Sarajevo CineLink Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

17-07-2012

Sarajevo CineLink Celebrates Tenth Anniversary

By Pavlina Jeleva

{mosimage}CineLink (www.sff.ba/en/cinelink), the key industry platform of the 18th Sarajevo Film festival (www.sff.ba), expanded its focus for its tenth anniversary edition, to include presentations from four new countries.

Joining the Balkan countries plus Austria, Hungary, Cyprus, and Malta in the Sarajevo Talent Campus (www.sff.ba/en/stc),, were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova.

The industry section also includes Sarajevo City of Film (www.sff.ba/en/scf), Rough Cut Boutique (www.sff.ba/en/rcb), the Minimarket (www.sff.ba/en/minimarket) and the Regional Forum (www.sff.ba/en/regional_forum).

The 2012 development and financing platform presented 17 projects. Eight from them took part in the CineLink Project Development Workshop consisting of script development and marketing strategies. The other nine, part of the CineLink Plus section, went directly to the CineLink coproduction market. The six selected Work in Progress projects were from six different countries: Serbia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Greece, Bulgaria and Israel. Eight projects from seven countries received awards, most with cash attached.

Starting a broader region building process the sixth edition of the Sarajevo Talent Campus added to the usual regional participation young talents from four new countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. Hollywood star Angelina Jolie, a strong supporter of the Sarajevo Film Festival, opened the Talent Campus with a lecture attended by over 100 young talents from thirteen countries.

A joint initiative between the Balkan Documentary Centre (www.bdcwebsite.com) and the Sarajevo Film Festival the second Docu Rough Cut Boutique selected five projects from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia and Romania.

This year the CineLink Partner Country Initiative was presented in collaboration with the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée and the Embassy of France in Sarajevo. Over 30 industry professionals from France attended, with a presentation by the president of the CNC Eric Garandeau outlining the new 6 M EUR subsidy World Fund with grants of up to 250,000 EUR prior to production and 50,000 EUR for post-production per project.

CINELINK AWARDS

CineLink Coproduction Development award - 30,000 EUR

A Blast

Writers: Syllas Tzoumerkas and Youla Boudali

Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas

Producer: Homemade Films/Pan Entertainment SA (www.pan.com.gr)

Greece

CNC CineLink award - 10,000 EUR

Man Don't Cry

Writer/Director: Alen Drljević

Producer: Deblokada (www.deblokada.ba)

Bosnia and Herzegovina