NEM Zagreb, an event aimed at the development of TV and movie industry in Central and Eastern Europe announced the agenda with panels, speakers, workshops and other events.

You can watch exclusive pre-premiere screenings of the new series, special presentations, case studies and Q&A interviews from the 11th to the 13th of December at NEM Zagreb at the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel, through which the participants will get an insight into TV and movie industry trends.

NEM Zagreb will be the host of the first screenings of TV shows from the biggest production companies such as CBS Studios International (USA), BBC Studios, all3media international (UK) and Keshet International and yes Studios (Israel).

HRT and RTV Slovenia will present new TV series from their own production – a pre-premiere screening of a live action documentary show The Age of Uskoks and series The Lake (Sebastian Cavazza). After the screenings, interviews have been organized with the main actors and series’ creators. Kris Marshall (Love Actually, Death at a Funeral) will give us an insight into filming the TV series Sanditon, produced by BBC Studios.

The panel about character world creation and series atmosphere
What is necessary to create an indispensable character in the eyes of the viewers? When does it become clear that the new legend is born? The creation of the character and its development is probably the hardest part of the writing process and precisely that will be one of the interesting topics discussed by the producers and writers who work on character development daily. Besides characters, the thing that keeps us watching intently are the beautiful locations, shots, colors and costumes - an atmosphere created by series' creators. Vanja Černjul (Orange is the New Black, The Deuce, Crazy Rich Asians) and Allan Starski (Schindler’s List) will teach us how to create original series and characters from the visual department perspective, as well as from the camera and sound department perspective.

Various TV experts and content creators are coming to the NEM Zagreb stage and the visitors will have an opportunity to hear the news about the unscripted series formats, the expansion of the original productions, the growing production of non-English content and learn the secret recipe for the creation of extremely popular Nordic series. The event will also feature a screenplay writing workshop for successful TV projects, and hit-series like Killing Eve, Money Heist, Stranger Things and Fleabag are just some of the examples that will be used.

Keynote speaker: A man responsible for the global distribution of the TV series Breaking Bad
AMC Networks International is an American company which produces many successful drama shows like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, HUMANS, The Night Manager, Mad Men and Mr. Selfridge. Their program and marketing executive Harold Gronenthal will give a keynote speech and share his experiences with working on the global distribution of broadcasting rights of these TV series. Dariusz Jablonski, CEO of Apple Film Productions will introduce the TV show The Pleasure Principle, the first co-production of three Eastern European countries (Poland, Czech Republic and Ukraine), distributed by Beta Film.

Beta Film (Germany) with Nova TV (Croatia), HRT (Croatia), RTL (Croatia), RAI (Italy), Keshet (Israel), Zig Zag Productions (UK) and CineLink Industry Days (Bosnia and Herzegovina) will form the judges panel for TV Writing Contest competition organized by NEM Zagreb. The best candidates in each category (scripted and unscripted) will have the opportunity to present their project to all the participants in the panel room, and the winners will get a 5000 € prize which will help them to further develop the submitted screenplay. To encourage potential cooperation, NEM Zagreb will organize meetings during the conference with the judges’ representatives for all the candidates that entered the final round.

The creator of X-Files and The Man in the High Castle also coming
During NEM Zagreb, American producer and writer Frank Spotnitz (Big Light Production) will speak about his work for Netflix and Amazon. His portfolio contains projects like X-Files, for which he got three Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy nomination in the best drama series and best screenplay categories. His newer achievements include the production of drama shows The Man in the High Castle and Medici. He is currently working with the British writer Stephen Thompson (Sherlock) on the series Leonardo, the first big-budget project of European Alliance, a special alliance of the biggest FTA televisions in Europe (ZDF, RAI and France Télévision) whose goal is to match the greatest global content producers.
Actor Billy Campbell, the star of legendary TV shows like Dynasty, Frasier and Merlose Place, who is nowadays known for his role in the TV show Cardinal (available on SVoD Pickbox NOW), is coming to share his experiences from shooting in cold Canadian conditions. British producer Gabrielle Tana, nominated for an Oscar and two BAFTA Awards for the movie Philomena will talk about financing of independent films. At the moment she is working with the actor and director Ralph Fiennes on the movie The White Crow.