05/01/2015 - WEMW will take place from January 18 to 20 in the context of the Trieste Film Festival. The 2015 edition will focus on the English-speaking countries

22 film projects from 13 countries will be presented at the fifth edition of When East Meets West, the co-production forum that will take place from January 18 to 20 in the context of the Trieste Film Festival. The event will gather industry professionals from Italy, Eastern Europe and from a selected region which changes annually. The 2015 edition will focus on the English-speaking countries. For the first time, it will expand beyond Europe in this context and feature a programme dedicated to co-production opportunities with the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States.

The 22 projects in development selected for the pitching (10 documentaries and 12 fiction features) were selected out of the record number of 285 submissions: 57 from Italy, 38 from UK, 19 from Canada, 15 from Ireland, 13 from USA and 143 from Eastern Europe. “It is not just these impressive figures that encourage us in this forthcoming edition, the overall quality of the applications was consistently high, making the selection extremely difficult”, remarksPaolo Vidali, director of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund.

The international jury, including Nikolaj Nikitin (SOFA), Matthieu Darras (TORINOFILMLAB), and Kristina Trapp (EAVE), will award the WEMW Development Award to the best project, as well as a scholarship for participation in the next edition of the EAVE European Producers Workshop. Moreover, thanks to the partnership with EGG, one of the leading post and VFX companies in Ireland, selected participants will compete for the new EGG Digital Cinema Award, a prize consisting in a full Digital Cinema Package.

The 2015 programme will also feature three brand new initiatives: First Cut Lab, a programme designed for long fiction feature films in editing phase, Last Stop Trieste, a documentary work in progress section addressed to an exclusive panel of sales agents, festival programmers and broadcasters, and Born in Trieste, a showcase of completed films previously presented in the Trieste pitching forum. 

A special mention goes to the renewed support for WEMW by Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme that confirms the key role of WEMW in the development of new, internationally significant projects.

WEMW is organized by Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund together with the Trieste Film Festival, in collaboration with EAVE, Antenna MEDIA Torino, Maia workshops, Eurimages and with the support of Creative Europe - MEDIA Programme, Direzione Generale per il Cinema – MiBACT (Italian Cultural Ministry), CEI (Central European Initiative) and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The 22 projects presented at WEMW are:

Afterglow (Documentary)
Director: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi
Producer: Julianna Ugrin
Szilánkok Film, Hungary 

Butterfly City (Documentary)
Director: Olga Cernovaite
Producer: Jeremiah Cullinane
Planet Korda Pictures, Ireland

Europe As You’ve Never Seen It (Documentary)
Director: Luca Ragazzi, Gustav Hofer
Producer: Gustav Hofer
Hiq Productions, Italy

Country For Old Men (Documentary)
Director: Pietro Jona
Producer: Enrica Capra
Graffiti Doc, Italy

Gateway 6 (Feature Film)
Director: Tanel Toom
Producers: Matt Wilkinson, Ben Pullen
Stigma Films, UK

Good Day’s Work (Feature Film)
Director: Martin Turk
Producer: Ida Weiss
Bela Film, Slovenia

In Search Of A Lost Country (Documentary)
Director: Marija Ratkovic Vidakovic
Producers: Barbara Jukopila, Marija Ratkovic Vidakovic
Croatian Film Association, Croatia

La Vita Nuova (Feature Film)
Director: Carlo Zoratti
Producers: Laura Cattaneo, Marina Rosso
Alpis, Italy

Mariposa (Feature Film)
Director: Maria Saakyan
Producer: Jeff Kalousdian
20 Years Later, Armenia

Missing Persona (Documentary)
Director: Anne Henderson
Producer: Katarina Soukup
Catbird Productions, Canada

Nanook (Feature Film)
Director: Milko Lazarov
Producer: Veselka Kiryakova
Red Carpet, Bulgaria

Nico, 1988 (Feature Film)
Director: Susanna Nicchiarelli
Producers: Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa
Vivo Film, Italy

People From Nowhere (Documentary)
Director: Jaak Kilmi
Producer: Antra Gaile
Mistrus Media, Latvia

Persons Unknown (Documentary)
Director: Havana Marking
Producers: Mike Lerner, Aleksandra Bilic
Roast Beef Productions, UK

Sarajevo Calling (Feature Film)
Producers: Cormac Fox, Marcos Kantis
Vico Films, Ireland

Stitches (Feature Film)
Director: Miroslav Terzic
Producers: Uliks Fehmiu, Milena Garfield
West End Productions, Serbia

The Incident Report (Feature Film)
Director: Naomi Jaye
Producer: Naomi Jaye
Tremendous Productions, Canada

The Italian Chapel (Feature Film)
Director: Emily Young
Producer: Andrew Bendel
Blue Horizon Productions, UK

The Manakia Brothers (Documentary)
Director: Eliza Zdru
Producers: Alexandru Teodorescu, Raluca Manescu
Saga Film, Romania

The Oldest Man Alive (Feature Film)
Director: Antonio Tibaldi
Producers: Katie Mustard, Francesco Bonsembiante
Mustard & Co, Usa – Jolefilm, Italy

The Whale (Feature Film)
Director: Andrea Pallaoro
Producer: Andrea Stucovitz
Partner Media Investment, Italy

Wrong Planet (Documentary)
Director: Beryl Richards
Producer: Hilary Durman
Redbird, UK

(Translated from Italian)