The 20th edition of connecting cottbus, the East-West co-production market at the FilmFestival Cottbus, is currently open for submissions. Ten pitch projects and five works in progress will be selected for coco 2018 to compete for a variety of awards.

For the newly founded Work in Progress section at coco, we are happy to welcome back our partner D-FACTO MOTION. The renowned post- production studio with branches in five major German cities and the latest high-end technology will sponsor the D-Facto Motion WiP Award of €35,000 in-kind services.

Our industry audience will vote for the best pitch to receive the coco Best Pitch Award, which includes accreditation to the Cannes Producers Network 2019 and a cash award towards development. This year, we present a new award from our partner MIDPOINT, a training and networking platform for script and project development. The MIDPOINT Consulting Award will consist of individual consultancy with MIDPOINT experts to further develop the winner's script and project.

Last but not least, we are proud to welcome our new sponsoring partner from Romania, AVANPOST, one of Eastern Europe’s most comprehensive post- production outfits, offering the Avanpost Pitch Packaging Award, including strategy consulting and storyboarding as well as production/post-production for a proof of concept.

Producers can submit their feature fiction film projects in development for the coco Pitch section until 18 July 2018, and projects in production or post- production for coco Work in Progress until 22 August 2018. The film project’s subject must be connected to Eastern Europe or the producer must be based in this region.

Producers, sales agents, commissioning editors and other industry representatives active in East-West European co-production can apply without a project by 5 October 2018.