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The 30th anniversary edition of the German festival ran online.

Russian filmmaker Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s Conference won the main prize for best film at Germany’s FilmFestival Cottbus on Sunday December 13.

It is the story that incorporates the tragedy of the Dubrovka Theatre attack in Moscow in 2002 with the fate of one woman and her family. The film, which is handled internationally by Reason8 Films, had been pitched at project stage at the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus during the FilmFestival Cottbus in 2019. It made its world premiere earlier this year at Venice’s Giornate degli Autori.

It is...

Piotr Domalewski's drama I Never Cry and Ivan Ikić's Oasis were also noticed during the 30th-anniversary edition of the German festival, this year unspooling online. Prizes worth €72,000 were handed out at the 30th edition of the FilmFestival Cottbus on 12 December during an awards ceremony broadcast online, with Ivan I Tverdovskiy's Conference named Best Film. Interestingly enough, it marked the third victory for the Russian filmmaker after Corrections Class and Zoology. “It serves as proof of the successful work of our co-production market, the international standing of both events and, last but not least, the excellent interaction between the market and the festival,” observed CEO Andreas Stein, noting that Conference was previously pitched in its connecting cottbus industry sidebar. The jury, consisting of Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Axel Ranisch, Bodo Kox, Maria Trigo Teixeira and Yang Ge, called the film “a masterpiece composed in minute detail”, noting that its “whirlwind-like power...

The Man in the Magic Box is an indie, foregin film. Shot in Warsaw, Poland, this title completed a film festival run in 2017. Now, this sci-fi drama is set to show in the U.S., via Artsploitation Films. The Man with the Magic Box takes place in the future. When the protagonist discovers an old radio from the 1950s, he begins to remember his past life. This film will release next month. And, the film is from director Bodo Kox. Olga Boladz ("Botoks"), Piotr Polak and Sebastian Stankiewicz centrally star. A preview of the film's upcoming release is hosted here. The trailer shows some of the film's time-shifting. The main character is sometimes in 2030 Poland. Then, he is back in the 1950s. These two timelines collide as this part-time janitor, finds love in a tumultuous time. Artsploitation Films will make this film available on April 4th. On this date, The Man with the Magic Box...

¨Surprise¨ and ¨regret¨ over 50% cut to film sales support.

European sales agents are expressing ¨surprise¨ and ¨regret¨ at Creative Europe Media’s decision to cut support for European Film Promotion’s (Efp) Film Sales Support (Fss) fund by 50% for 2018/19.

Until now, Fss had covered 50% of classical marketing measures up to a maximum of €5,000 for a sales company’s promotional campaign, including at Sundance, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Toronto, Hong Kong’s Filmart, the Asian Film Market in Busan or the American Film Market (Afm) in La.

Sales companies who wish to apply for Fss support must become contractual co-beneficiaries, and have...

¨Surprise¨ and ¨regret¨ over 50% cut to film sales support.

European sales agents are expressing ¨surprise¨ and ¨regret¨ at Creative Europe Media’s decision to cut support for European Film Promotion’s (Efp) Film Sales Support (Fss) fund by 50% for 2018/19.

Until now, Fss had covered 50% of classical marketing measures up to a maximum of €5,000 for a sales company’s promotional campaign, including at Sundance, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Toronto, Hong Kong’s Filmart, the Asian Film Market in Busan or the American Film Market (Afm) in La.

Sales companies who wish to apply for Fss support must become contractual co-beneficiaries, and have...

In addition to hosting the Melies d'Or awards for the European Federation Of Fantastic Film Festivals this year, the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival have just held one very fine festival all their own and with things wrapped up they have announced their full slate of awards. And the hardware went to: The Man With The Magic Box by Bodo Kox is the winner of the Asteroide prize (assigned to the best feature film of the Trieste Science+Fiction Festival). The international jury, formed by Stefano Disegni, Chris Oosterom and Milan Todorović, chose the film according to the following motivation: “with a visually striking production design, the director creates a universe reminiscent of Orwell and Kafka, with echoes of his country’s dark past. Thereby, he seamlessly blends styles of the past and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

New projects revealed, including thriller described as “David Lynch meets Ken Loach”.

New films by internationally feted Polish filmmakers Jan Komasa, Kuba Czekaj and Dorota Kedzierzawska were among 20 projects presented to sales agents, distributors and festival programmers at the sixth edition of the Polish Days (8-10 August) during this week’s New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw.

Komasa - who made his feature debut with Suicide Room - and his producer Leszek Bodzak of Aurum Film (The Last Family) pitched the contemporary social drama Corpus Christi which is based on screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz’s first screenplay for cinema.

The €1m project is being structured as a Polish-French co-production and will begin principal photography in spring 2018.

Bodzak also presented a second feature project, Borys Lankosz’s thriller Dark, Almost Night, which he described as “David Lynch meets Ken Loach”, to begin shooting this autumn with The Last Family’s Dawid Ogrodnik and Aleksandra Konieczna in the cast...

Polish showcase to highlight 26 movies.

Polish Days (August 8 - 10), the showcase of national films at the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival (August 3 - 13) in Wroclaw, Poland, has announced twenty-six titles this year.

Among six completed films are Andrzej Jakimowski’s Once Upon a Time in November and Maciej Sobieszczański’s The Reconciliation.

Eleven films will be presented at the pitchings event while nine films will be presented in the work-in-progress section.

Around 150 guests from Poland and abroad are expected to attend the event in Wrocław, which has been organized since 2013 in co-operation with the Polish Film Institute.

Projects presented in past years include Spoor, The Last Family, The Birds Are Singing in Kigali and All These Sleepless Nights.

New Horizons is being held two weeks later in the calendar this year to accomodate incoming sporting event The World Games, meaning the Polish festival coincides with the Locarno Film Festival for the first time.

Full list of...

Exclusive: F&Me slate includes two projects with Ida writer Rebecca Lenckiewicz; plus Streetkids United III.

UK co-production specialists Film and Music Entertainment (F&Me) have boarded films to shoot in 2017 including The Dream Girl written and directed by Maurizio Braucci, best known for writing Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra and Reality.

Braucci co-wrote the film with Ida writer Rebecca Lenckiewicz and the UK-Ireland co-production is set to shoot from September. F&Me are working with accountants Grant Thornton in Ireland to access the section 481 tax credit. Windmill Lane is on board for post-production services.

F&Me are also working with Lenkiewicz on The Disciple, to be directed by Ivan Ostrochovsky and written by Lenkiewicz, Marek Lescak and Ostrochovsky. The film looks at two friends who go to a seminary in Communist Slovakia.

Also shooting by the end of 2017 will be the documentary Streetkids United III – The Road to Moscow. As with the past two films in the...

Projects from directors Bodo Kox and Adrian Panek are also being introduced.

Projects by Agnieszka Holland [pictured], Bodo Kox and Adrian Panek are among the films being presented at this week’s Polish Days during the T Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw (July 21-31).

Holland’s dark comedy-thriller Game Count, which she bills as “No Country For Old Women¨, is one of nine titles in the Works in Progress showcase.

The $3.9m (€3.5m) co-production between Krzysztof Zanussi’s Tor Film Studio and Germany’s Heimatfilm will be distributed internationally by Beta Cinema.

Polish Days’ international audience of sales agents, distributors and festival programmers were also treated to the first footage from Kasia Adamik’s thriller Amok and Dorota Kobiela’s animated drama Loving Vincent as well as from two films which will be featured in Locarno’s First Look works in progress sidebar next week: Maciej Pieprzyca’s psychological thriller I’m A Killer (which...

Legende and Parts & Labor scripts among development projects at Mia market.

Projects from producer Alain Goldman and directors Hana Makhmalbaf and Sally Potter are among scripts being presented in Rome as part of the Mia’s New Cinema Network (Ncn) and Make It With Italy co-production strands.

In the Ncn strand, La Vie En Rose producer Goldman of Paris-based Legende is in development on English-language Us-set drama Mustang from actress and writer-director Laure de Clermont-Tonnere (Girafada), director of well-received shorts Rabbit and Atlantic Avenue.

Mustang charts the story of an inmate serving an 11-year prison sentence who is given the chance to participate in an unusual therapy programme.

Legende, currently in pre-production on buzzed-about thriller Hhhh, is also supporting Romanian drama 237 Years from first-time filmmaker Iona Mischie.

Paris-based Incognito Films is in development on English-language drama Mobile Homes while English-language fracking romance 50 Miles From Boomtown teams Swiss outfit Turnus Film with Love Is Strange producers Parts & Labor...

Ida producer Opus Film and distributors Against Gravity and Next Film were among the winners at the 8th Polish Film Institute Awards.

The awards were presented at a gala ceremony last night during the Gdynia Film Festival (Sept 14-29).

Lodz-based Opus Film and the Acme PR agency won the prize for ¨International Promotion of Polish Cinema¨ for its Oscar campaign for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida, which won Best Foreign-Language Film at the Academy Awards.

Next Film was recognised for its distribution of Jan Komasa’s Warsaw Uprising and Lukasz Palkowski’s Gods, the big winner at last year’s Gdynia Film Festival with admissions topping 2.2 million in Polish cinemas.

Against Gravity received the award for ¨Distribution of a Non-Commercial Foreign Film in Poland¨ for its release of Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Oscar-nominated Leviathan.

In addition, the 41st Film Summer in Insk beat off competition from the 5th American Film Festival in Wroclaw and the 21st Nationwide...

Bodo Kox's feature debut The Girl from the Wardrobe (Dziewczyna z szafy) may very well be the most tragicomical independent production to ever come out of Poland. It's a film that merges elements of reality and fiction in an utterly effective fashion, in order to penetrate and explore an vividly familiar, yet oddly inexplicable world where lost souls struggle to find their own sense of place.In its own quirky and ambiguously ironic manner, The Girl from the Wardrobe emphasizes that even though on the surface most of us might look happy with our lives, deep down we all long for closeness and safety that would make our existence seem worthwhile. I'm pretty certain that this may sound like a boring cliché of sorts, yet Kox's confidence and...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, has today revealed its list of 2013 winners. Check them out below and look for many more interviews from the festival here on ComingSoon.net in the days to come. Main Competition: Golden Frog winner: Ida cin. Łukasz Żal, Ryszard Lenczewski dir. Paweł Pawlikowski Silver Frog winner: Heli cin. Lorenzo Hagerman dir. Amat Escalante Bronze Frog winner: Inside Llewyn Davis cin. Bruno Delbonnel dir. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Polish Films Competition: Best Polish Film: The Girl from the Wardrobe cin. Arkadiusz Tomiak dir. Bodo Kox Student Competition Laszlo Kovacs Student Award . The Golden Tadpole: Such a Landscape cin. Zuzanna Pyda dir....

Other winners at the cinematography festival in Poland included Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity.Scroll down for full list of winners

Competition winners at Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, were revealed today as the 21st edition came to a close with a gala awards celebration at the Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The winner of the top prize - the Golden Frog - went to Polish drama Ida, directed by Paweł Pawlikowski, the latest in a string of top awards for the film.

Ida cinematographers Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski accepted the award.

The film stars newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska opposite Polish star Agata Kulesza in the story of a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a dark family secret dating back to the years of the Nazi occupation.

It marks the first Polish-language film for Warsaw-born British filmmaker Pawlikowski, best known for...

Films from Russia, Kosovo and Serbia were the main winners at this year’s FilmFestival Cottbus and its parallel East-West co-production market Connecting Cottbus.

Russian director Aleksandr Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe Away has continued its successful international festival career by picking up the Main Prize at Germany’s Cottbus festival with a cash award of €20,000.

The International Competition Jury praised Veledinsky’s “exquisite mastery of his craft and great playfulness” in its motivation.

Handled internationally by Moscow-based Ant!pode Sales & Distribution, The Geographer Drank His Globe Away was released theatrically on almost 500 screens in Russia last Thursday (Nov 7) as well as in the Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Forthcoming festival invitations include the Black Nights Festival in Tallinn and festivals in Tromsø and Göteborg.

Winning the festival’s Main Prize also gives Veledinsky and his producers the opportunity to return to Cottbus next year as part of Connecting Cottbus’ Special Pitch Award for them to...

Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo (L’écume des jours) was a surprise no-show in Cannes this year (his film debuted theatrically in France the previous month) but the stage is set for an opening gala opening ceremony for the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Among the slew of titles that were announced today, at the top of must see list we find Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England making its world premiere in the Main Competition category, a pic we thought would end up showing on the Croisette. Another item we had short-listed for a Cannes showing but will be shown in the Spa village backdrop, we have János Szasz’s The Notebook, and making it’s international debut after a stellar Tribeca debut, Lance Edmands’ Bluebird will compete against a pack that also includes hometown favorite Jan Hřebejk and his his psychological thriller Honeymoon. In the Docu...

Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England is to receive its first screening at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival as one of the 14 titles in Competition.

The psychedelic horror film, set during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century, will screen at the festival in the Czech Republic on July 4.

As previously reported, it will be the first UK film to be released simultaneously in cinemas, on DVD, free TV and VoD. This will take place on July 5.

Scroll down for full line-up

The main section of Karlovy Vary will include a further six world and seven international premieres, with new films from six returning directors – two of whom have already won Crystal Globes for Best Film at the festival in recent years.

Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze, who won at Kviff in 2005 with My Nikifor, will compete for the third time with the story of Papusza, the first Roma...