Young Horizons Industry 2024 kicked off

The wait is over! On 30 September, we officially opened the Young Horizons Industry international co-production forum in Warsaw. Zofia Horszczaruk welcomed all our guests and introduced Maciej Jakubczyk and Kamilia Skowrońska-Tomkiel on stage. We were thrilled to host special guests at the welcome ceremony: Kinga Gałuszka, Head of Production at the Polish Film Institute, and Małgorzata Kiełkiewicz, Head of Creative Europe Desk Poland. Thank you for supporting our event and productions for young audiences.

Conference

Next, Viola Gabrielli took the stage: Head of Programme at Young Horizons Industry. Together with AC Coppens from THE CATALYSTS and our moderator, they opened the conference part, this year titled “Pushing the Boundaries – How Technological Innovations Are Reshaping the Creative Process, Work, and Business Models”.

The conference began with a talk “THE LAST WHALE SINGER – Creating a Platform-Harmonic IP & Business Model” by Maite Woköck from Telescope Animation (Germany) and Jiří Mika from PFX (Czechia), followed by a talk and panel titled “Human-Centric AI in Films and Series” by Maciej Żemojcin, an AI and virtual production film specialist (Poland), Volha Paulovich from PentoPix (UK), and Christiane Stützle from Morrison & Foerster (Germany).

Polish upcoming projects at Young Horizons Industry

In the second part of the day, distributors, broadcasters, sales agents, and festival representatives took part in the market presentation – an exclusive sneak peek of the upcoming productions from Poland. We had an opportunity to watch a presentation and short video materials from “Baltic Gold”, a live-action film and the second part of the successful “Detective Bruno”, presented by Krystyna Kantor and Monika Łuczyk from Shipsboy. Next, Grzegorz Wacławek and Anna Głowińska from Animoon presented a full-length animated film “The Boy at the Edge of the World”, which is co-written and co-directed by Grzegorz Wacławek.

The last market presentation was “LARP”, another live-action film, presented by Marta Sochacka and Agnieszka Niburska from TFP.

Producers Meet Producers

When our experts watched the sneak peek of the upcoming Polish productions, the producers who had come to Warsaw took part in a networking activity co-organised by our long-term partner SPPA. The aim of the game was to meet as many fellow producers as possible. We can definitely say that this mission is completed thanks to Ania Głowik and Marcin Kotyła from SPPA! And there are still two days left to establish new partnerships and connections.

Welcome Drink to round off the first day

We rounded off the first day of Young Horizons Industry with the Welcome Drink co-hosted by the Regional Film Funds in Poland. It was a great chance for our international guests to meet the representatives of film funds from Mazovia, Silesia, Łodź, Podkarpackie, and Kraków and Małopolska. Many thanks to Anna Spisz, Ada Bogdziewicz-Spanevello, Michał Kosmala, Alex Leszczyńska, Patrycja Młynarczyk, Monika Głowacka, Patrycja Szewczyk, Marta Kraus, and Anna Krupiarz for helping us conclude the first day of the forum.

The welcome ceremony and the conference were also streamed online for those of our guests who couldn’t be with us for various reasons. One of them is the recent floods in Czechia and South-West Poland. See how you can help people from the affected regions in Poland.

The 8th Young Horizons Industry takes place from 30 September to 2 October in Warsaw, Poland.