The new director of connecting cottbus, Marjorie Bendeck, introduced herself at the traditional East European Brunch in the State Representation of Brandenburg at the Federal Government during the 68th Berlinale. The East West co-production market celebrates its 20thanniversary this year and will take place on Nov 8th and 9th, 2018 during the 28th Cottbus Film Festival (Nov 6th-11th, 2018).

Marjorie Bendeck has been appointed new director of connecting cottbus, taking over the artistic direction of the co-production market: "Eastern Europe is quite a fascinating region, with a unique convergence between history, politics and arts, home to many talented filmmakers. I look forward to working more intensively with them."

Originally from Honduras, based in Germany since 2003, Bendeck has an international standing from working with various funds, industry and training events as a selection, development and pitch consultant; she has worked with the pitching participants of coco since 2013.

"We sincerely thank Rebekka Garrido. Over the past three years, she has played a decisive role in boosting and reshaping the profile of the connecting cottbus co-production market with her commitment", says Andreas Stein, Managing Director of coco organizer pool production.

As the first official act of the new connecting cottbus director, Bendeck presented the Special Pitch Award to Polish director-screenwriter Anna Jadowska. This prize enables Jadowska to pitch her new project at the 20th connecting cottbus co-production market. Jadowska won four prizes at the 27th FilmFestival Cottbus with her film WILD ROSES (Main Prize for Best Film, Award for Outstanding Actress for Marta Nieradkiewicz, FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury).

Bendeck also gave an outlook on the 20th edition of coco: “Besides the usual public pitch of our selected projects, we will continue with the work in progress section introduced last year, which was well received. We will organize case studies around outstanding completed projects which were pitched in previous coco editions. We are also planning a spotlight on Georgia, sharing the focus of the Film Festival Cottbus.”