Debut feature Petty Thieves by Mate Ugrin received the Film Center Serbia Award (a € 5,000 prize) at the 12th edition of When East Meets West. The film is produced by Fünferfilm (Germany), In The Cut (France) and Kadromat (Croatia) and follows a young loner who gets by with seasonal jobs and petty theft in resorts on the Adriatic coast, until his life is thrown into disarray by Andrea, a mysterious seasonal worker. 

The international WEMW jury consisting of Una Domazetoski (Film Center Serbia), Sergio Garcia De Leaniz (Eurimages) and Francesco Giai Via (TorinoFilmLab/Annecy Cinéma Italien) was called upon to decide the winners of the Co-Production Forum awards, whereas thanks to the partnership with our international network of training programmes and markets, Polish producer Aneta Zagórska (Film Kraków), selected at WEMW with her project Man of Marble, was awarded a scholarship to attend the EAVE Producers Workshop; whilst Short Summer producer Natalia Drozd (Forest Film, Russia) and Unconventional Gardeners producer Massimo Arvat (Zenit Arti Audiovisive, Italy) will receive free accreditations to the Cannes Marche du Film Producers’ Network. Short Summer director Nastia Korkia was also awarded the Pop Up Film Residency Award. 

The Flow Post-production Award (a € 15,000 prize in post-production facilities) went to the Danish documentary Europhoria by writer-director Bjarke Underbjerg and producer Giulia Triolo (Snowglobe, Denmark). The DAE Accelerator Award in Cooperation with the EFM was assigned to Who I Am Not by Tunde Skovran and produced by Andrei Zinca (Double 4 Studios, USA). The EWA WEMW Award (a € 1,000 prize) went to Italian project A Song that Slays directed by Mo Scarpelli and produced by Alessandro Amato and Luigi Chimienti (Dispàrte, Italy). 

On to the two WEMW sidebar programmes targeting films at the post-production stage. The 2022 international jury of Last Stop Trieste, composed of Lejla Dedic (Al Jazeera Balkans), Martin Horyna (Karlovy Vary IFF) and Bojana Maric (Lightdox), assigned the HBO Europe Award (a € 1,000 cash prize) to Too Close, the Romanian project by writer-director Botond Pusok and producer Irina Malcea (Luna Film, Romania), and the Flow Digital Cinema Award to The Body by Slovenian writer, director and producer Petra Seliškar (Petra Pan Film). In the same section, Alexander Koridze’s project Atonal Glow, which he wrote, directed and produced, took home the First Hand Fund Award, consisting in € 1.000 and a Distribution offer, thanks to the partnership with First Hand Films.

This year the international jury of This is IT, the work in progress section dedicated to fiction films and hybrid works with Italian producers or co-producers attached, was composed by Virginie Devesa (Alpha Violet), Eddie Bertozzi (Locarno International Film Festival; Academy Two) and Andrei Tanasescu (Venice Days; Vilnius International Film Festival). The jury decided to assign to the Italo-Swedish co-production The Store by Amy-Ro Sköld the This is IT Laser Film Award. For the first time, the jury was also called upon to decide on the recipient of the This is NOW Laser Film Award, which went to White Road, a Russian-Armenian co-production directed by Ella Manzheeva. 

Last but not least, the Italian-Baltic Development Awards for Co-Production, two cash prizes of € 15,000 granted by the Ministero della cultura (MiC), Estonian Film Institute, Lithuanian Film Centre, National Film Centre of Latvia, went to Alamut By Laibach, directed by di Ugis Olte and Sašo Podgoršek (Latvia/Italy/Slovenia) and I Am a Bird Now directed by Marko Raat (Estonia/Italy). 

This hybrid edition of WEMW drew to a close with a slate of unexpected numbers: 900 registered participants from over 60 countries, of which 150 joined us on-site while 750 online. Over 500 scheduled individual meetings - both physical and digital - with more than 200 decision makers and 40 business angels.  

WEMW CO-PRODUCTION FORUM AWARDS

Film Center Serbia Development Award
Petty Thieves – Mate Ugrin (Germany)
Producers: Julia Cöllen, Tiphaine Robion, Daria Blazevic, Karsten Krause, Frank Scheuffele
Fünferfilm (Germany), In The Cut (France), Kadromat (Croatia) 

Flow Post-production Award
Europhoria – Bjarke Underbjerg (Denmark)
Producer: Giulia Triolo (Snowglobe) 

DAE Accelerator Award in Cooperation with the EFM
Who I Am Not – Tunde Skovran (United States)
Producer: Andrei Zinca (Double 4 Studios) 

EAVE Producers Workshop scholarship
Aneta Zagórska (Film Kraków, Poland) – Man of Marble 

Marché du Film Producers Network
Producer Natalia Drozd (Forest Film, Russia) – Short Summer 
Producer Massimo Arvat (Zenit Arti Audiovisive, Italy) – Unconventional Gardeners   

Pop Up Film Residency Award
Producer Natalia Drozd (Forest Film, Russia) – Short Summer 

EWA WEMW Award
A Song that Slays – Mo Scarpelli (Italy)
Producers: Alessandro Amato and Luigi Chimient (Dispàrte) 

LAST STOP TRIESTE

HBO Europe Award
Too Close – Botond Pusok (Romania) 
Producer: Irina Malcea (Luna Film)

Flow Digital Cinema Award
The Body – Petra Seliškar (Slovenia) 
Producer: Petra Seliškar (Petra Pan Film)

First Hand Fund Award
Atonal Glow – Alexander Koridze (Georgia) 
Producer: Alexander Koridze (Spark) 

THIS IS IT

This Is IT Laser Film Award
The Store – Amy-Ro Sköld (Italy, Sweden)
Producers: Francesca Portalupi (indyca), Lovisa Charlier (Tangram Film)

This Is NOW Laser Film Award
White Road – Ella Manzheeva (Russia, Armenia) 
Producers: Elena Glikman (Telesto Film), Victoria Lupik (Anniko Films) 

ITALIAN-BALTIC AWARDS
Alamut by Laibach – by Ugis Olte, Sašo Podgoršek
Producers: VFS Films (Latvia), Transmedia srl (Italy), Traal Films (Slovenia)
I Am a Bird Now – by Marko Raat
Producers: Allfilm (Estonia), PFA Films (Italy)

More information are available at www.wemw.it
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WEMW is organized once again by the FVG Audiovisual Fund in collaboration with the Trieste Film Festival, EAVE, Creative Europe Desk Italy and thanks to the precious and constant support of Creative Europe/MEDIA Programme, MiC – Direzione Generale Cinema e audiovisivo, CEI – Central European Initiative, Film Center Serbia and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The 2022 East & West Focus on Russia & Canada, Ireland, UK, USA is organized in partnership with ROSKINO, British Film Institute, Telefilm Canada, SODEC, CMPA, Ontario Creates and Screen Ireland.