Cottbus, September 17, 2014 – The co-production market connecting cottbus, taking place for the 16th time this year on November 6 and 7 in parallel with FilmFestival Cottbus, has developed into one of the most important European meeting points for East-West co-productions. Once again, about 140 film producers, sales agents and representatives of European film funds will meet to discuss new ideas for feature films. Panels and workshops will discuss current trends in the film industry. A special focus lies on developments in the funding of East-West co-productions, audience design and marketing.
The core event of connecting cottbus is the pitching of new feature film projects. Since 1999, 186 projects have been pitched of which 70 have since been completed or are currently in production. Recent success stories are the Croatian-Serbian box office hit THE PRIEST’S CHILDREN, the Kosovo-German co-production THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING (winner of the Cineuropa Prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival) and the Greek-Latvian-German film MODRIS, selected for the film festivals in Toronto and San Sebastian 2014.
This year, connecting cottbus will present 13 projects from 12 countries. Projects range from the laconic black comedy SPIRAL from Romania via the highly political refugee story THE ESCAPE (Turkey) to the Estonian-Russian fantasy love story THE DREAM FISH. Socially relevant global issues such as gentrification (INNER CITY, Russia) and the situation of single mothers (THE DAYBREAK, Albania) are as prevalent as teenage coming-of-age stories (THE FIVE SKYSCRAPERS, Serbia) and stories about contemporary life such as A COAT OF GOLD (Hungary) about a woman in the creative industry dealing with her unexpected cancer. Historical subjects come from Poland and Ukraine: OWL, THE BAKER’S DAUGHTER is set in a post-war Poland characterized by totalitarian pressure and personal escapism. ALEKSANDR DOVZHENKO. ODESSA DEBUT draws a portrait of the Ukrainian Black Sea metropolis Odessa in the 1920s.
„Like every year, I am looking very much forward to the refreshing diversity of styles and themes of the submitted projects, as well as to the creative discussions with producers from all over Europe“, says Bernd Buder, director of connecting cottbus.
Among the producers presenting current projects at connecting cottbus are Bujar Alimani (90 Production, Albania), Jamila Wenske (One Two Films, Germany), Milena Garfield (West End Productions, Serbia/USA), Michal Gozdzik (Teamwork Production, Poland) and Ketie Daniela (Ablabuda Film, Georgia).
connecting cottbus will also award prizes with a total value of 27.000 Euro. This year’s coco Special Pitch Award goes to the political thriller project THE VEGETABLE LAMB set in Central Asia. Director Thomas Sieben won last year’s main award in the German-Polish Youth Film Competition of FilmFestival Cottbus for his widely noted film THE DAM.
connecting cottbus is supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, Creative Europe – MEDIA and MDM / Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung GmbH. Supporting Partners of connecting cottbus are the Polish Film Institute, Creative Europe Desk Berlin-Brandenburg, Torino Film Lab, Producers Network, Maia Workshops, EAVE, ACE, Moscow Business Square, Odessa International Film Festival, CineLink, Meetings On the Bridge, Nipkow Programm.
The coco Post Pitch Award 2014 is sponsored by The Post Republic.
Organizer of connecting cottbus is FilmFestival Cottbus GmbH.
The list of projects selected for the pitching at connecting cottbus 2014 can be found at www.connecting-cottbus.de
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