New Czech feature projects dominate this year's ConnectingCottbus East-West co-development market which will be held during theFilmFestival Cottbus - Festival of East European Cinema (Nov 2-6) from November4-5.

Five of the 13 projects selected from nine countries for themarket will be pitched by Czech production houses, including Bionaut Films (TheCarp), Endorfilm (U-Bahn) and Verbascum (The Reflection of theBethlehem Star) - which is appropriategiven that the main film festival programme is dedicating its annual Focus toNew Czech Cinema this year.

Other projects selected for pitching to producers,distributors, commissioning editors, funders and financiers invited from Eastand West Europe include the German-Polish feature Oswiecim, which is being developed by filmmaker HansChristian Schmid's 23/5 Filmproduktion, Film House Bas Celik's TheTrap (Serbia and Montenegro), Milkov &Co Ltd.'s Solstice (Bulgaria) andLibra Film's Love Sick (Romania).

The two-day event will also include two industry panels - onthe attractiveness of East-West co-productions for international sales agentsand a case study of Bohdan Slama's second feature Something Like Happiness which was structured as a Czech-German co-productionbetween Negativ Film and Karl "Baumi" Baumgartner's Pallas Film afterits pitch at Connecting Cottbus two years ago.