Scanorama 2023 Opens Call for European Feature Film Competition

The second biggest film festival in Lithuania, the European Film Forum Scanorama, today has launched an open call for its European feature film competition. The festival has announced that at least 50% of the final feature film competition programme will consist of films directed by women.

The applying production companies must be based in Europe. Up to 10 feature-length films will be selected for the competition. The directors and crew members of the films in competition will be provided with an opportunity to present their works to Lithuanian audience in person and participate in industry events program. Fiction, documentary, animation and experimental films are accepted for the second festival’s feature film competition until 1 September.

The 21st edition of the European Film Forum Scanorama will be held in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and Šiauliai 9 – 19 November 2023.  

“Cinema shapes our collective imagination: it participates in the construction of the society at the same time reflecting it. Supporting the artists who push the boundaries of cinema as an artistic expression, we experience the loss of eloquent young female voices. While looking at the careers of our fourteen years short film competition winners, we noticed that most of the women directed their first feature film not earlier than 5 years after graduation from film school. Some of them completely blacked out from the film world. Though career paths may be be individual, making a feature directorial debut usually took a couple of years for their male colleagues”, commented Grazina Arlickaite, the founder and the artistic director of the European Film Forum Scanorama.

Scanorama has established a €7,000 prize for the best film in the competition programme, which will be chosen by an international jury. 

In 2022 See You Friday, Robinson by Mitra Farahani was announced a winner in Scanorama’s feature competition. French, Swiss, Iranian and Lebanese documentary instigates a visual, sound and written correspondence between two artists: the writer and filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan, a key figure in Iranian New Wave cinema, and Jean-Luc Godard. 

Last year’s jury members were members of the European Film Academy, former director and producer of the European Film Awards and member of the board of directors of the Wim Wenders Foundation Marion Döring; film director and producer Sergej Stanojkovski; writer-director Ibolya Fekete; film programme compiler and delegate for the San Sebastián International Film Festival Annina Wettstein; and Fabienne Moris, programme coordinator and member of the Doc Station workshop selection committee at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Previously this summer the festival has also announced that no less than 50% of the final short competition programme the Glimpses of Europe will be composed of films directed by women.

Glimpses of Europe, previously entitled New Baltic Cinema, has been known as a platform for emerging Lithuanian directors. Austeja Urbaite, who in June received the best feature film award at the Lithuanian National Silver Crane Awards, previously won Scanorama’s short film competition. Its 2022 winner, Arnas Balciunas’ short film Through Gloom was awarded best student film in this year’s national competition. 

Started in 2008 as a regional competition, in 2022 Scanorama’s short film competition opened up to the whole of Europe. Last year, during the festival’s 20th anniversary, European feature film competition has been founded. 

Details - feature film competition