Trieste, January 13th, 2020 – The 10th edition of When East Meets West kicks off in less than one week, on January 19th, with an exciting double focus on Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Hungary, Moldova, Romania. After having revealed the Co-Production Forum project selection, WEMW is now proud to announce that Marjorie Bendeck (CONNECTING COTTBUS), Tobias Pausinger (THE MATCH FACTORY) and Federico Pedroni (RAI CINEMA) will be the 2020 jury members and will decide the winners of all WEMW awards. Alongside the last details about the Co-Production Forum,WEMW is happy to finally unveil the complete line-up of the three side sections targeting films in post-production stage.

Now in its sixth edition, Last Stop Trieste, the work in progress section run together with the Trieste Film Festival, will present 5 creative documentaries to an exclusive panel of 40 international sales agents, festival programmers and TV commissioning editors. All films will be in the running for theHBO Europe Award(cash prize of 1.000 EUR),Flow Digital Cinema Award, Film Centre Serbia LSTAward (a cash prize of 2.500 EUR) and the brand new First Hand Fabulous Award (consistingin rough cut dramaturgy as well as promotion and distribution consultancy). The LST 2020 international jury will featurePierre-Alexis Chevit (MARCHÉ DU FILM - FESTIVAL DE CANNES), Jutta Krug (WDR) and Alex Szalat (DOCS UP FUND).

For the third edition, When East Meets West and Trieste Film Festival will renew the partnership with Milano Film Network for the section exclusively dedicated to long feature fiction films and hybrid works produced or co-produced by Italian producers. This is IT will present 9 films ready for festival premiere/international distribution and a jury composed by Cosima Finkbeiner (BETA CINEMA), Olivier Pelisson (SEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE), Alexia De Vito MIA will deliver the prestigious Laser Film Award. 

Last but not least,WEMW will co-host the first international fiction work in progress section First Cut +, a portfolio of 8 fiction feature films at the stage of post-production, which participated to First Cut Lab, with a focus on Central & Eastern Europe. All projects are available in world premiere and looking for an International sales agent. First Cut + jury members Yohann Comte (CHARADES), Izabela Igel (ORKA FILM) and Thierry Jobin (FRIBOURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL) will deliver the Orka FilmsAward for colour grading services and theSub-Ti Awardfor subtitles services.

Alongside the pitching forum and the three side sections, WEMW will feature a rich programme to celebrate its 10thanniversary that will start with the presentation of the brandnew WEMW report “Co-production trends between Eastern and Western Europe between 2008-2019”, and also includes“In the Spotlight”, where representatives from this year's spotlight territories will give a comprehensive insight into current trends in their film industries;EAVE will lead the session “Streamers by the Numbers”, a plenary for film professionals interested in how the sVoD platforms are performing given their newly competitive environment.

EWA will organise a showcase of the success stories with participants from previous editions, where prospective mentors and future mentees will be invited to share their views in the session “EWA Network Mentoring Programme Revisited @WEMW”.

Finally, ACE will for the first time in Trieste host the “ACE Interview with Roberto Olla”: the executive director of the European film fund Eurimages will be interviewed by esteemed European producer and ACE board member Cedomir Kolar. 

Finally, thanks to the cooperation with MIDPOINT, WEMWwill launch the first edition of Cold Open, a program targetingindependent producers with a background in feature film producingwho aspire to shift to high quality television content, which offers a diverse selection of participating countries.Thisone-off event consists of group sessions, individual consultations and two lectures dedicated to TV series open to all WEMW participants: “The idea to spawn a thousand stories (and how to run with it)”and“How to Switch from Sprint to Marathon”.The ongoing cooperation with MIDPOINT will also this year bring 13 teams from Central Eastern Europe to Trieste to best develop their long feature and short projects. 

The 2020 programme combines many different ingredients to celebrate 10 successful years of WEMW to the fullest and we look forward to welcoming more than 550 registered participants from over 40 different countries to the city.

The 5 documentaries that will be presented at Last Stop Trieste, the 9 feature films selected for This is IT, the 8 international films chosen for First Cut + and the 10 producers participating in the first edition of Cold Open are:

WEMW is organized by the FVG Audiovisual Fund and the Trieste Film Festival in collaboration with ACE, EAVE, MIDPOINT, Creative Europe Desk Italy, EURIMAGES, EFA, German Film, and the support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, MiBACT - Direzione Generale per il Cinema, CEI - Central European Initiative and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The 2020 East & West focus is in cooperation and with the support of Federal Office of Culture, FOCAL, Film - und Medienstiftung NRW, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Berlin-Brandenburg Medienboard, Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Filmförderung, Austrian Film Institute, Carinthia Film Commission, FISA – Film Industry Support Austria, Cine Tirol Film Commission, CINESTYRIA Filmcommission & Fonds, National Film Institute-Hungary, Romanian Film Center.