The 35th Belgrade International Film Festival FEST (Feb 23-Mar 4) will open with Berlinale Forum entry The Trap (Klopka) by Serbian Srdan Golubovic.

The festival will present 80 of the most successful films from other festivals around the world over the past year, including Babel and Marie Antoinette, and for the first time the Europe Out Of Europe sidebar will be competitive, as a part of the B2B (Business to Belgrade) industry meeting.

B2B focuses on production, authors and films with European origin, or those from countries outside Europe with strong European influence and heritage - such as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Israel, Moldova, Serbia, Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

During the weekend of Mar 2-4, B2B will gather directors, producers, financiers, exhibitors, distributors, representatives of ministries of culture and film centres, together with representatives of film funds and production companies from Western Europe with a view to facilitating production possibilities in the European and Eastern European markets.

Last year, at the first edition of B2B, projects were pitched from nine countries (Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan). Two of the best projects (Alive by Artan Minarolli, Albania, and Comrade Bunker by Milutin Petrovic, Serbia) were awarded $13,100 (Euros 10,000) each. This year, 12 projects from 20 countries will be presented during the pitching session, in three sections: East-European, Euro-Asian and Balkan countries. Awards of $9,200 (Euros 7,000) will be given to the best project of each section. The jury consists of UK-based director Pawel Pawlikowski, German producer Meinholf Zurhorst and Serbian critic Dubravka Lakic.

Films competing in the Europe Out Of Europe section are:

To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die (France/Germany/Russia), dir: Djamshed Usmonov;

Hamlet (Serbia), dir: Aleksandar Rajkovic

Free Floating (Russia), dir: Boris Khlebnikov

Two (Serbia), dir: Purisa Djordjevic

The Bubble (Israel), dir: Eytan Fox

Heavenly Birds (Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan), dir: Talgat Asyrankulov, Gaziz Nasyrov

Armin (Croatia), dir: Ognjen Svilicic

Kader (Turkey), dir: Zeki Demirkubuz

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