12th annual Berlinale Co-Production Market: 36 new feature film projects from 28 countries will be presented

BERLIN, 12-1-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — At the 12th annual Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 8 – 10, 2015), 36 new feature film projects from 28 countries will be presented. In addition, five renowned international production companies will be introduced as part of the exclusive “Company Matching” programme.

In Berlin, these producers will get to know interested potential partners from the participants’ pool of 500 producers and financiers from around the world in previously arranged individual meetings.

From a total of 331 submissions in total, 20 new feature film projects from all over the globe were added to the official project selection. The projects are all being developed by internationally experienced producers and have secured at least 30 percent of their budgets. The projects have budgets between one and 6.5 million euros.

A new addition to the programme is the “Berlinale Directors” section, with three highly promising projects by directors whose previous films were Berlinale programme selections in past years.

The festival’s goal with this section is to provide Berlinale filmmakers working on exciting new projects with support in finding production partners. Although these projects do not yet fulfil the Berlinale Co-Production Market‘s financing criteria, they have strong and clearly recognisable potential.

In cooperation with the CineMart Rotterdam, three further projects were selected for the “Rotterdam-Berlinale Express”. These projects will participate at both the CineMart and the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

At the “Talent Project Market”, a section organised in cooperation with Berlinale Talents, ten newcomers to producing and directing will get a taste of the international market. Their projects were selected from a total of 245 submissions and offer participants an opportunity for new discoveries.

The selected projects’ directors include some who have already attended the Berlinale in previous years. In the “Berlinale Directors” section, these are Avinash Arun from India, who won the Crystal Bear (Kplus) in 2014 for Killa (The Fort), Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross, whose Georgian-German-French debut In Bloom began its highly successful festival run at the Berlinale, and Ádám Császi from Hungary, whose film Land of Storms attracted much attention in last year’s Panorama section.

Ritesh Batra, whose international box-office hit The Lunchbox was presented at the 2012 “Talent Project Market”, is also returning this year with a new project – this time in the official selection – along with Marcela Said from Chile, whose documentary El mocito screened in Forum, and whose first feature film The Summer of Flying Fish was successfully matched with partners at the 2012 Co-Production Market.

The “Rotterdam-Berlinale Express” includes new projects by Benjamin Naishtat, whose film History of Fear screened in last year’s Competition, and by the Ukrainian director of The Tribe, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, who has also had two short films screened at the Berlinale.

Which earlier Berlinale Co-Production Market projects will have made it into this year’s festival programme is yet to be revealed. Of all the projects that have passed the Co-Production Market team’s “market viability check” in form and content and then met co-producers, sales agents, TV representatives, distributors, fund representatives and financiers at the Co-Production Market, over 190 have been realised.

The production companies participating in the “Company Matching” programme, and additionally available for individual meeting requests by other participants, hail from Ireland, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and South Africa. The focus of these meetings is not on individual, concrete projects, but on paving the way for possible short-term or long-term cooperations through in-depth exchanges on the structural level, or based on project slates by the five selected companies.

The main partners of the Berlinale Co-Production Market are the MDM – Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and Creative Europe – MEDIA.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market is part of the European Film Market.

Once again, the Berlin House of Representatives – directly across from the European Film Market at Martin-Gropius-Bau – will serve as a cooperation partner and the main venue.

Official Berlinale Co-Production Market 2015 project selection (in alphabetical order of production company):
– Killing Jesus (D: Laura Mora), 64-A Films, Colombia & Motivo Films, USA
– NY Gypsy (D: Ivaylo Markov), Agitprop, Bulgaria
– Swoon (D: Måns Mårlind & Björn Stein), Atmo, Sweden
– Animal Race (D: Ernesto Solis), Bananeira Filmes, Brazil
– Ugur (D: Ozan Açiktan), Bir Film, Turkey
– The Black People (D: Jorge Pérez Solano), Chacal Filmes & Tirisia Film, Mexico
– Samouni Road (D: Stefano Savona), Dugong, Italy & Picofilms, France
– Like a Virgin (D: Catherine Shepherd), Fly Film, UK
– All the Pretty Little Horses (D: Michalis Konstantatos), Horsefly Productions, Greece & Endorphine Production, Germany
– Los Perros (D: Marcela Said), Jirafa, Chile & Cinema Defacto, France
– Civil Disobedience (D: Alejandro Fadel), La Unión de los Ríos, Argentina
– The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King (D: Mikkel Sandemose), Maipo Film, Norway
– The Hero (D: Antoinette Beumer), Millstreet Films, Netherlands
– Live from Jerusalem (D: Oded Davidoff), MoviePlus Productions, Israel
– Photograph (D: Ritesh Batra), Poetic License Motion Pictures, India
– Trade (D: David Roddham), Roads Entertainment, Ireland
– 3 Days in Quiberon (D: Emily Atef), Rohfilm, Germany
– Damned Kids (D: Gonzalo Justiniano), Sahara Films Producciones, Chile
– My Name is Lenny (D: Eva Sorhaug), Salon Pictures, UK
– In Front of Others (D: Oskar Jonasson), Truenorth, Iceland

“Berlinale Directors” Projects:
– High Dive (D: Ádám Császi), Focus-Fox Studio, Hungary
– Sway with Me (D: Avinash Arun), Jar Pictures, India
– My Happy Family (D: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Gross), Polare Film, Georgia

“Rotterdam-Berlinale Express”:
– The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea (D: Syllas Tzoumerkas), Homemade Films, Greece
– Rojo (D: Benjamin Naishtat), Pucará Cine, Argentina
– Luxembourg (D: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy), Tandem Production, Germany & Garmata Films, Ukraine

“Talent Project Market” (in alphabetical order of talent):
– The Secret Ingredient, producer Emilija Chochkova , Macedonia
– One Thousand, producer Guillaume De La Boulaye, France
– Sam and the Angel, producer Galen Fletcher, Canada
– Biencuidao, producer Gema Juarez Allen, Argentina and director Abner Benaim, Panama
– Passed by Censor, director Serhat Karaaslan, Turkey
– Sons of Sunday, director Rami Kodeih, Libanon
– Until the Way, director Davi Pretto, Brazil
– Wonder Child, director Ingvild Søderlind, Norway
– Pontianak, producer Bee Thiam Tan, Singapore
– Pomegranate Soup, producer Charlotte Walls, UK

Company Matching (in alphabetical oder of company):
– Dv8 Films, South Africa
– Dynamo, Colombia
– Element Pictures, Ireland
– Tarantula Luxembourg, Luxembourg
– Topkapi Films, The Netherlands