Here’s a funny thing to think about: One of the best places to get a handle on what’s happening in American (and sometimes Canadian) independent film is a very long travel day away from New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, a millennium-old city with a historic Old Town. Adjacent is the very modern cineplex New Horizons, which shares its name with a sprawling summer festival and each November also hosts AFF and its industry-only sidebar, US in Progress. Described by one attendee as “foreign aid for American indies,” USIP has, over its […]
U.S. in Progress is now through September 8 accepting submissions from American independent filmmakers with pictures in post-production seeking finishing funds. Accepted filmmakers and projects will attend the in-person event at Wroclaw, Poland’s American Film Festival from November 7 – 9, where they will present the rough cuts of their narrative projects to European buyers and Polish post-production companies providing over $100,000 in post services. Recent and upcoming projects that are alumni of U.S. in Progress include the Venice-bound Familiar Touch, directed by 2023 25 New Face Sarah Friedland; the recently released Summer Solstice, by writer/director Noah Schamus; India Donaldson’s […]
The American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland has announced the eight feature film projects selected for the 12th edition of the U.S. in Progress co-production forum, taking place November 9 – 11, 2022 at the festival. Invite-only work-in-progress screenings of American independent films in their final editing stages, curated from a record number of submissions, will be screened for European and Polish film professionals, festival programmers and buyers. Additionally, projects will compete for in-kind awards of post-production service pcckages. The selected projects are: Crooked Finger directed by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund, produced by Julia Halperin and Todd Remis Falling […]
Submissions are now open for the 2022 edition of U.S. in Progress, which awards $100,000 in post-production services to American independent filmmakers with films in post-production. The event will take place November 9 – 11 at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, where American projects in their final stages will meet European buyers as well as top Polish image and sound post-production companies. From the press release: The program’s objective is to inspire U.S. producers to work with Poland, either by fostering co-productions or to connect them with services and, for future projects, locations. The Polish Film Institute offers […]
The 10th edition of U.S. in Progress, the American Film Festival in Wroclaw’s post-production forum that brings together American independent projects with the Polish and international film industries, concluded on Friday with the announcement of the winning films. Among the awardees are Homebody, by Joseph Sackett, who was selected for this year’s Filmmaker 25 New Faces list, as well as a prior 25 selection, Geoff Marslett, who brought his The Boardinghouse Reach to the event. As the American Film Festival’s Artistic Director explained earlier to Filmmaker, this year’s event was held online, with projects being presented to European sales agents, […]
Until September 7 American filmmakers can submit their works-in-progress to one of the leading European programs supporting new US filmmakers, US in Progress. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, US in Progress has always taken place within the American Film Festival in Poland and has consisted of events and a live pitching forum. For this edition — November 11-13, when international travel, particularly from the US, is uncertain due to the coronavirus pandemic — US in Progress will take place virtually while an in-person American Film Festival unspools in Wroclaw alongside the New Horizons Film Festival. “It’s the same structure as before,” […]
US in Progress is a biannual event held in June during the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and in October during the American Film Festival in Wroclaw. It’s a five-year-old industry event that aims to strengthen transatlantic film collaborations and partnerships between European industry and emerging American filmmakers. The fifth US in Progress recently held in Wroclaw featured six films in various editing and post-production stages. The participants included: Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Actor Martinez Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, Alaska is a Drag Zachary Shedd and Daniel Patrick Carbone, Americana Benjamin Kruger, It Had to Be You Joel […]
Bonjouring my way down the Champs-Élysées, I arrive at Ladurée, a Parisian bakery nearly as iconic as the Arc de Triomphe. I sit among film distributors and we are presented with food almost too pretty to eat. We are in Paris for U.S. in Progress, a joint program between Black Rabbit Film and the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. The purpose is to expose U.S. indie films in post-production to European buyers and distributors and introduce the American filmmakers to the European market. The three-day event is organized bi-annually, first during the Champs-Élysées Film Festival and again during the American Film Festival […]
Recently announced as a European Capital of Culture for 2016, the picturesque western Polish city of Wroclaw (actually pronounced Vrotz-wav, thus rendering the title pun sadly unworkable) welcomed an extremely distinguished guest for its fifth annual American Film Festival: none other than flying POTUS Barack Obama. Well, it seemed so for a moment, but appearances can be deceptive. A closer look revealed the man to be Louis Ortiz, top Barack-alike and star of Ryan Murdock’s enjoyable Bronx Obama, which screened as part of the festival’s documentary slate. The personable Ortiz’s social ubiquity made for a pleasingly incongruous addition to a […]
If any one moment encapsulated the fervor for U.S. independent cinema among the young cinephiles of Wroclaw (pronounced Vrot-swof, by the way), it arrived at around 11:00 PM on my final night of attendance at the 4th edition of the city’s American Film Festival (22-27 Oct, 2013). I was strolling back to my hotel in the company of Killer Films honcho Christine Vachon and Tennessee-based producer Ashley Maynor when a lissome young Polish fellow with rosy cheeks, Kurt Cobain hair, and a T-shirt bearing the legend ‘Hipsters Don’t Wear Frames’ suddenly appeared. With a shallowness of breath that suggested he’d […]