On the 9th of July the winner of First Cut+ Award has been announced: is DESKMATE by Ferit Karahan, produced by Kanat Dogramaci – Asteros Film
The award consists in extra consultations Marketing related, offered by four of First Cut+ Mentors.
L’Avventura Studio (Alexis Hamaide) offers an event-oriented recommendation, with a set of ideas that can be reproduced by the distributor/sales agent/producer.
WOLF Consultants (Laurin & Michael) offers a consultation on how to translate the positioning of the finished film for the international press book, with a special focus on key texts including logline, synopsis, director’s note and interview.
Tiramisu (Boris Pugnet) offers consultancy on trailer and poster.
This will be an occasion for continue working with our advisors for the winning project!
Also, one of the First Cut+ awards won the Works in Progress TRT Award at Karlovy Vary Eastern Promises Industry Days. The jury (Gabor Greiner, Faruk Güven, Vanja Kaludjerčić) chose the film WILD ROOTS (Hungary, Slovak Republic) directed by Hajni Kis and produced by Júlia Berkes and Balázs Zachar as the winning project. A cash prize of 10.000 EUR from TRT will be given to the project.
Moreover First Cut+ recently announced a strategic partnership with Cinemarket which aims to facilitate the access to market to the participants willing to join the platform. Newly finished films which participated in the First Cut+ program in 2020, can now find an online space to be showcased to potential buyers (festivals, distributors, OTT platforms, etc) and available catalogue titles can be presented for rights acquisition. Cinemarket also provides a legal tool for Directors and Producers (online powered contract and payment) to facilitate and conclude the sale of their films.
First Cut+ teaming up with Cinemarket reflects one of the main missions of First Cut+: offering to the selected projects more visibility to stand out into the crowded international market.
First Cut+ is glad to highlight that three out of the eight projects selected for this summer session already closed a deal with International Sales agents: the Turkish feature DESKMATE by Ferith Karahan signed up with Intramovies, THE USERS by Serbian director Ivan Ikic is now part of Heretic Outreach’s
line up and WILD ROOTS, first feature by Hungarian writer-director Hajni Kis, is about to sign with a European Sales agent which will be announced in the upcoming days.
The end of this second session it’s also the occasion to follow-up on what’s new for the eight projects which participated to the first edition of First Cut+ last January during Trieste’s When East Meets West.
LISTEN the first feature film directed by Ana Rocha and produced by London based company Pinball Ltd handled by Paula Vaccaro, has been acquired by US based sales agent Magnolia International.
Three features are about to sign with International sales agents, which will be announced in the upcoming weeks: the Finnish title NIMBY by Teemu Nikki, produced by Jani Poso from It’s Alive Films, the debut Croatian feature STAFFROOM by Sonja Tarokić produced by Eurimage co-production award winner Ankica Jurić Tilić – Kinorama, and biopic about Zdzisław Najmrodzki – the famous master of thieves and escapes from the 80’s in Poland ,THE GETAWAY KING by Mateusz Rakowicz produced by TFP.
The Latvian title directed by Juris Poskus, produced by Madara Melberga – FA Filma, 24 HOURS OF SUNSHINE, just ended the shooting of its last scenes in June and is now planning its Festivals strategy, thanks to the award offered by Connect the Dots during First Cut+ session in Trieste.
The Romanian title AND THEY MAY STILL BE ALIVE TODAY by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu will be screened at the Transylvania International Film Festival (July 31 – August 9, 2020), in the Romanian Days section and the polish title SIMPLE THINGS by Grzegorz Zariczny, produced by Magdalena Sztorc– Before My Eyes, will be part of New Horizon Industry Days online program at the end of July.
Last but not least CRYSANTHEMUM DAY, the debut feature of Ukrainian documentarist Simon Mozgovyi is planning the shooting of its missing scenes in 2021.
