Future Frames, Celebrating its 10th Anniversary, Has Served as a Springboard for European Talent
Future Frames, a program for up-and-coming European filmmakers, is celebrating its 10th anniversary at Karlovy Vary Film Festival next week. So far, 104 filmmakers from 29 European countries have taken part. Its alumni have gone on to direct features that have appeared at major festivals worldwide.
The initiative, which is organized by European Film Promotion and Karlovy Vary, gives filmmakers the opportunity to present their short films at this prestigious A-list festival, and helps them build an international network.
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Four years after his participation in the Future Frames program, Adam Martinec from the Czech Republic returns to Karlovy Vary with his first full-length film “Our Lovely Pig Slaughter,” which is screening in the Crystal Globe competition.
Other directors have been successful too with their first or second feature-length films, such as Halfdan Olav Ullman Tøndel from the first Future Frames group, whose debut film “Armand” was presented with the Camera d’Or at this year’s Cannes.
Italian filmmaker Hleb Papou (Future Frames, 2018) was awarded best emerging director at the 2021 Locarno Festival for his feature film debut “The Legionnaire,” which is based on his eponymous short film from 2018. Patrick Vollrath’s debut film “7500” received the Austrian Film Award for best screenplay and best supporting actor in 2021. Ninna Pálmadóttir’s debut feature film, “Solitude,” premiered in the Discovery program at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, while Michal Blasko’s debut film “Victim” had its world premiere in the Horizons section of the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
After Anna Roller’s highly acclaimed debut feature “Dead Girls Dancing,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, the German director (Future Frames, 2019) is now shooting the film “Allegro Pastell,” based on the eponymous novel by Leif Randt.
Swedish Student Oscar winner Jonatan Etzler (Future Frames, 2019) is following the Netflix comedy “One More Time” with his next film “Bad Apples,” starring Saoirse Ronan, while the Luxembourgish director Eileen Byrne’s debut feature “Marianengrab,” starring Luna Wedler, will be released in cinemas this autumn. Dutch filmmaker Stijn Bouma’s debut “The Hunt of Meral Ö” is also due to be released in the autumn.
Other directors continue to focus on the short film genre, such as David Pinheiro Vicente from Portugal (Future Frames, 2018), whose short film “Lamb of God” was screened in the short film competition at the Cannes Festival in 2020 and has been nominated for numerous prizes and won several awards.
Poland’s Jakub Radej (Future Frames, 2018) scored a major success with his short film “Followers. Live Shooting,” which received the Special Award at the 47th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2022. Lun Sevnik from the Czech Republic (Future Frames, 2019) won the PAG Jury Award at this year’s Trieste Film Festival for his short film “The Sea in Between.”
A fruitful EFP cross-program success story is the collaboration between the Spanish filmmaker collective (Juno Álvarez, Yaiza de Lamo, Maria Lorente, Mariona Vázquez) with the Spanish Producer on the Move of 2017, Carlo D’Ursi: they met in 2020 as a part of the Future Frames program and their latest joint film “The Revolution of Muses, or How to Pose Naked on Some Rocks” will be premiered at the Atlantida Film Fest on Mallorca.
Belgian director and cinematographer Karen Vázquez Guadarrama (Future Frames, 2016), who directed one episode of last year’s Canneseries award-winning documentary series “Draw for Change,” is currently writing the screenplay for her new fiction feature “Pantano de Aves,” which she will produce with this year’s Producer on the Move from Belgium, Elisa Heene. Constanze Klaue will produce her feature debut “Punching the World” with Alexander Wadouh, a Producer on the Move of 2022.
Details of this year’s Future Frames participants can be found here.
EFP’s president and head of the Czech Film Center, Markéta Šantrochová, says: “Future Frames has grown into a robust industry program. With the support international lottery company Allwyn, we’ve recently added a transatlantic element, bringing U.S. agents to Karlovy Vary and offering one filmmaker a month-long scholarship in L.A. This evolution reflects our commitment to nurturing the next generation of European filmmakers.ˮ
Karlovy Vary artistic director Karel Och adds: “Let’s celebrate together the creativity of up-and-coming European filmmakers and their dedication to bringing more empathy through art to this complex world.ˮ
Pavel Turek, Allwyn’s chief officer of global brand, corporate communication, and CSR, says: “Future Frames has a real impact and drives generational change by helping aspiring filmmakers realize their full potential.”
Variety is Future Frames’ media partner.
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