20/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: Ian de la Rosa’s film has received support worth €20,000, while the Eurimages Special Award was bestowed upon the Ukrainian project The Blindsight by Ruslan Batytskyi

The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award ceremony at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (© Carlos Collado Salleras)

The 20^th Berlinale Co-Production Market (18-22 February) has handed out its awards. This year, more than 1,500 individual meetings with potentially suitable partners were planned and coordinated in advance for the teams behind the 33 selected feature-film projects in attendance (see the news). In total, over 600 participants took part this year.

Spanish writer-director Ian de la Rosa received the prestigious Eurimages Co-production Development Award, valued at €20,000, for his project Iván & Hadoum, which is being produced by Avalon PC. The decision was made by a jury comprising world sales agent Marcin Łuczaj (New Europe Film Sales), producer Mariela Besuievsky (Tornasol Media) and Nino Kirtadzé, who represents Georgia at Eurimages.

This time around, an additional prize with the same endowment was donated by Eurimages to support a particularly promising Ukrainian project: the Eurimages Special Co-production Development Award. It went to Ukrainian company 2Brave Productions, headed up by producers Olha Beskhmelnytsina and Natalia Libet, for the project The Blindsight by Ruslan Batytskyi. Meanwhile, the ArteKino International Prize, valued at €6,000, went to Peeled Skin by Leonie Krippendorff, which is being produced by Kineo Filmproduktion (Germany).

The VFF Talent Highlight Award, with prize money of €10,000, which is presented annually by the VFF – Copyright Agency of Film and TV Producers, promotes one promising project from the Talent Project Market, organised by the Berlinale Co-Production Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. God and the Devil’s Cumbia, directed by Carlos Lenin, was the winner this year, and it was pitched at the Berlinale Co-Production Market by its producers Daniel Loustaunau (Colectivo Colmena, Mexico) and Paloma Petra (Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica, Mexico). Furthermore, producers Vildan Ersen (Gatalo Films) from Turkey (for the project Bekes by Mahsum Taskin) and Jaime Guerrero Naudin (Rara Cine) from Colombia (for the project Burning Kingdom by Catalina Arroyave Restrepo) each received a token prize of €1,000.

Thanks to the close collaboration between the Berlinale Co-Production Market and the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, an in-kind prize has been introduced, the World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award, which goes to a Co-Production Market project from a WCF-supported country: the aforementioned producers from Colectivo Colmena and Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica, as well as director Carlos Lenin, will thus receive extensive consultations on optimising their audience and on communication strategies for their film project God and the Devil's Cumbia.

Here is the full list of winners at the 20^th Berlinale Co-Production Market:

Eurimages Co-production Development Award
Iván & Hadoum - Ian de la Rosa
Producer: Avalon PC (Spain)

Eurimages Special Co-production Development Award
The Blindsight - Ruslan Batytskyi
Producer: 2Brave Productions (Ukraine)

ArteKino International Prize
Peeled Skin - Leonie Krippendorff
Producer: Kineo Filmproduktion (Germany)

VFF Talent Highlight Award
God and the Devil's Cumbia - Carlos Lenin
Producers: Colectivo Colmena, Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica (Mexico)

€1,000 Prize
Vildan Ersen (Gatalo Films) – producer of Bekes (Turkey)
Jaime Guerrero Naudin (Rara Cine) – producer of Burning Kingdom (Colombia)

World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award
God and the Devil's Cumbia - Carlos Lenin