The activities of the project CIRCE PLUS, capitalizing the results of CIRCE "Common Initiatives to pRomote CinEma across Italy-Albania-Montenegro", will continue in Kotor from 27 February to 01 March 2023 in the Creative Hub Kotor, which was opened in the restored former building of the Old Prison in Kotor, within the project “3C - Cross-border exchange for the development of Cultural and Creative industries ”.
In addition to Montenegrin experts and producers in the field of cinematography, the idea is to bring together young producers, representatives of the film festivals, visual artists, distributors, creative industries, and new media from two Italian regions (Puglia and Molise), Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The events in Montenegro will consist of workshops and one-on-one meetings, enabling the participants to establish new cooperations. The aim is to gather film artists (producers, directors, scriptwriters, etc.) from the CIRCE PLUS and Western Balkans regions to increase their knowledge of the new trends in the film industry, using the best practices achieved through the CIRCE project. The event will be an opportunity to connect the modern film industry with the cultural heritage and magnificent nature of Montenegro. It will also increase interaction between economic operators, especially new SMEs, and improve their communication with relevant institutions.
The focus during the B2B meeting would be on expanding the network of film actors and developing closer connections among those from different regions. New SMEs dealing with the film industry will get the opportunity to join already existing networks and get involved in all initiatives raised from the CIRCE project.
CIRCE PLUS was born from the capitalization of CIRCE, among the Interreg IPA CBC Italy-Albania-Montenegro projects at the top of the ranking list of the capitalization procedure launched in February 2022. The project, started in November 2022 and closing in April 2023, involves the Apulia Film Commission Foundation as lead partner and the Albanian National Centre of Cinematography, the Film Centre of Montenegro and the Molise Region as partners.
The project invests in the film industry as a strategic resource to stimulate the economy’s growth of the involved territories. Particularly, the main objective is to improve the conditions for growth of the cultural and creative industries of the audio-visual sector through cross-border initiatives able, on the one hand, to strengthen the link between the participating regions and, on the other hand, to bring together key players in the creation of new creative productions.