WARSAW: FNE has teamed up with the Brussels based team of the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) to bring you regular updates on EU cinema policies that impact all industry professionals across Europe. Click here for FNE UNIC EU Cinema Policy Update.
MALATYA: Twelve films from Turkey are screening in the National Competition at the Malatya International Film Festival, which opens on 9 November 2017 and runs through 16 November in the Eastern Anatolia city.
BRUSSELS: The 9th edition of the international Streopsia “World Immersion Forum” dedicated to immersion in the form of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, as well as 3D cinema and sound, will be held 11 – 13 December 2017 in Brussels.
MALATYA: The 7th Malatya IFF is increasing its international profile, with 12 films selected for this year’s International Competition. The festival kicks off on 9 November 2017 and runs through 16 November.
Digital Single Market
19/10: 4th Council of Europe Platform Exchange on Culture and Digitisation – Council of Europe
The 4th Platform Exchange on Culture and Digitisation, organised by the Council of Europe in cooperation with ZKM at the ZKM headquarters in Karlsruhe, took place from 19-20 October, with the aim to explore the potential of Culture, Arts and Science as a strong resource for empowering democracy for culturally competent citizens.
22/10: Recommendation on measures to safeguard fundamental rights and the open internet in the framework of the EU copyright reform - IPKat
Together with a group of scholars active in copyright issues, Professor Martin Senftleben (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) has published a Recommendation on measures to safeguard fundamental rights and the open internet in the framework of the EU copyright reform.
Lux Film Prize
17/10: The starting pistol is fired for the 2017 LUX Film Days - European Parliament
The time has come for the 2017 edition of the LUX Film Days to get under way. Once again this year, the European Parliament’s LUX Prize will take the three finalist films on a trip across Europe, from theatre to theatre, and from festival to festival, visiting more than 60 cities.
Events
TBC: EP JURI vote on the Broadcast RegulationTBC: Vote on the Contracts for the Supply of Digital Content Directive6/11: UNIC Film Screening of 'Borg McEnroe' - Brussels - email to reserve21/11: Joint Film Screening of 'The Square' - Bozar - email to reserve27-28/11: Estonian Presidency conference on audiovisual content, technology and policy – Tallinn – more information here
VALLETTA: Johann Grech has been named as the incoming Malta Film Commissioner. He replaces Engelbert Grech.
ZAGREB: Men Don’t Cry by Alen Drljevic is among the 13 films vying for the Golden Pram in the main competition of first and second films at the 15th Zagreb Film Festival, running 11-19 November 2017. The Frog by Elmir Jukic is also in the main section, screening out of competition as the closing night film. Both films are coproductions from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
BERLIN: Three Bulgarian coproductions and two Polish films, along with one Romanian short film, are among the films nominated for the 2017 European Film Awards.
Today the script and project development program MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2017 concluded in Písek, Czech Republic, and the winners have been announced. The main development award of 8.000 EUR goes to ZANA by writer/director Antoneta Kastrati and producer Casey Johnson.
19 writers, directors and producers have participated in this year's MIDPOINT Feature Launch with their feature film projects. Since June's workshop in Macedonia, the teams have been improving their scripts and project development. Today it all concluded at the final workshop, when all 9 projects were pitched to an invited group of international experts.
MIDPOINT Development Award and a cash prize of 8.000 EUR was awarded to:
- Zana – writer/director Antoneta Kastrati, producer Casey Johnson (Kosovo)
The motivation of the selection committee:
"Exploring the personal impact of horrific loss, this project examines long-held cultural traditions and living scars of war that continue to torment people from a remote corner of Europe."
About the project: ZANA is a dark and haunting psychological drama about the collision of modern day faith healers and post-war trauma of survivors in Kosovo. Inspired by true events. Riddled by night terrors and repeated miscarriages, a Kosovar bride is sent to witch doctors who subject her to unusual rituals and confinement to cure her of suspected black magic, but when she again becomes pregnant, her dark wartime past comes back to haunt her and her unborn baby.
Connecting Cottbus Award – 4 projects have been selected to pitch at Connecting Cottbus East West Co-production Market in November under the banner MIDPOINT Selection 2017. They are:
- Inventory – writer/director Darko Sinko, producer Vlado Bulajic (Slovenia)
- Mnk Boy – writer Sibel Altinbas, director Mete Gümürhan, producer Bas Broertjes (Netherlands/Turkey)
- Waterwolf – writer/director Ann-Julie Vervaeke, producer Anastassia Oudovitchenko (Belgium)
- Zana – writer/director Antoneta Kastrati, producer Casey Johnson (Kosovo)
Read about all the projects here.
CineMart Award – 1 producer has been handpicked to participate in Rotterdam Lab including CineMart access during Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam in Jan. 2018. The winner is:
Eliza Jones who participated at MIDPOINT with the project 'Asunden'
"The team communicates a certain openness and ambition that confirms that Eliza Jones is at the right point of her career to expand her network and producing skills in the context of the international marketplace that Rotterdam Lab has to offer. I have no doubt that 'Asunden', a project strongly rooted in both Sweden and the USA, is in the right stage and hands to benefit from this award", says Inke van Loocke, Coordinator CineMart & Rotterdam Lab and Guest Tutor at Feature Launch.
Kristyna Plhonova, Program Coordinator of Feature Launch says about the program overall,
"Feature Launch 2017 has offered our participants script consulting and project development in equal parts, and it has proved to be the right path. We have been truly blessed with a wonderful selection of projects. – In addition we have expanded our industry partnerships, and I cannot wait for another edition, which starts already in January in collaboration with Trieste FF, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and When East Meets West."
MIDPOINT FEATURE LAUNCH 2017 – PROJECTS
/ 19 – writer/director Kosara Mitic, producer Kornelija Ristovska (Macedonia)
/ Alive in Moscow – writer/director Grigore Becket, producer Elie Aufseesser (Switzerland/Moldova)
/ Asunden – writer/director Petter Ringbom, producer Eliza Jones (Sweden)
/ Images of Love – writer Tomasz Winski, producer Radovan Sibrt (Czech Republic)
/ Inventory – writer/director Darko Sinko, producer Vlado Bulajic (Slovenia)
/ Mnk Boy – writer Sibel Altinbas, director Mete Gümürhan, producer Bas Broertjes (NL/Turkey)
/ Night of the Whale – writer/director Kaveh Daneshmand, producer Jordi Niubo (Czech Rep.)
/ Waterwolf – writer/director Ann-Julie Vervaeke, producer Anastassia Oudovitchenko (Belgium)
/ Zana – writer/director Antoneta Kastrati, producer Casey Johnson (Kosovo)
MIDPOINT FEATURE LAUNCH 2017 – TUTORS
/ Danijel Hocevar, Head of Studies of Feature Launch
/ Anne Gensior, Core Tutor
/ Pavel Jech, Core Tutor
/ Ivo Trajkov, Core Tutor
/ Gabriele Brunnenmeyer, Guest Tutor
/ Gyula Gazdag, Guest Tutor
/ Alessandro Gropplero, Guest Tutor
/ Martin Horyna, Guest Tutor
/ Jan Naszewski, Guest Tutor
/ Christina Pelekani, Guest Tutor
/ Katriel Schory, Guest Tutor
/ Pavel Strnad, Guest Tutor
/ Ognjen Svilicic, Guest Tutor
/ Elma Tataragic, Guest Tutor
/ Daniela V. Stanikova, Guest Tutor
/ Inke van Loocke, Guest Tutor
MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2017 is realized in collaboration with Ministry of Culture Czech Republic, Czech Film Fund, International Visegrad Fund, Macedonian Film Agency, Creative Europe MEDIA Desk CZ, APA – Audiovisual Producers' Association, COCO – Connecting Cottbus and CineMart.
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OPEN CALL: MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2018
International feature filmmakers can apply for the 2018 workshop until October 26th. Read more about the expanded one-year program here.
http://www.midpoint-center.eu/programs/179-midpoint-feature-launch-2018-2018
ABOUT
MIDPOINT is an international script and project development program for emerging film professionals – aimed at creative teams of writers, directors and producers. MIDPOINT focuses on narrative film and TV projects and operates as a year-long center organizing a string of workshop programs.
The 2017 edition of connecting Cottbus will introduce coco Work in Progress (WiP) with the new €35,000 coco WiP Award, an in-‐kind prize sponsored by the German post-‐production company D-‐FACTO MOTION.
Competition for one of the coco Pitch or coco WiP slots was tough. coco WiP’s four projects were selected from 50 submissions from 25 countries. The coco Pitch selection of ten projects was made from over 125 submissions from 32 countries.
The ten coco Pitch projects will compete for another four coco awards: The €1,500 coco Best Pitch Award sponsored by Berliner Synchron and No Limits Media plus a Cannes Producers Network accreditation will go to the producer of the awarded best pitch. A jury of three industry representatives will award the €25,000 coco Post Pitch Award, an in-‐kind award donated by the German post-‐ production house The Post Republic. The Midpoint Scholarship Award will enable one cocoLab project to develop its script by participating in our sponsor's Midpoint Feature Launch.
The Polish German Co-‐Production Roundtable will be continuing this year. connecting cottbus is joining forces with Medienboard Berlin-‐Brandenburg, Mitteldeutsche Medienstiftung, the Polish Film Institute and the German Federal Film Board (Filmförderungsanstalt -‐ FFA) to invite producers from Poland and Germany to discuss the situation of co-‐production between the neighboring countries.
We are very happy to welcome Serbia as coco’s country focus this year. In cooperation with the Film Center Serbia Focus Serbia will present Serbian co-‐ production possibilities as well as projects and case studies.
This year will see connecting cottbus starting a network initiative focusing on gender equality. The coco Female Producers Roundtable will be inviting leading as well as upcoming female producers to a think tank to devise and develop new collaborative strategies that can benefit the industry in terms of gender diversity.
As a novelty this year, four projects have been selected at the Midpoint Feature Launch 2017 to pitch under the banner MIDPOINT SELECTION:
- INVENTORY / director Darko Sinko, producer Vlado Bulajic (Slovenia)
- MNK BOY / director Mete Gümürhan, producer Bas Broertjes (Netherlands/Turkey)
- WATERWOLF / director Ann-‐Julie Vervaeke, producer Anastassia Oudovitchenko (Belgium)
- ZANA / director Antoneta Kastrati, producer Casey Johnson (Kosovo)
connecting cottbus is supported by Medienboard Berlin-‐Brandenburg, Creative Europe/MEDIA and MDM Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung.
More information about connecting cottbus can be found online at www.connecting-‐ cottbus.de/ or on facebook www.facebook.com/connecting.cottbus.
Press contact:
info@connecting-‐cottbus.de
