Ten projects selected from a record number of submissions will vie for the top spot at the East-West co-production market at the FilmFestival Cottbus on November 10 and 11

Cottbus, September 20, 2016 – connecting cottbus (coco), the East-West co-production market at the FilmFestival Cottbus, will once again give a chance to producers and directors to pitch their projects to an audience of about 150 film professionals this fall. Going into its 18th edition in 2016, competition for one of the coveted ten slots was harder than ever – the selections were made from over 120 submissions from 35 countries.

Participants can hope to follow in the footsteps of films such as THE HIGH SUN, ONE FLOOR BELOW (both Cannes Un Certain Regard 2015), MOTHERLAND (Venice Film Festival 2015) or A GOOD WIFE (Sundance Film Festival 2016), all of which were pitched in Cottbus before they were successfully produced and released. connecting cottbus also offers up-to-date information, discussions on current topics and networking events with particular attention to the financing and market landscape.

With four of the ten projects being first-features, coco also underlines its position as a place for the discovery of new talent – SISTER (by Dina Duma, Macedonia), THE RETURN (by Krzysztof Rzaczynski, Poland), VOROSHILOVGRAD (by Yaroslav Lodygin, Ukraine/Switzerland) and WHITE WIDOWS (by Tanja Brzakovic, Germany) are directorial first feature debuts. The pitch program is completed by BERLINER (Marian Crisan, Romania), HORNET IN A BOTTLE (Vit Zapletal, Czech Republic), SAF (Ali Vatansever, Turkey), STRAWBERRY JAM (Sasa Peric, Serbia/Denmark), THE HEIRS (Svetozar Golovlev, Germany/Poland) and WITH RULES (Dover Kosashvili, Israel).  Reflecting the diversity of talent at various stages of their careers, producers of the projects range from small, first time production houses to established industry players such as DCM (Berlin/Zurich).

The winner of the coco Award at the Transilvania Pitch Stop at the Transilvania International Film Festival, ALIVE IN MOSCOW by Moldavian director Grigore Bechet and PINKLER by Hungarian director Zsofia Zsemberi the winner of the coco Award at the international script development program MIDPOINT will join the selection out of competition.

The coco Best Pitch Award of €1,500 donated by the German Berliner Synchron plus an accreditation to the Cannes Producers Network 2017 goes to the producer of the best pitch and is awarded by all industry participants. A jury of three industry representatives will award the coco Post Pitch Award of €25,000, an in-kind award donated by the German post-production house The Post Republic. 

In addition to the presentation of their projects, coco offers the pitchers in its cocoLab program a mentoring platform before and aſter the pitches including a customary selection of high-powered workshops on topics such as audience design, digital single market territories, VOD platforms or the use of new social media. Also continuing this year is #FEEDback (Film Eastern Europe Dialogue), a joint international initiative by coco, Transilvania International Film Festival, and When East Meets West Co-production Forum. The initiative brings together leading professionals of the European film industry in a think-tank environment to devise and develop new, collaborative strategies that can benefit film production and distribution in the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

connecting cottbus is supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Creative Europe/MEDIA and MDM Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung.

Full list of selected pitch projects

• Berliner by Marian Crisan, produced by Anca Puiu for Mandragora (Romania)
• Hornet in a bottle by Vít Zapletal, produced by Mikuláš Novotný for Background Films (Czech Republic)
• SAF by Ali Vatansever, produced by Selin Vatansever Tezcan for Terminal Film (Turkey)
• Sister by Dina Duma, produced by Marija Dimitrova for List Production (Macedonia)
• Strawberry Jam by Sasa Peric, produced by Petar Mitric for IGNIS (Serbia) and Per Damgaard Hensen for Masterplan Pictures (Denmark)
• The Heirs by Svetozar Golovlev, produced by Julia Vorobieva for ZaFilm (Germany) and Paweł Tarasiewicz for Amondo Films (Poland)
• The Return by Krzysztof Rzączyński, produced by Maciej Rzączyński for East Studio and Piotr Dzięcioł for Opus Film (Poland)
• Voroshilovgrad by Yaroslav Lodygin, produced by Vladimir Yatsenko for Limelite (Ukraine) and Miklos Gimes for Film Brut (Switzerland)
• White Widows by Tanja Brzakovic, produced by Marc Schmidheiny und Wenka von Mikulicz for DCM Pictures (Germany)
• With Rules by Dover Kosashvili, produced by Marek Rozenbaum for Transfax Films (Israel)