Trieste, January 11th, 2018 – The eighth edition of When East Meets West kicks off in 10 days, on January 21st with an exciting double focus on the Nordic countries and South East Europe. After having revealed the pitching forum project selection, WEMW announces its new Baltic Award! Thanks to the cooperation with the three Baltic Film Institutes selected projects will compete for a cash prize of 3.000 EUR. Along with the co-production forum WEMW is proud to unveil the complete line-up of the three side sections targeting films in post-production stage.

Now in its fourth edition, Last Stop Trieste, the work in progress section run together with the Trieste Film Festival, will present 7 creative documentaries to an exclusive panel of more than 40 international sales agents, festival programmers and TV commissioning editors. All films will be in the running for the HBO Europe Award and the Flow Digital Cinema Award.

First Cut Lab, the workshop for films in editing phase, has finally selected 3 long feature fiction films from Poland, Russia and Lithuania with the main goal of fostering their artistic, sales and festival potential. To this aim, the producer/director teams invited to the lab will receive tailor-made advices from a consulting editor and international experts.

 

After the successful past editions of these two side sections, When East Meets West and Trieste Film Festival will expand their initiatives targeting projects in post-production phase and will launch in partnership with Milano Film Network a new section exclusively dedicated to long feature fiction films produced or co-produced by Italian producers. This is IT will present 6 films ready for festival premiere/international distribution and will deliver the Laser Film Award.

Alongside the pitching forum and the three side sections, WEMW will feature a rich programme including a “Coproduction Day” organized in cooperation with the Creative Europe Desks from South East European countries, Italy and the Nordic countries; “In the Spotlight”, where fund representatives from this year's spotlight territories will give a comprehensive insight into current trends in their film industries. The panel “The Road to Project and Film Marketing: Checkpoints and Pitfalls”, in cooperation with Heretic Asterisk, will shed light on the way marketing can impact a project during its all different stages: from development to delivery and distribution. EAVE will lead the session “Towards 2030: Creating New Business Models for Film”, a plenary for film professionals interested in the current status of digital distribution, its future growth and how to create a strong, sustainable and dynamic European industry. Finally, EDN – European Documentary Network will host the session “Victim of Changes? Or Drivers of Innovation?”, where a number of leading voices from public service broadcasters will discuss how they see the future for public media in the digital age.

The 7 documentaries presented at Last Stop Trieste, the 3 long feature fiction films chosen for First Cut Lab and the 6 Italian films selected for This is IT are:

 

LAST STOP TRIESTE   100 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN director: Víctor Cruz producer: Fito Pochat countries: Argentina, Italy BALTIC NEW WAVE directors: Audrius Stonys, Kristine Briede producer: Uldis Cekulis countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia BEFORE FATHER GETS BACK director: Mari Gulbiani producer: Tekla Machavariani countries: Georgia, France, Germany EXEMPLARY BEHAVIOUR director: Audrius Mickevičius producer: Rasa Miškinytė, countries: Lithuania, Bulgaria, Italia	HOME GAMES director: Alisa Kovalenko producer: Stephane Siohan countries: Ukraine, France, Poland MY UNKNOWN SOLDIER director: Anna Kryvenko producer: Michal Kráčmer countries: Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia PAYING A VISIT TO FORTUNA director: Mátyás Kálmán producer: Ágnes Horváth-Szabó country: Hungary
FIRST CUT LAB CORE OF THE WORLD director: Audrius Mickevičius producers: Natalia Drozd, Sergey Selyanov countries: Russia, Lithuania SUMMER SURVIVORS director: Marija Kavtaradze producers: Marija Razgute, Klementina Remeikaite country: Lithuania	THE MUTE director: Bartosz Konopka producer: Anna Wydra countries: Poland, Belgium
This is IT CITTA’ GIARDINO director: Marco Piccarreda producers: Marco Piccarreda, Gaia Formenti country: Italy DUE PICCOLI ITALIANI director: Paolo Sassanelli producer: Tommaso Arrighi countries: Italy, Iceland MENOCCHIO director: Alberto Fasulo producer: Nadia Trevisan countries: Italy, Romania	IL RUMORE DEL SOLE director: Mirko Locatelli producers: Mirko Locatelli, Giuditta Tarantelli countries: Italy, France STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS director: Gregor Božič producers: Marina Gumzi, Igor Princic countries: Slovenia, Italy THE WORLD IS FLAT director: Matteo Carrega Bertolini producers: Matteo Carrega Bertolini, Paola Dall’Olio countries: Italy, France, Switzerland

WEMW is organized by the FVG Audiovisual Fund and the Trieste Film Festival in collaboration with EAVE, Maia Workshops, Creative Europe Desk Italy, EURIMAGES 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 2018  East & West focus is in cooperation and with the support of all South East Europeans funds - Albanian National Center of Cinematography, Association of Filmmakers of BiH & Sarajevo Film Fund, Bulgarian National Film Center, Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Film Centre of Montenegro, Film Center Serbia, Greek Film Centre, Kosovo Cinematography Center, Macedonian Film Agency, Slovenian Film Centre - and all Nordic film institutes - Danish Film Institute, Finnish Film Foundation, Icelandic Film Centre, Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute.