Established auteurs at Baltic Event

by Annika Pham

27/11/2009 - Lithuania’s Šarūnas Bartas, Estonia’s Kadri Kõusaar and Finland’s Petri Kotwica are among the 12 directors whose latest projects will be pitched to potential co-producers and co-financiers at the upcoming Baltic Event Co-production Market in Tallinn, Estonia (November 29-December 2).

Bartas is one of today’s most prominent Lithuanian filmmakers. His feature film, Fling a Stone, David, is based on a novel by Vincas Iedra about a young man’s attempts to survive the new Soviet regime. The €3m project is produced by Era Film and Kinema in Lithuania.

The 29-year old Kõusaar had her international breakthrough in 2007 with her feature debut Magnus, selected in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. Her new project European Psycho is a thriller about an ambitious scientist with a superiority complex who embarks on a “mission of justice”. The €1m project produced by Meteoriit is co-produced with Germany’s Peter Heilrath Filmproduktion, with support from the Estonian Film Foundation.

Also among the pre-selected projects is Finnish thriller Rat King, to be directed by Kotwica (Black Ice [trailer, film focus]) for Making Movies.

Around 180 film professionals from Scandinavia, East-Central Europe and Russia are expected in the Estonian capital, including sales agents NonStop Sales, Rezo Films, Sola Media and Intra Films; distributors Fidalgo (Norway), Central Partnership (Russia) and Yume Pictures (UK); and festival programmers Christina Hoffman (Cannes Critics’ Week) and Ivana Novotna (Karlovy Vary).

In addition to the co-production market, the Baltic Event will feature the popular Coming Soon section and the Baltic Event Screenings, with high profile Baltic co-productions such as The Temptations of St Tony [trailer] by Veiko Õunpuu and Armand Zvirbulis’ Little Robbers.

The Baltic Event, which runs parallel to the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, is managed by producer Riina Sildos.