24/06/2016 - A total of 26 projects will be pitched across four sections: features, shorts, documentaries and TV shows

Director Armando del Rio, who will be pitching his project Karma

Fourteen feature-length projects, six shorts, four documentaries and two TV shows will be presented today and tomorrow at the Pitching Forum, taking place as part of the 12^th FEST – New Directors / New Films Festival.

The Espinho-based event gives participants five minutes to pitch their projects to a panel of local and international experts, which this year includes Carlos Ruiz, David Turner, Gareth Wiley, Gonçalo Galvao Teles, Isabel Lima, Luís Ismael, Manuel Clato, Marc Agues, Margarida Madeira, Maria Joao Mayer, Pablo Morgavi and Tim Corrie. The pitches are followed by public feedback and one-to-one meetings.

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Several European projects will be trying their luck, including Adventures of a Mathematician [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Lena Vurma and Thor Klein, a Polish-German co-production based on the life of Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam; Erik the Cat, a Norwegian animated project to be directed by Bjoen Ekeberg; Non Smoking, which will be Romanian director Diana Plopeanu’s feature debut; Greek director Dimitris Argyriou’s Death in Corfu, based on the novel by Ronnith Neumann; Karma, to be directed by Armando del Rio, which revolves around middle age; Strawberry Jam, a Petar Mitric project set against the backdrop of the war in Yugoslavia; The Old Man and the Sky by Austrian-born director Dieter Primig; Epic, a Slovakian story by Zuzana Chadimova; Through the Woods, a new reinterpretation of the tale of Antigone, to be pitched by Polish director Bartosz Warwas;and Eleonora, a romantic historical drama by Hungary’s Andrea Osvart. Other non-European projects include Sarula, Her Horse and the Shadows, a film to be shot in Mongolia by Chinese director Yao Lu; The Other War, Francesco Carrasco’s Colombia-set project; Lillehammer by Yaniv Berman and Tony Copti, an Israeli-Palestinian film about the hunt for Ali Hassan Salameh by a Mossad agent; and Radha by Indian director Sandhya Daisy Sundaram.

The selected shorts are Anu by Laura Milheiro, Luis Porto and Jaime Monsanto; A Little Soul by Julia Alcaniz; Birthday by Gabriele Urbonaite; Douro’s Soul by Susana Grilo; Paulina, the Old Man and the Turtle by Martin Oliveros Heinze and Eneko Sanz; and Selvagem by Victoria Visco Mendonça, Martin Gondre and Charles Bin.

The documentary line-up includes Burnt by the Moon by Dace Puce, Studio Harmattan by Stefanos Pavlakis, Wonders of the Spiritual World by Ursula Romero and Francesco Carrasco, and Godless – The Truth Beyond Belief by Micael Langer.

Finally, in the TV Shows section, Stefanos Pavlakis will pitch Play Is My Passion and Irene Chica Perez will present The Wind-Ups.

The pitching sessions will unfold in parallel with the Training Ground, another industry- and student-orientated event at FEST, which gathers together several film professionals for a series of workshops and master classes. Over 400 people have registered this year.