22 projects selected for Moscow Co-Production Forum

New features by Saodat Ismailova, Pekka Lehto and Ruslan Pak among 22 projects which have been selected for the second Moscow Co-Production Forum (18-20 June) as part of this year’s Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) Business Square.

Seven projects have been selected from the Forum’s partner markets - the Hong Kong Film Financing Forum (HAF), Brazil’s Rio Market, India’s Filmbazaar, China’s Co-Production Film Pitch and Catch, Germany’s Connecting Cottbus, Korea’s Pusan Promotion Plan, and Bulgaria’s Sofia Meetings.

They include Uzbek director Ismailova’s 40 Days Of Silence, which has also been selected for Locarno’s Open Doors platform this coming August, and Ruslan Pak’s Hanaan about two Koreans in Uzbekistan looking for their family’s buried treasure.

Meanwhile, Italian director Gabriele Iacovone has his project Final Call, produced by Laurence Kaufmann with China’s Oriental Picture Film Co. Ltd. and France’s IDM in the Forum’s official selection of another six titles, which includes Russian filmmaker Fedor Popov’s Not A Simple Story.

The 2010 edition of the Co-Production Forum also sees the launch of a collaboration with Ballinn’s Baltic Event co-production market of its Baltic Event for East programme for promoting co-productions between Russia, Scandinavia and the Baltic states.

The projects selected in this rubric include Finnish director Pekka Lehto’s feature Ordinary Capitalist, produced with Legein Oy (Finland), Trite (Russia), and the Dovzhenko Studio (Ukraine) as well as the Latvian project Siberian Triangle by Boris Frumin, and Peter Lindholm’s fantasy The White Reindeer, produced by Finland’s First Floor Productions.

In addition, five projects have been selected in cooperation with the MEDIA Programme’s producers’ training initiative EAVE - such as German filmmaker Benjamin Quabeck’s Russian-based project Last November - to be pitched to potential financiers and co-producers.
The Co-Production Forum will be complemented by the BRIC Film Finance Forum examining the markets in Brazil, Russia, India, and China and co-production opportunities as well as roundtables on financing films between Russia and Western Europe.

International guests set to participates in the discussion events and one-to-one meetings include the German film funders Kirsten Niehuus (Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg) and Manfred Schmidt (MDM), Alexander Donev of Bulgaria’s National Film Centre, producers Dan Burlac (Sagafilms), Karsten Stöter (Rohfilm), Skady Lis (Getaway Pictures), Ilkka Matila (MRP Matila Röhr Productions), Jennifer Pipolo (Monsoon Films), sales agent Laurent Danielou (Rezo Films), Gunner Carlsson (Swedish Television SVT), and organizers of co-production gatherings such as Mira Staleva (Sofia Meetings) and Sonja Heinen (Berlinale Co-Production Market).

The MIFF Business Square will open a day after this year’s Moscow International Film Festival is launched on June 17 with Claude Lelouch’s Ces Amours La.

French director Luc Besson will head the international jury including The White Ribbon co-producer Veit Heiduschka and Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas, who will decide the winners from the 15 titles selected from the Official Competition.

The films include the world premiere of Johannes Naber’s Der Albaner, Ventura Pons’ A La Deriva, Matti Geschonneck’s Boxhagener Platz, and Russian director Yuri Shiller’s new feature Vorobey.

Moreover, the Perspectives competition lineup of eight titles features the international premiere of RP Kahl’s erotic drama Bedways, Borys Lankosz’s black comedy Reverse, Ken McMullen’s Organisation Of Dreams, and Buried Land by US filmmakers Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood.

Moscow’s 32nd edition will close on 26 June with the screening of Besson’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec.