The Europe-wide, one of a kind workshop program Sofa - School of Film Agents - which supports international film professionals and mediators in the realization of film cultural projects will take place from August 15th – 24th, 2014 in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Breslau). Founded in 2013, the second edition of Sofa’s workshop-initiative will invite young "film agents“ from Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, Central Asia, the Baltic Republics and, for the first time, Greece to work together with experts on their projects with the goal of further developing the regional film culture and industries in their respective countries.

Within the framework of the Works in Progress« screenings at the 49th International Film Festival Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) – the most important film cultural event for the Sofa-relevant territories – Director, Nikolaj Nikitin introduced the eight participants to take part in the second edition of Sofa. "From innovative VoD solutions to a large-scale national cinema / theatrical digitialization project, to the founding of a regional film subsidy initiative: the breadth of these participating projects reflects - with impressive ideas - the film-structural challenges we are attempting to address in those respective regions“, states Nikitin.

In the presence of numerous Sofa partners and former participants, Nikitin presented the following eight participants of the second edition:

Anna Bielak, Poland : Aur! Magazine – Awesome / Unique / Radical!«. A high-quality cinema magazine in print for Poland. Dániel Deák, Hungary : Festivalised - Community Platform for Film Festival Guests«. A film festival advisory system which helps filmmakers to find the right festivals for their particular projects. Kestutis Drazdauskas, Lithuania : Front – Film Republic of Networked Theaters«. A cinema digitialization network for Lithuania. Cristian Hordila, Romania : Cluj City Film Fund. A film fund with which Cluj-Napoca intends to re-open its doors to the film world, re-creating a film production center around the city. Marija Stojanovic, Serbia : What I See - Program for Audience Development and Stimulation of Critical Approach in the Field of Audio-Visual Culture and Arts«. What we see is what we are: an educational film project for Serbia. Angeliki Vergou, Greece : Octapus - A delicious new way to watch Greek films«. A VOD-Platform for Greek films. Jakub Viktorín, Slovakia : Dds – Digital Database of Slovakia: Your Personal Online Library of All Film Content Slovakia can Provide. An internet-based database revolving around the film culture of Slovakia. Jonas Weydemann, Germany : »Directors Collection«. A b2b platform connecting producers/worldsales directly with national cinemas around Europe, providing a transparent system for licensor and licensee. From August 15th – 24th, 2014 the eight participants will work intensively on their projects with internationally experienced experts and mentors in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Breslau) - European Capital of Culture 2016. They will be supported by Sibylle Kurz (pitching expert, Frankfurt), Roberto Olla (Eurimages, Strasbourg), Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film, Lodz), Renaud Redien-Collot (Novancia Business School, Paris), Peter Rommel (Peter Rommel Film, Berlin), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund, Tel Aviv) among others.

The success of Sofa has been proven: numerous projects from the first edition of Sofa 2013 have already been able to be realized or are shortly before. For example, Leana Jaluske’s project "Doktok“ – a distribution initiative for Estonian documentary films – was able to be established with the help of Sofa. Melinda Boros is currently leading the „Tiff Studio Workshops“ in Cluj and Sonja Topalovic was recently able to rejoice over Eurimages funding for her interactive database "Fbo – Festival Box Office“.

Sofa – School of Film Agents is a joint project of the Filmplus gUG (Cologne) and the Fundacja Filmplus (Warsaw) together with the city of Wroclaw (Breslau) and the Polish Film Institute, funded by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Federal Foreign Office, the International Visegrad Fund, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, The Creative Europe Desk Poland, The Alfred Toepfer Foundatio and Eave – European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs and supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Poland (Krakow), Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania and its Head Office in Germany, and with the support of the Film Commission Poland and the Wroclaw Film Commission.