We announce the launch of the second season of the Microbudget Cinema Incubator. The goal of the project is to stimulate the development of new Belarusian cinema. Within the incubator, young Belarusian filmmakers (living in Belarus and abroad) will be able to write scripts for their debut feature films, and the best of them will be able to apply for micro-budget financing.

Under current conditions, Belarusian filmmakers cannot count on big budgets and studio production processes. But this does not mean that they should wait for years for an opportunity to make a movie. Modern technologies make it possible to make movies for minimal money, and the incubator's task is to help filmmakers realize their ideas and bring them to the audience.

First season: a successful start

The first season of BFN's microbudget film incubator was announced in the fall of 2023. Five emerging filmmakers worked on the scripts of their feature-length debuts, and the two projects selected for microbudget funding are now in production.

Microbudget cinema is not only a limitation, but also an opportunity to create from scratch the aesthetics and ideology of the new Belarusian cinema. You can read more about it in the text by Maxim Zhbankov.

The incubator is designed primarily for auteur cinema. We are not interested in attempts to copy the molds of Hollywood blockbusters or Russian TV series, but in author's statements. And the more angry, radical or even subversive these statements are, the better!

The incubator will take place in three stages:

Stage 1

In this stage, short (up to 2,000 characters with spaces) submissions of future films will be considered. The application should contain a brief description of the movie idea: plot, characters. We are also waiting for a motivation letter from each author (in it you should tell about your experience and explain why the author wants and can make a microbudget feature film, as well as how microbudget aesthetics will work for the director's idea).

You must fill out a form to submit your entry.

Stage 2

From the submissions sent in, 10 will be selected to be part of a longlist. Their authors will be asked to expand their submissions (5,000 - 10,000 characters with spaces), giving more detail about their vision of the future film, its aesthetics, and explaining in more detail how this idea can be realized in a microbudget format.

Stage 3

From the extended submissions, five will be selected to make the shortlist. Their authors will work on the scripts of their feature-length debuts with experienced mentors. They will be invited to offline educational sessions at the BFN conference in Germany in early October. From the finished scripts, two will be selected to go into production in micro-budget format in 2025.

Incubator schedule

• June 3 - call for proposals and start accepting applications (up to 2,000 characters with spaces);
• June 30 - close of applications;
• July 10 - announcement of longlist of 10 projects;
• July 11 - August 20 - acceptance of extended applications (5,000-10,000 characters with spaces);
• August 31 - announcement of the short list of 5 projects participating in the scenario lab;
• September 1 - November 20 - running of the script lab;
• October 7-9 - offline educational sessions for the script lab participants within the framework of the BFN conference in Germany;
• November 30 - announcement of the two winning projects.

The Belarusian Filmmakers Network is a project developed by SINGO (Vilnius/Lithuania) in partnership with the SMartDe (Berlin/Germany), supported by the Federal Foreign Office / Civil Society Cooperation.