Four Brothers, a Belgian-German co-production directed by Pieter-Jan De Pue and produced by Vincent Metzinger, about four Eastern Ukrainian brothers who chose to fight on opposite sides of the 2014 conflict, has won the €15,000 Eurimages Co-Production Development Award for the best pitch at CPH:FORUM (25-29 March). Four Brothers, which will reveal the impacts of war on a family and on one’s search for identity, won out over 24 other projects that were in contention for the top prize.

This year’s jury, consisting of Eurimages representative Tamara Tatishvili, head of Acquisitions at Films Boutique Gabor Greiner and producer and founder of Momento Film David Herdies, revealed their motivation for choosing Four Brothers: “The award goes to a project that impressed us with its integrity and powerful cinematic language, and its strong creative team with a proven track record. This project provides a contemporary take on the impact and harshness of belonging and isolation within a family immersed in a time of war.”

CPH:FORUM is CPH:DOX’s financing and co-production event dedicated to facilitating the development and financing of creative and visually powerful film projects with international potential, whether they are features, series or new-media projects.

They are presented within five main categories: FICTIONONFICTION (challenging works in the hybrid landscape between fiction and non-fiction), CINEMA (high-end theatrical feature-length documentaries with international distribution potential), F:ACT (projects bridging the gap between the fields of filmmaking, investigative journalism and activism), ART (film projects positioned in the borderland between art and film, and screened within both the institution of cinema and that of visual arts) and SCIENCE (creative documentary film and new-media projects on science and technology).

After each pitch, a panel of four leading industry experts spoke about their reactions to the presentation they had just seen. The pitches ranged from projects in development looking for early financing to those looking for post-production and distribution partners. Climate change, algorithms and globalisation featured heavily in many of the project pitches. 

The pitches included several high-profile European projects. These included Architecton, a German-Italian-US co-production to be directed by Victor Kossakovsky, which uses buildings to look at globalisation; Omar Sharif 1932-2015, a Swedish-Egyptian co-production directed by Axel Petersén, whose most recent film debuted in competition at the Berlinale; Solutions [+leggi anche:
intervista: Pernille Rose Grønkjær
scheda film] by Dane Pernille Rose Grønkjær, about a group of scientists who lock themselves away to find ways in which science can help humanity survive; and The Lost Leonardo [+leggi anche:
trailer
intervista: Andreas Koefoed
scheda film], a Danish-French-Swedish co-production by Andreas Koefoed, pitched as either a film or a TV series about the world’s most expensive painting.