Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event and PÖFF Shorts join forces for Go Long!

PÖFF Shorts is a sub-festival of the Black Nights Film Festival, dedicated to showcasing the very best fiction, animation and documentary shorts from across the world. With five competitions – which are Academy Award qualifying, BAFTA qualifying and European Film Award qualifying – as well as a large selection of side programmes and retrospectives, PÖFF Shorts is an anticipated event on the festival circuit not only for the breadth and diversity of its programme but also for the talent it showcases.

Celebrating the art of the short film in and of itself and being there to champion the unique nature of the medium, we also recognise that short films are the beginning of a cinematic journey that will lead to feature films for many young filmmakers. With the world of short films filled with bright and exciting young talents, many filmmakers who are currently making a mark on the world of short films will soon be stepping into the world of features.

Go Long aims to nurture a select number of filmmakers whose shorts have screened in competition at PÖFF Shorts. Taking filmmakers who are at the very beginning of their journey into the world of feature films, Go Long will offer the participants advice on their ideas via informal networking from a panel of industry professionals. The participants will then be able to better negotiate the feature film world with invaluable tips and feedback to their feature proposals.

Participants 2023:

Anna Wowra
Anna Wowra (1993) is a Polish director who lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. She is pursuing a Master’s Degree at the Directing department at FAMU. Previously, she has studied Slavic Studies and Philosophy at Jagiellonian University and graduated from the Wajda School. Her short film, “Stuck Together,” premiered in the Future Frames program during the 2023 KVIFF. She is currently working on her debut film called “In Good Faith.” Wowra is interested in social and cultural themes, emphasizing ethical issues in the context of the modern world.

Élodie Dermange
Born in 1992 in Geneva, Switzerland. Grows up between Switzerland and Paris. Works as an independent illustrator. Directs her first short film at Nadasdy Film studios and has graduated from La Pourdrière, France, class of 2017-2019.

Rodney Llaverías
Rodney Llaverías a Dominican-American filmmaker, holds a graduate degree in Screenwriting and directing from Columbia University. His work has been showcased at prestigious film festivals, including Rotterdam, San Sebastián, and Locarno. Rodney is also an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and was awarded the Newfest New Voices Filmmaker grant in partnership with Netflix in 2022 to support emerging LGBTQ+ filmmakers. Furthermore, he was selected to participate in the Locarno Filmmakers Academy in 2023. Additionally, Rodney co-wrote the short film “Darling,” which garnered acclaim, winning the Orizzonti Award for Best Short at the Venice International Film Festival in 2019, receiving a Special Mention at SXSW, and being selected for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). He was also granted the Katharina Otto-Bernstein production grant for his short film “Tropicalía,” an adaptation of his project “La Canícula,” which is set to be spearheaded by the Colombian arthouse film hub: Inercia Películas. “La Canícula” will be his debut feature film as a director.

Simon Vahlne
Simon Vahlne was born in 1984 in the coastal town of Varberg, Sweden. He has made several
award-winning shorts, most notably “Fight on a Swedish Beach!!” which was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won Best European Short at Seminci. Simon’s films are drama comedies, often cast with amateur actors from his home town. One of his trademarks is casting his friend’s parents in cringy fight scenes.

Experts 2023:

Teresa Cavina
Festival programmer, and script analyst. Programmer at the Venice IFF(1989 -1997). Locarno IFF (1998, co-director 2001-2005). Co-founder and Co-artistic director of Rome FF (2005-2006). Artistic director of FIPA-Biarritz (2009-2012). Programming director of Abu Dhabi FF (2009 - 2014) She collaborates with, among others, Giornate degli Autori, Venice, El Gouna Film Festival, Sarajevo Talent Campus, Doha Film Institute, Premio Solinas and other script labs and funding bodies.

Piret Tibbo-Hudgins
Piret Tibbo-Hudgins studied film production at Moscow’s VGIK and has worked internationally for over twenty-five years as a producer of feature films and documentaries. She has also produced music for the theatre and worked as a music critic. From 2013 to 2023, she was the Head of Production at the Estonian Film Institute and Estonia’s representative on the Board of Eurimages. Presently, she is the Executive Director of the Estonian Film Industry Cluster and lectures in dramaturgy at Tallinn University.

Kristel Tõldsepp
Kristel Tõldsepp has been a producer of the animation studio A Film Estonia since 1996 and the owner of the same company since 2011. She holds an MA degree in Economics and has attended several workshops in TV and animation production around Europe. Tõldsepp has been a production manager on more than twenty animated feature films and ten TV series. Tõldsepp has also produced ten short films, the TV series “Things You Think” and the feature films “Raggie” (2020) and “Poop, Spring and Others” (2023).

Rickard Olsson
Rickard Olsson is a freelance producer and film industry consultant operating out of Turin, Italy and with over twenty-five years of experience in various positions for companies, funds and institutions in the audiovisual sector across Europe.

Fredrik Lange
Film Production Studies, graduating in 2005. Master’s in Film Production from Gothenburg University in 2010. The film “Reconstructing Utøya” that he produced and co-wrote won two Swedish Guldbagge Awards and was nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize 2019. The short “Excess Will Save Us” won a Guldbagge in 2020. EAVE 2020, Producers Network 2021. The hybrid feature “Excess Will Save Us” won the Special Jury Award in Rotterdam in 2022. He also works as a lecturer in film at the Gothenburg University since 2021.

Vassilis Kroustallis
Vassillis Kroustallis is a film and animation professional and scholar. He has studied Classics, Philosophy (Greece /UK) and Film Journalism (Glasgow University). Since 2011, he has been the Head Editor of “Zippy Frames,” one of the few international resources promoting exclusively European and independent animation worldwide, with readership from more than 129 countries overall. He has been invited to major animation festivals, served as a member jury (Animafest Zagreb, Animanima Serbia, Fest Anča Slovakia, Anibar Kosovo), and curated Greek and international animation programmes. He was the first Greek Ambassador at the European Animation Awards (January 2017 – June 2018), and served as Artistic Director of the Be there! Corfu Animation Festival (2011-17). In 2016, he received the Norman McLaren – Evelyn Lambart Award (Society for Animation Studies) for Best Scholarly Article in Animation, for his paper about Waltz with Bashir (published in Jewish Film and New Media). He has published pieces on film and animation in academic articles and book volumes and is currently a PhD Candidate (Ionian University, Greece) researching contemporary European feature animation. He is a voting member of the Annie Awards (organized by ASIFA-Hollywood). In 2016, he started his own production company, Scheriaa Productions, and completed his one-minute short “Homespital.” He works as the Animation Programme Director for PÖFF Shorts (Tallinn, Estonia).