This year, twenty promising film producers from different European countries have been brought together by the Producers on the Move initiative once again. They completed the challenging programme from 17 to 21 May online. In the prestigious selection, Slovakia was represented by Katarína Tomková, who produced successful films such as Hotel Sunrise (Hotel Úsvit, dir. Mária Rumanová, 2016) or Servants (Služobníci, dir. Ivan Ostrochovský, 2020).
“I have been following the Producers on the Move programme for several years now, and I appreciate how the organisers connect producers with each other or with the international audiovisual environment while promoting the particular country and projects on which the selected producers work,” Katarína Tomková tells Film.sk. “I was looking forward to being able to meet the incoming generation of successful professionals and share with them experiences and ideas or discuss the situation in our respective countries,” Tomková adds. After working in film journalism, production and international film promotion since 2004, Katarína Tomková launched her own production company kaleidoscope in 2015. She has since (co-)produced a number of acclaimed documentaries as well as Ivan Ostrochovský’s drama Servants, which premiered in Encounters at the 2020 Berlinale. Katarína is currently in post-production on Peter Kerekes’ feature 107 Mothers (Cenzorka) and Juraj Lehotský’s third feature Applause (Potlesk).
“Both Applause and 107 Mothers are in post-production, which is a challenge itself in the pandemic time. In addition, the films faced their own challenges, which I think both teams managed to overcome successfully,” Tomková elaborates when asked what challenges she had encountered during production of said works. “With 107 Mothers, we were dealing with the transformation of the project into a hybrid and the concept that relied on shooting in prison and non-actresses – which also influenced how director Peter Kerekes and DoP Martin Kollar worked,” she describes the transformation of 107 Mothers from a documentary into a documentary-fiction narrative. The filmmakers visited dozens of prisons in Ukraine during the run-up to the shooting. While preparing the documentary, prisoners and staff did not appear inclined to make conversation. For the fiction film, however, they were keen to contribute absurd stories from prison.
Juraj Lehotský gradually moved from documentary to fiction as well. Director of the successful documentary Blind Loves (Slepé lásky, 2008, C.I.C.A.E. Award – Cannes) made his fiction film debut with Miracle (Zázrak, 2013), followed by Nina (2017), on which Katarína Tomková already collaborated. Applause is Lehotský’s third fiction film. “The challenge of Applause definitely involved a complicated shoot with an international cast, taking place at the time of the pandemic restrictions which forced both director Juraj Lehotský and executive producer Michaela Jelenek to take further action,” Tomková describes the filming, in which the Polish actor Bartosz Bielenia plays the lead role. The cast involves German actor Sabin Tambrea, Slovak actress Judit Bárdos and non-actor Vojtěch Zdražil.
The Producers on the Move initiative was established in 2000, and almost 450 producers from all over Europe have since participated in the programme which aims to publicise the producers, expand their professional network and present their projects. Slovakia was represented by, for example, Marko Škop, Silvia Panáková, Michal Kollár, Katarína Krnáčová, Marek Urban and Peter Badač. The programme, sponsored by the international organisation European Film Promotion, is connected with the Cannes festival as well as the film market Marché du Film. As a matter of fact, it was held online for the second year. “It worked very well last year, and it was important for us to give the participants a clear sense of planning that would not be dependent on how the pandemic situation develops,” the shift to an online initiative is addressed bySonja Heinen, European Film Promotion Managing Director. “And, who knows, if all goes well and many of the producers on the Move are able to make the journey, we might even have a chance of meeting in person at the festival in Cannes in July,” she concludes.
