For the 19th time, the eastern German city of Cottbus will welcome the Cottbus Film Festival’s industry section, the connecting cottbus East-West co-production market, aka coco, on 9-10 November.

Wednesday 8 November is a day of preparation, including pitch debriefings, two lectures (on serial financing and serial development), a Polish-German round-table and various get-togethers.

Over the next two days, under the direction of Rebekka Garrido (read last year’s interview), the East and Central Europe-orientated industry event will then present its now well-established pitching section, coco Pitch, for which ten feature-film projects have been selected from among over 125 submissions from 32 countries: Block62 by Vanja Vascarac, produced by Danijel Pek and Stjepan Hundic for Antitalent (Croatia); Cat in the Wall [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
scheda film] by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, produced by Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova and Lambros Atteshlis for Activists 38 (Bulgaria) and Glasshead (UK); I Hate Berlin by Valentin Hotea, produced by Ada Solomon and Diana Paroiu for Hi Film Productions (Romania); Images of Love by Tomasz Winski, produced by Radovan Síbrt for Pink Productions (Czech Republic); Leave No Traces by Jan P Matuszyński, produced by Leszek Bodzak for Aurum Film (Poland, winner of the 2016 Special Pitch Award); Night Tide byIsmail Safarali, produced by Maria Ibrahimova, Alexander Rodnyansky and Sergey Melkumov for Non-Stop Production (Russia) and Cinex Productions (Azerbaijan); Sorry, Poland by Kuba Czekaj, produced by Gosia Sandecka, Olga Szymanska and Zuza Hencz for Magnet Man Film (Poland); The Floor Is Lava by Katerina Gornostai, produced by Vitaliy Sheremetiev, Nataliya Libet, Gennadiy Kofman, Olga Beskhmelnitsyna and Victoria Khomenko for ESSE Production House and MaGiKa Film (Ukraine); The Russian Doctor by Vano Burduli, produced by Pavel Odynin, Studio 29+7 and Paradox Films (Georgia/Russia); and When I’m Done Dying by Nisan Dag, produced by Muge Ozen for Solis Film (Turkey). Out of competition, coco will present the winner of the coco Award at the Transilvania IFF: The Island by Dumitru Grosei, produced by Valentina Iusuphodjaev for Brio Film Production (Moldova).

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The ten projects in competition are vying for various prizes, including the €1,500 coco Best Pitch Award, which comes with a Cannes Producers Network invitation for the producer, the €25,000 coco Post Pitch Award, an in-kind post-production prize, and the MIDPOINT Scholarship Award.

Besides launching coco WIP (read the article), the event is introducing another novelty: four projects have been selected to take part in MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2017 to pitch under the Midpoint Selection banner. These projects are Inventory [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Darko Sinko
scheda film] by Darko Sinko, produced by Vlado Bulajic (Slovenia); MNKBOY by Mete Gümürhan, produced by Bas Broertjes (Netherlands/Turkey); Waterwolf by Ann-Julie Vervaeke, produced by Anastassia Oudovitchenko (Belgium); and Zana [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Antoneta Kastrati
scheda film] by Antoneta Kastrati, produced by Casey Johnson (Kosovo).

connecting cottbus will also present a variety of networking events and presentations, including Focus Serbia, organised in conjunction with Film Center Serbia in order to present Serbian co-production possibilities as well as projects and case studies. A new networking initiative, the coco Female Producers Roundtable, will be inviting leading as well as up-and-coming female producers to a think tank so as to devise and develop new collaborative strategies that can benefit the industry and improve gender diversity.

connecting cottbus is supported by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Creative Europe/MEDIA and MDM Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung. More information about connecting cottbus can be found online here or on Facebook.