Next year's Berlinale (February 5-15 2004) is to launch a co-production market associated with its second Berlinale Talent Campus.

Speaking exclusively to Screendaily, Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick explained that "we won't attach any conditions to the projects pitched by the young talents whereas certain criteria will have to be fulfilled for larger projects coming from producers outside of the Campus. A bigger production has different requirements to those for someone who is just beginning and needs to learn about co-production and producing internationally and get useful advice."

The new venture will be organised by Sonja Moerkens, who is currently a producer at Cologne-based Gemini Film and had previously coordinated co-production gatherings during the annual Media Forum NRW when Kosslick was still executive director of Filmstiftung NRW.

Kosslick stressed that the co-production event would not be construed as competition to Rotterdam's CineMart which is held just a week before the Berlinale.

"We collaborate [with CineMart] and perhaps it'll work out better", Kosslick explained, pointing out that last year's Rotterdam-Berlinale Express initiative, when a select number of CineMart projects had also been pitched to potential financiers in Berlin, had not been as successful as hoped.

"But this market will be more structured", Kosslick said. "We also have to prepare ourselves for 2005 because it may be that the [European Film] Market will be bigger with the new locations in the Ritz Carlton and Marriott."

Meanwhile, Berlinale Talent Campus project manager Christine Dorn revealed that next year's event will run over six days from February 7-12 - one more than this year - and have a daily focus on music and sound design in addition to the other range of subjects.

"We will start on the Saturday as an orientation day to introduce the programme to the participants", Dorn said. "The call for applications will be launched in mid-July and the deadline for entries will be October 11."