Escaping Sunshine was also awarded as the best project in the new Baltic Bridge East by West (B`EST) section
The award ceremony was held for the first time at the brand new Nova building of the Baltic Film and Media School (www.bfm.ee), where four awards for projects pitched during the event were handed out. The Estonian Digital Media Centre is on the premises of the Baltic Film School where the award will be used.
Cannes Marché du film Producer's Network awarded free accreditation of the network to two producers. The first went to the representative of this year's focus country, Kazakhstan, Serik Abishev, who participated in the market with the project The Journalist. The second Producer's Network prize was taken home by the Estonian animation studio Nukufilm (www.nukufilm.ee) producers Kerdi Oengo and Andrus Raudsalu, whose project Morten on the Ship of Fools is written and directed by EFA-nominated filmmaker Kaspar Jancis.
The Screen International Best Pitch Award went to Estonian producer Kiur Aarma, whose project The Hoppers is directed by acclaimed Estonian director Jaak Kilmi and produced by Traumfabriki (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The winner will receive publicity in the magazine.
Making its debut this year was the Baltic Bridge East by West (B'EST), a new initiative, that finished up in Tallinn after kicking off at the Moscow Film Festival in June. B’EST consists of two workshops held in cooperation with EAVE during MIFF and the Baltic Event, and supported by MEDIA MUNDUS. B’EST presented 10 projects from Finland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Lativa, Austria and France.
Another highlight of this year’s event was a hotly debated follow-up to the Step-In focus on Central and Eastern Europe held during the Locarno Film Festival earlier this year with the participation of Film New Europe. During the Baltic Event distributors and sales agents continued the debate about the problems of sales rights for smaller countries especially in the Baltics, that was started in Locarno.
Supporters and partners of Baltic Event are the Estonian Film Foundation, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, MEDIA Programme, the National Film Centre of Latvia, the Finnish Film Foundation, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Moscow Co-Production Forum, EAVE, Cannes Marche du Film's Producers' Network, Film New Europe, Cinelink, Screen International, Estonian Film Cluster, and EAS (Enterprise Estonia and European Regional Funds).
