The 3rd Heart of Europe International TV Festival & Forum has kicked off in Warsaw. In attendance are representatives of 14 public broadcasting organizations and nearly 200 creators, producers and PSM delegates from Central and Eastern Europe, the organizers from TVP announced.

“I am happy to see that, with each passing year, the role that our festival plays in the strengthening of the cooperation between CEE broadcasters grows in significance” – says Marek Solon-Lipiński, Director of International Relations at TVP and the Heart of Europe’s coordinator. “Relationships have been established and developed here which would not have been possible without this event. These relationships bear fruit on a number of levels: we have worked towards reaching new heights in audiovisual production, towards selling and acquiring content and becoming involved in new co-production initiatives. Through the Heart of Europe Forum, in particular, we have been able to keep up to date with brand new creative ideas and to extend our support to the talent behind them. I have no doubt that when this year’s festival is over, it will not be long before the cooperation between CEE broadcasters brings tangible results in the form of high-quality TV productions.”

The first day of the festival featured two panels: “CEE Broadcasters in the Cha(lle)nging World. From Adaptation to Transformation in Content and Distribution Strategy” – moderated by Mateusz Baran (TVP Kultura) with speakers: Jana Semjonova (Latvijas TV), Victoria Murovana (Suspilne Ukraine), Gytis Oganauskas (LRT Lithuania) and an EBU (European Broadcasting Union) presentation by Matthew Trustram titled “Co-Production among Public-Service Broadcasters in Europe: an EBU perspective”.

This year, the Heart of Europe festival has received around 80 submissions from the public broadcasters of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Georgia. The competition is made up of six categories: Film & Series, Documentary, Short Documentary, Entertainment, Digital and Children & Youth. A separate jury was appointed for each category. All jury groups are composed of creators, producers, scriptwriters and experts representing public television stations from Central and Eastern Europe.

This year’s event will once again include the Heart of Europe Forum, the aim of which is to establish co-production cooperation between representatives of CEE countries. In addition to project submitters, its participants include representatives of broadcasters and VOD platforms, film institutes, audiovisual content distributors, as well as producers and delegates of the production and programming departments of Polish Television.

The Forum has welcomed submissions of projects at various stages of development in three categories – Feature Film, Series and Documentary. The best pitches will be presented live during the event in Warsaw.

From September 25 to October 25, the heartofeurope.tvp.pl the titles included in the festival selection are available to stream free of charge in their original language versions with English subtitles. Additionally, expert interviews and panels discussions will be published on the festival website and on the festival's social media channels, in which creators and special guests will share their professional knowledge. The topics discussed will include: prospects for cooperation of the European Broadcasting Union, the distribution strategy of broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe, challenges and opportunities of using artificial intelligence to create audiovisual content and the ways in which public broadcasters can support local talent.

The Heart of Europe Festival will close on September 28 with an award ceremony, which will be broadcast on TVP Kultura and on the Festival's website heartofeurope.tvp.pl. Summaries of each day of the Festival will also air on TVP Kultura and TVP Kultura 2.

The partners of this year's event are the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), MIPCOM and MIPTV, New Europe Market (NEM), Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Conecta Fiction & Entertainment and CEETV.net.