Fourteen projects will be pitched to potential production partners during this year's two-day Connecting Cottbus co-development forum between November 4-5.

They include new feature films from: Slovenia's Emotionfilm, producer of Damjan Kozole Spare Parts; the Czech Republic's Negativ, producer of Petr Zelenka's Year Of The Dog; and Slovakia's ALEF Film&Media Group, producer of Cruel Joys by Juraj Nvota.

Emotionfilm will be pitching Kozole's new project, The Dark Side Of Earth. ALEF will present Nvota's latest, Music, while Negativ has a new feature by Zelenka called Tales Of Common Insanity.

German Avista Film, which produced Hans Stein Bichler's Hierankl, will present Dagmar Knoepfel's Du Meine Pappel Im Roten Kopftuch

The first day will spotlight the European Union accession countries with keynotes on their respective film and television industries by such speakers as Tanjika Sajatovic of the Slovenian Film Fund, Czech producer Pavel Strnad, and the German public film funders Klaus Keil (Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg) and Manfred Schmidt (MDM).

It will then follow with the public pitching of projects by German and East European producers moderated by Juergen Fabritius of the 3Rosen agency and Jana Czernik of the Czech Film Centre.

On November 5, in line with the FilmFestival Cottbus' overall Russian focus this year, discussions with Maria Zvereva, president of the Association of Russian Filmmakers, Sergei W. Lasaruk of the Ministry of Culture, Samuel Klebanov of Pan Terra and Elena Yatsura of Non Stop Productions will centre on the film landscape in Russia.

Proceedings will then be rounded off with a pitching session moderated by the Berlinale's Nikolai Nikitin and Elena Yatsura presenting projects from the CIS states and those seeking a partner in the CIS states.