and future Best Short Film Award winners.

TIFF Festival is a national cinema event whose main objective is to enlarge the number of venues and time of screening of European and non European films of all genres and durations in Albania as well as it is considered to be an event to develop new audiences around the country, combining film screenings with public debates and thematic debates approaching new and an increased Film Audience and focusing also on Film Literacy.

TIFF aims at demonstrating strong efficiency in audience development (especially toward young audience) by implementing activities before, during and after the event, including year-long activities and travelling to other cities with various smaller partner and smaller festivals in the country. Partnering with small organisations and youth centers around the country in order to use the existing facilities in each city will not only give to TIFF a large national impact, but will enhance on the other side the increase of values of small events in each respective city in which TIFF will be present.

The 16th edition of TIFF - TIRANA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL will be held in November 2 - 9, 2018.

TIFF shows for the public only national premieres, and, as it has happened during different editions, it has shown Balkanic premieres, European or World premieres.

The main goal of TIFF is to turn into a crucial point into the map of the cinema venues in the Balkans having in consideration that is the only film festival in Balkans an official Academy Awards® qualifying festival for the Short Film Awards.

We want to promote our city by organizing film events in the open air, photography workshops, live concerts in the most visited sites of Tirana.

The project will be focused in a central event which is the TIFF for 8 days, but for the entire life of the project, during the 12 months, the organizers will enlarge the activities framework with various screening over the 12 months in various locations and cities around Albania, inviting young audience around the country to participate not only on the screenings but also on lively debates  about film literacy and thematic debate about the role of the cinema as a tool for mutual understanding among European cultures and/or the role of the cinema in order to increase social and cultural responsibility among the Albanian society needs. The project envisages having more than additional 7 weeks of screening in various cities and locations in Albania, more than 20 thematic debates on film literacy and about 5 meetings among the national and international creative industry workers that can join the forces for future cooperation in the future. In every city the project will target the youth centers as project partner in order to use their premises for film screening and film debates in strong cooperation with various universities, schools and approaching as much as possible general public.

Expected Results:

  • To widen Festival’s audience by presenting the most recent cinema productions.
  • To promote new directors and filmmakers into a new audience.
  • To create a fair competition atmosphere between artists.
  • To reach targeted audiences through many various activities.
  • To bring the audiences’ artistic tastes into a higher level.
  • To foster the collaboration between artists and producers by building a stable network.
  • To be a live cinema window for film students and young film lovers.
  • To promote the city of Tirana by bringing many international guests and touring them around.

HISTORY

FESTIVAL GUESTS:

Ken Loach,  Theo Angelopoulos,  Alexandre Rockwell,  Franko Nero, Gianni Amelio, Goran Paskaljevic, Yves Boisset, Phil Parmet, Dan Boyd, Sam Green, Angeliki Antoniou, Caveh Zahedi, Carl Henrik Svenstedt, Katriel Schory, Aleksandar Manic, Alessandro Piva, Andrea Barzin, Edoardo Winspeare, Miguel Hermoso, Nico Girasole, Sergio Rubini, Daniele Vicari, etc.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS:

Tickets by Ken Loach (honored guest in Tirana), Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino, Here be Dragons by Mark Cousins and produced by Dan Boyd (honored guest in Tirana), How Strange to be Named Federico: Ettore Scola narrates Fellini, I, Daniel Blake by Ken Loach, Julieta by Pedro Almodovar, The Graduation by Cristian Mungiu, In Grazia di Dio by Edoardo Winspeare, The Dove Flyer (Farewell Baghdad) by Nissim Dayan, La Nave Dolce by Danile Vicari (honored guest in Tirana), Honeymoon by Goran Paskaljevic (honored guest in Tirana), etc.

HOMAGE & TRIBUTE to Theo Angelopoulos, P.P. Pasolini, Abbas Kiarostami, Ermanno Olmi, Dusan Makavejev, Sergei Parajanov, Michelangelo Antonioni, John Cassavetes, Claude Chabrol, Gianni Amelio, Ettore Scola, Carmelo Bene, Vittorio De Seta, Norman McLaren - a pioneer in the field of animation, visual music, abstract film and graphical sound, etc.

RETROSPECTIFF: The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo, Wedding Banquet by Ang Lee, Maria Full of Grace by Joshua Marston, Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow by Theo Angelopoulos, The Suspended Step of the Stork by Theo Angelopoulos, Eternity And A Day by Theo Angelopoulos, Ulysses' Gaze by Theo Angelopoulos, Performance, 1970 by Nicolas Roegh - featuring Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones; Aria, 1987 written and directed by ten most famous directors like Jean Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Ken Russell, Nikolas Roegh, etc. presented by wellknown producer Dan Boyd; The Assasination (L'attentat, 1972) by Yves Boisset (honored guest in Tirana), I Even Met Happy Gypsies by Aleksandar Petrović,etc.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS in the lasts editions:

FOCUS on last Serbian films, Romanian NEW WAVE, THE LIFE IS SHORT (Best Italian shorts 2014-2015), TIME OF GYPSIES - feature & documentary films from balkan filmmakers, SCANDINAVIAN SHORT PANORAMA, LONDON FILM SCHOOL, Jos Stelling - EROTIC TALES, 9x10 – 90th anniversary of Istituto Luce, Italy, ISREAL - dedicated to the contemporary Israeli cinema, KIMUAK - best short basque movies of the last 15 years, Best selections and awarded films from festival partners, etc.

REFLECTING ALBANIA - films produced by foreign cinematographers about Albania.

WORKSHOPS – MASTERCLASS - SEMINARS:

-           PRODUCTION: From Script to Screen

-           PROMOTION: Navigating the Festival Circuit

-           DISTRIBUTION: Beginning with the End in Mind

-           EAVE on Demand, workshop about the script with 12 young directors

-           MAKING MOVIES seminar held by Katriel Schory, President of Israel Film Fund

-           COLLABORATION BETWEEN NEW CINEMATOGRAPHERS AND THE VALUE OF CO- PRODUCTION by Ben Gibson, director of London Film School

-           FILM MARKET & DISTRIBUTION seminar by Esther Cabero, coordinator of KIMUAK

-           THE FUTURE OF FILM FESTIVALS AND NEW CHALLENGIES – round table by Esther Cabero, Antonello Novellino, Víctor Manuel Muñoz García, Sergio Stagno, Arben Zharku, Elektra Venaki, Fabrizio Ferrari, Vjosa Berisha.

-           THE DIACHRONIC EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL LIFE THROUGH CINEMA, workshop based on illustrations and analysis of Kinostudio "New Albania" movies directed by Ph.D. Julian BEJKO, Dept. of Sociology, University of Tirana.

-           EARLY CINEMA IN THE BALKANS: An Archaeological Approach by Ana Grgic, University of St Andrews

-           TOWARDS A HISTORY OF ALBANIAN CINEMA by Lars Kristensen, University of Skövde, Sweden

-           IT’S A WONDERFUL JOB! Women at Work in Xhanfise Keko’s by Bruce Williams, William Paterson University, USA

-           THE MAKING OF THE SOCIALIST MARTYR: Pjetër Llesh Doda and Rrugë të Bardha by Konstantinos Giakoumis, University of New York Tirana, Trudy-Ann Anderson , Christopher Lockwood

-           Construing and Dismantling the New Man Utopia: The Contribution of the Albanian Cinema to the Communist and Postcommunist Albanian Ontology by Ridvan Peshkopia, University for Business and Technology, Arben Imami, Institute for Political Studies

FOCUS Special Program dedicated a large space to the Homage in remembrance of the Grand Master of world cinema, Abbas Kiarostami. Apart from the 8 movie retrospective, two other feature length documentaries were shown which told the story of his cinematographic and socio-political activity – produced by two close associates of his. Mainly for students and young cinema aficionados, four seminars were organized about his original and unique creativity.

I. Loneliness in Abbas Kiarostami's cinema by Mehdi Abdollahzadeh (Switzerland), film critic, curator of HOMAGE to Abbas Kiarostami.

II. Fiction and non fiction in Kiarostami's cinema by Bahman Maghsoudlou (USA), film scholar, critic, and independent film producer/director.

III. Working with Kiarostami by Seifollah Samadian (Iran), director and cinematographer.

IV.  Cinema at its strict minimum: simplicity as the fullness of life by  Blerina Hankollari (Albania), Researcher at the Department of Ethnology, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Arts Studies, PhD Candidate in philosophy University of Toulouse II-Jean Jaurès, ERRAPHIS.

Expo Event: Poetry into frames, frames out of poetry, exhibition with poems and photos created by Abbas Kiarostami.

5C Project – A project supported by Media program of Creative Europe where TIFF was official partner with Altcine (Greece), Balkan Cultural Centre (Croatia), Balkan Cultural Institute (Romania), ended its annual tour in Tirana after the experience in Athens, Split and Cetate (Romania). On this occasion, the movies most acclaimed by the five new critics were shown for the public and two seminars were held for the five critics and students of the Film Academy e Multimedia MARUBI as well as for students of the Social Sciences Faculty of Tirana University and in the auditorium of the National Archive Center of Film:

Description of the parent organization – a brief outline of the yearly activities of the parent organization

TIFF on Tour is the activity which continues throughout the year in different cities of Albania such as Vlora, Pogradec, Berati, Korça, Shkodra, Gjirokastra, Saranda, Durrës etc. This tour takes under consideration the combination of films show with cultural places and sites to enhance tourist attraction in these places.

The project will go on this year as well even in less frequented sites where the absence of movie theatres still remains an unsolved problem.

7 week screenings of films in 7 various cities of Albania

20 Thematic Debates on audience development

5 thematic debates on film literacy

More than 20 events with students of high schools in order to develop dedicated screenings and discuss film literacy.

We are also ready to start a several month TIFF.TV Competition program with the Albanian Public Television. It will be a TV competition with short and feature films which have accepted in their entry forms to be part of this cinematographic marathon. This program will be aired nightly and in the end of each week a live talk-show will be hosted to discus about the movies of the week with directors, producers, actors and students of different disciplines. Voting will be open for the audience and the winners of each category will receive the maximum of points from the audience as well as the professional jury. The winners will be announced during the TIFF award ceremony November 9th, 2018.

TIFF TV Competition will give to the audience a first time chance to see the movies of the festival on TV, movies which it is impossible to watch in theatres and very difficult to be found on the internet. This form of TV diffusion will boost interest in these movies to an audience which up until now hasn’t visited the festival, are not regular movie goers or not at all. The weekly debates about the movies will spike the viewer’s curiosity and will serve as first time TV disclosure of information about the script, directing, camera, actor’s performance, production, budgets and costs needed to produce a movie, distribution and other aspects of cinematography.

A student jury will be created, which will be invited at the weekend talk-shows to raise questions and to discuss with the professional guests in the panel. All students’ critics and reviews written by them will be published in a special internet page, and in the end of the marathon program the best movie chosen by them will also be announced. Another special purpose of the student jury will be the selection of the best student critic by the professional jury based on the writings and reviews on the web. The best student critic will be part of the jury for TIFF 2018 Student Competition and some others of them will be provided with a special badge to attend all TIFF shows and events.

We have already successfully finished another daring distribution adventure– The Festival-to-Date scheme for the first time in this part of the world, simultaneously screening the dutch film “Clean Hands” on 11 November 2016 in public at Tirana Film Festival and Cinedays Film Festival in Skopje, Macedonia, as well as on VoD platform in both countries. This project combining of-line and on-line distribution, Albania received support from MEDIA programme of Creative Europe applied by CutAway: on-line and off-line: new digital forms of film distribution in the Balkans.

For this project we are ready to screen from April 20-27, 2017 the Dutch movie for children “The Little Gangster” dubbed in Albanian and to reach to wider audience using on-line and off-line distribution. This daring business model will encourage provocative ideas and methodologies in promotion of films in the Balkans and beyond.

Other partner countries in this project supported by MEDIA are Croatia and Macedonia, where the film will also be distributed in cinemas and on VOD platform Cinesquare available on the territory of Albania, dubbed in Croatian and in Macedonian.

In theaters, majority of the films screened are Hollywood productions. European films for children and young adults are rarely screened in cinemas and an alternative distribution is almost non-existent. This release will provide new distributive model in a part of Europe that lacks this kind of release and to offer the audience in this parts a greater access to content and services from EU countries. Balkan countries lack a potential audience so with combining off-line and on-line distribution we will help towards audience development, reach new potential audience for European audiovisual works as children viewers via VOD. Embracing the new digital distribution models will satisfy the needs of the new digital generation of viewers who rely on their friends tweeting and liking to find a film. Combining an innovative business model for multiplatform releasing with social media tools will create a noise that will boost the viewers need to go and see the film in the theaters. This will increase audience interest and also media interest.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION PROGRAM

•          Feature (all movie genres)

•          Documentary Film (all lengths)

•          Fiction/Live Action

•          Animation

•          Video Art & Experimental

•          Student Film

•          In Albanian Film

BALKANorama

OUT OF COMPETITON Special Program

1.         FOCUS (Tribute, Homage, filmmaker or country)

2.          PANORAMA (KIDs; DIVERGENT MINDs; GENERATIONs; New World; PARADE)

3.         Special Screenings (the most awarded films with screening fee)

4.         MADE In ALBANIAn (the most recent films in Albanian language)

5.         RetrospecTIFF (by National Film Archive and other partners Film Archives)

6.         Reflecting Albania (films about Albania produced by foreign filmmakers)

7.         FesTIFFal (programs selected by festival partners)

During the nine days of TIFF's program, in addition to competition shorts and features screenings, many retrospectives, workshops, seminars, masterclasses, press events and special presentations at theaters and schools all over the Albanian capital take place.

TIFForum, a regional approach to promote cinematographic production in Albania and co-productions in the region, will be a 3-day intensive workshop for the Script Development & Pitching Competition in collaboration with Torino Film Lab of 8 first or second feature film projects, consisting of individual consultations, practical writing exercises and lectures. The projects will work on their pitch with a trainer in the following 2 days.  On the last day every participant will pitch his project and compete for the Best Pitch Award.

Eight international juries, including FIPRESCI, comprised of leading film writers, directors, producers and critics will evaluate and then select the best features & shorts with awards presented on the closing night ceremony. Awards will be presented in the following categories:

Best FEATURE Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing “Luc Barnier”, Best European Feature Film;

Best DOCUMENTARY, Best Documentary Full-length, Best Documentary Mid-length, Best Documentary Short, Best European Documentary film;

Best SHORT Film, Best FICTION, Best ANIMATION, Best VIDEO ART & EXPERIMENTAL, Best European Short Film;

Best STUDENT Film, Best Film in ALBANIAN, MEDIA Award, FIPRESCI Award;

Best BALKAN Film, Best DEBUT Film “Ron Holloway” Award, AUDIENCE Choice Award.

Recipients of the Tirana International Film Festival Best Short Film will be eligible for consideration in the Animated Short Film/ Live Action Short Film category of the Academy Awards® without the

standard theatrical run, provided the fi­lm otherwise complies with the Academy Rules.

MARKET CORNER will be the ideal place for distributors and sales agents to give as much chances as possible to filmmakers from Albania and the Balkans to seek and find European market for their productions and to help them make possible arrangements for their future projects or work in progress drafts.

But at the meantime during the festival a large number of distributors are invited from around the country and the European countries in order to discuss and meet with producers and film makers and negotiate any possible sells and distributions. Such meetings are made on private bases during the Festival days and in addition a session / room meeting is set up during all the time of both festivals in which both parties: distributors and cinema networks / producers and artists can meet to follow their discussions. We can consider it the TIFForum during which a lot of cinema partakers, professionals, artists producers and distributors are contacting each other in order to discuss future possibilities.

Executive profiles

Being involved with many activities throughout the year, besides the main Festivals DocuTIFF and TIFF such as: Film Production & Post Production, Distribution: First Date-to-date release of a dubbed in Albanian children’s dutch film both in theaters (Macedonia, Croatia, Albania) and on VoD (supported by Media program of CE),  Albania Film Commission, 10 Nights of the Italian Cinema in the Open Air, TIFF on Tour, TIFF.TV Competiton, CreativeMornings Tirana, etc., we always seek to hire the most professional experts in Albania and the most active young people as part time collaborators. During the rush weeks before and during the activities we call for volunteers and have had the interest of many of them working for TIFF and enjoying their time spent in a cultural environment.

The main structure of our organization is composed by: Festival Director, Advisory Board, 2 selectors and programmers, Office Manager, Event and Hospitality Coordinator, PR & Media Coordinator, Video and Programme Editor, Sound Engineer, 2 Graphic Designers, 1 Web Designer and Web Master, Translators & Volunteers Coordinator.

What new elements your festival would contribute to the existing list

We have started collaboration with myticket.al – a portal which owns a wide net of e-mail contacts notifying their subscribers during all phases of TIFF 2018 development, up until the moment when the online booking starts. The subscribers have the option of choosing where they sit according to the graphic chart of every movie theatre, and they will be acquainted in advance with each movie of the next program by presenting them with the movie title, movie author, movie synopsis, movie photos, author photos, etc – elements that will have an immediate effect considering the fact that the notifications will be made personally to each subscriber.

A private link to download our Android scanner App where customers can book their tickets in and can check in easily at the venue through our ticket scanner.

We can in this way follow a pricing policy of different and preferential prices based on booking time, daily specials, weekly specials, group booking, etc.

We will have consumer data and sales reports every step of the way during the festival up until the end of the event.

 

 

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