The Baltic Bridge East by West (B’EST), an initiative designed for feature film projects from the European Union and the CIS countries and Georgia, has selected the project slate for its second edition. The workshop is held by the organizers of Baltic Event (Estonia) and Northern Seas Film Forum in cooperation with EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs), RFilms, CTB Film Company (Russia), and with the support from MEDIA Mundus. B’EST consists of two workshops, which take place on September 11-15 in St Petersburg, within the framework of St Petersburg International Film Festival, and November 26-29 in Tallinn, within the framework of Baltic Event.
The European Union half of the slate is represented by projects from Austria, France, Lithuania, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom. Witcraft Szenario, Austria, presents gangster comedy Kaviar, debut feature of Elena Tikhonova, a young Russian filmmaker based in Vienna. Clandestine Films, France, participates with the road movie You Hid Saint Petersburg in Your Bag, the second feature of award-winning director Valerie Gaudissart. The post-Soviet tragicomedy A Miracle by UK's National Film and Television School graduates Egle Vertelyte (writer-director) and Lukas Trimonis (producer) from Lithuania represents the Baltic countries. Slovakian drama Out, which takes its main character on a "North-Eastern European Odyssey" from Slovakia to Estonia, is the debut feature of promising FAMU graduate György Kristóf. And the UK's Scala Productions by Nik Powell and Ian Priorare looking for Russian co-producers for yet another story of a journey - Passing Clouds, a couple's honeymoon on Trans-Siberian Express.
On the Eastern front, projects from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine have been selected to participate in the workshop. The talented young Azerbaijani filmmaker Ru Hasanov participates with his second feature, Northbound. Georgia is represented by Terzo Mondo, a drama by the award-winning film director Merab Kokochashvili, whose filmography spans over five decades. Kyrgyzstan presents the drama Centaur, directed by Aktan Arym Kubat, whose films have competed at Locarno and Cannes film festivals. From Russia, Ella Manzheeva's debut The Gulls is a drama set in the director's native Republic of Kalmykia. The line-up is completed by the drama Kai, directed by Ukrainian Oleg Sentsov, who is about to start shooting his second feature just as the first workshop of B'EST kicks off.
German-Kazakh project Good-bye, directed by Anna Hoffmann, from B'EST's last year's slate has meanwhile already been completed, going into production even before the second workshop, and Georgian project House of Others, directed by Rusudan Glurjidze, has just been presented at Locarno’s Open Doors co-production lab and will be shot in 2014, while all the other B'EST graduates continue their journey towards completion with equal zeal.
Riina Sildos
Baltic Event managing director
e-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
