There is excitement in the International Village this year for eight countries who have teamed up and launched a new pavilion. Two years ago, at the Sarajevo Film Festival, talks began in order to create a collaboration of countries from South East Europe. The origional intention, which remains the same today, is to create visability for the countries in this region pertaining mainly to their films, filmakers, and distributors. Early talks included other countries in the surrounding region, but the final eight that included in the collaboration are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. These neighboring countries work well together as they have good relations and similar languages. For three of these countries, Albania, Cyprus and Macedonia, this is their first time to have a pavilion at all at the festival, and for the others, it is an upgrade from their previous small and cramped ones. 

According to Darko Baseski, representing Macedonia in the pavilion, they are very happy with the pavilion collaboration at the festival, receiving a lot of foot traffic and visibility just within the first three days. Mr. Baseski encourages anyone interested to stop by International Pavilion 138 for a daily Happy Hour between 5 and 6pm to meet industry representatives from all eight countries. 

 South East Europe Pavilion

-Melissa Evanko

-Rebecca Sokoloff