Poland’s U.S. in Progress Event Looks to Open Doors in Europe for Independent American Filmmakers
Christopher Vourlias Building a bridge between American independent filmmakers and the European market is the goal of U.S. in Progress, which is hosted each year during the American Film Festival (AFF) in Wrocław, Poland. The event presents a carefully curated selection of roughly half a dozen American indie titles in the final stages of production to sales agents, distributors and festival programmers. This year’s edition takes place Nov. 9 – 11. Along with offering a showcase of those films for European buyers, U.S. in Progress each year invites leading Polish post-production companies to the event, with Fixafilm, Orka Studio, Black Photon, XANF and Soundflower Studio this year each offering a $10,000 in-kind award. That’s alongside a newly added $50,000 cash award being handed out by the Polish Film Institute, to be spent by the winning filmmaker on post-production, image, sound and/or VFX in Poland.