PRESS RELEASE

MEDIA RENEWES ITS SUPPORT TO "PRODUCTION VALUE", A EUROPEAN FILM WORKSHOP INITIATED IN SWITZERLAND

Make the best out of your budget! This is the motto under which FOCAL( Foundation for Professional Training in Cinema and Audiovisual Media) presents for the second time an international workshop for line producers and assistant directors. This unique workshop will be supported for the second time by MEDIA, the programme of the European Union. PRODUCTION VALUE is organized by FOCAL, in collaboration with the Erich Pommer Institute (Berlin) and the Norwegian Film Development (Oslo).

The new edition of PRODUCTION VALUE will take place from 12 to 19 January 2008 in Berlin/Germany. During seven days, 12 film professionals from all over Europe will have the opportunity to optimize their skills in budgeting and scheduling a fiction film. They will work on six European film projects in preproduction, under the direction of renowned professional assistant directors and production managers. In 2007, sixty-eight professionals from twenty-three European countries applied for this workshop; eight could finally benefit of the specialists' advice in Yverdon.

Now that the Federal Council of Switzerland decided to sign a new agreement with the MEDIA pro- gramme, FOCAL is happy to receive an important financial support for this professional training event for the second time.

PRODUCTION VALUE was instigated by the Swiss film director Denis Rabaglia (AZZURRO, GROSSESSE NERVEUSE), Head of the fiction film department at FOCAL. It is organized by FOCAL, the Erich Pommer Institute (Berlin) and the Norwegian Film Development (Oslo) and is supported, besides MEDIA, by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

FOCAL organizes professional training in cinema and audiovisual media in Switzerland and Europe. Its seminars, colloquiums and workshops are practice-oriented; they offer thinking space in which to question customary models, ways of thinking and work methods; they play an important role in the networking between Swiss film and audiovisual professionals and in the integration of Swiss film into the European scene.

Information: www.productionvalue.net

Lausanne, 18 September 2007

Contact:
Anne Perrenoud, FOCAL, tel: +41-21-312 68 17 or info@focal.ch