14-11-2022

coco AWARDS 2022

    While the 24th edition of connecting cottbus (9-11 Nov 2022), the East-West co-production market at FilmFestival Cottbus, is still underway, the award winners out of the 13 cocoPITCH and 6 cocoWIP projects were already announced during tonight’s ceremony:

    The cocoPITCH Audience Award goes to the best pitch presentation of a project in development, voted for by all industry participants. The audience chose DOLPHIN. The project from Poland was presented by director Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska and producer Magdalena Sztorc (Before My Eyes), receiving a cash prize of €1,500.

    This year’s cocoPITCH jury was comprised of Alicja Grawon-Jaksik (MTL Maxfilm), Ales Pavlin (Perfo) and Francesca Tiberi (True Colours), who deliberated on three awards:

    The Avanpost Pitch Packaging Award was handed out to INHERITANCE by director Stanislav Bytiutskyi and producers Valeria Sochyvets and Inna Lastochkina (Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema) from Ukraine. Romanian post-production outfit Avanpost will provide the project with in-kind services up to €15,000, which may include strategy consulting, the project look-book as well as production/post-production for a proof of concept.

    The Croatian Audiovisual Centre presented the HAVC Project Development Award, a €5,000 cash award towards the further development of one project. It went to DOLPHIN by director Sonja Orlewicz-Zakrzewska and producer Magdalena Sztorc (Before My Eyes) from Poland.

    The Producers Network Award, consisting of free accreditation to the Producers Network at the Marché du Film in Cannes 2023, went to Petra Iványi (Lupa Pictures/Hungary) and Margarita Amineva-Jester (Voices Films/Germany), the producers of cocoPITCH project THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD, directed by Borbála Nagy.

    The MIDPOINT Consulting Award went to three cocoPITCH projects, each receiving an in-depth script consultancy. The winners, announced by MIDPOINT‘s programme coordinator Soňa Morgenthalová, are ASPHALT from Greece (dir: Minos Nikolakakis, prod: Minos Nikolakakis & Vassilis Economou/Asphalt), STATE from Ukraine (dir: Nikon Romanchenko, prod: Vika Khomenko/Moon Man) and SUPERMARKET from Bosnia and Herzegovina (dir: Nermin Hamzagić, prod: Adis Djapo/SCCA/pro.ba).

    The 2022 cocoWIP jury was comprised of Stefan Ivančić (Non-Aligned Films/Locarno Film Festival), Julia Peters (jip film & verleih), Lukáš Moudrý (Studio Beep) and Waheed Zamani and Robert Wunsch (D-Facto Motion). They deliberated on two awards:

    Sponsored by German post-production studio D-Facto Motion, the D-Facto Motion WIP Award of €35,000 in-kind services plus €5,000 for additional expenses went to the work in progress BLAZING (Hungary), presented by director Balázs Dudás and producer Ádám Farkas (CineSuper).

    BLAZING also received this year’s new Studio Beep Sound Post-Production Award, consisting of €6.000 in-kind services sponsored by the high-end studios based in the centre of Prague.

    A special mention by the cocoWIP jury went to SEVENTH HEAVEN by director Jasna Nanut, produced by Hrvoje Osvadić (15th Art Productions (Petnaesta umjetnost)/Croatia).

    Congratulations to all the winners!