May 03, 2016

The workshop, held in Pilsen for the second time, ran April 16 - 20, introducing 7 promising television projects and 17 professionals to tutors Alan Kingsberg (also TV Launch Head of Studies) and Steve Matthews, comings from not only Czech Republic and Slovakia, but also Poland, Romania, Germany, Croatia or Serbia. The participants had the opportunity for not only group work and open lectures, but received individual meetings by all tutors.

The projects introduced stories set in the revolutionary year of 1989, 50s to 80s Yugoslav film studio, 60s animation studio in Prague, 1980s strike of workers in Gdansk, Czech soap business family after the WWI, as well as contemporary stories set in a revived punk band in Serbia and run-down haunted housing complex of a German city. 

MIDPOINT TV Launch was happy to welcome its guest tutors, as well - introducing lectures of Ben Harris and Michael Rauch. For the first time, observers coming for the professional television industry introduced themselves to the participants - Jan Maxa from the Czech Television, Tereza Polachova introducing HBO Europe, Alexandra Sevcikova-Gunisova representing Radio and Television of Slovakia, Masa Markovic talking about the upcoming new television platform of Sarajevo FF CineLink Drama, and Michaela Strnad explaining the concept of Dirty Dozen.

MIDPOINT TV Launch was organized in co-operation with the Finále Plzeň FF and HBO Europe, supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Czech State Cinematography Fund, the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and the International Visegrad Fund. The second workshop will be taking place in Slovakia in November 2016.