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CineLink Industry Days Reveals Projects Selected for the Co-Production Market and Drama Strands and Announces Female Voices CineLink Award

Sarajevo Film Festival is honored to announce a new development award - Female Voices CineLink Award (€10,000 in cash) presented by the Slovenian Film Centre

Sarajevo Film Festival is honored to announce a new development award - Female Voices CineLink Award (€10,000 in cash) presented by the Slovenian Film Centre. The CineLink will present nine feature fiction and seven drama series projects in the development phase from Southeast Europe. 

The Female Voices CineLink Award is granted to one project in the development participating in CineLink Co-Production or Drama strands with an aim to support and promote female voices in the Southeast European film industry. The director of the Slovenian Film Centre, Nataša Bučar shared a motivation behind the award:

''The aim of the Female Voices CineLink Award is to encourage the creation of new stories revealing women’s previously unstated outlooks on the past and fresh approaches to the stories from the present. Everything has already been shown before. However, the strength of every new film story and film character lies in novel approaches and original perspectives.  In recent years, women authors have been enriching the global audiovisual industry more than ever, and we also wish to promote the feminine worldview in our regional audiovisual works.''

In order to cater the specific needs of each project and to prepare them for the market exposure, this year, CineLink Industry Days has developed a range of activities, starting with CineLink Workshop in June, one-on-one meetings during the Festival (August 15 –18), that will continue with online meetings in September. CineLink Team strives to improve the production value by matchmaking the projects with various decision makers in the fields of production, financing, distribution and sales, as well as offers to aid in script development through extensive sessions. Moreover, the CineLink Co-Production Market offers following cash awards: Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (€20,000), Film Center Montenegro CineLink Award (€ 10,000), Film Center Serbia CineLink Award (€ 10,000) and ARTEKino International Prize (€ 6,000), while the CineLink Drama offers two awards: Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award (€15,000) and TV Drama Vision Pitch Award - one project selected to be presented at TV Drama Vision in Göteborg.


CineLink Co-Production Market 2022 Selection:


ALL THEY KNOW ABOUT LOVE

Director: Melik Kuru

Writer: Melik Kuru

Producer: Irem Akbal

Production Company: Bal Film

Country: Turkey

A well-educated, emotionally underdeveloped translator enjoys the borderline relationship he has with his mother. Starting at a tutoring job in a francophone institution, one of his young students will be strongest obstacle and most reliable guide on this journey.


THE BOY WITH THE LIGHT-BLUE EYES

Director: Thanasis Neofotistos

Writers: Thanasis Neofotistos, Grigoris Skarakis

Producer: Ioanna Bolomyti

Production Company: Argonauts Productions S.A.

Country: Greece

On the Greek folk mountains, there is a remote superstitious village. PETER, a different teenager, lives there with his strict grandmother & his overprotective mother. Through a series of events, lies revealed, curses are unveiled and Peter will sacrifice his light-blue eyes in order to be free.


HEAR THE YELLOW

Director: Banu Sivaci

Writer: Banu Sivaci

Producer: Zeynep Koray

Production Company: ZKF

Co-production Company: La Fabrica Nocturna

Country: Turkey

Successful opera diva SUNA, who refuses male dominance at an early age, escapes from the village she was born. Decades later, she goes back and witnesses possible scenarios of her life, if she stayed.


MUM

Director: Nikola Ležaić

Writer: Nikola Ležaić

Producers: Nikola Ležaić, Siniša Juričić

Production Company: Qče

Co-production Company: Nukleus Film

Country: Serbia, Croatia

NIKOLA travels with his father to return the remains of his grandmother back to her home village in Croatia. He learns a lesson about parenthood, family, and memories that are sometimes not real.


PATRIMONIAL FEARS AND OTHER SYMPTOMS

Director: Elina Psykou

Writer: Elina Psykou

Producers: Maria Drandaki, Konstantinos Vassilaros

Production Company: Homemade Films, StudioBauhaus

Co-production Companies: Red Carpet Films

Country: Greece, Bulgaria

DINOS is the father of LAKIS and Lakis is the father of KONSTANTINOS. All three of them are chubby and scared. Will their fears disappear when David Copperfield makes the Acropolis disappear?


PETTY THIEVES

Director: Mate Ugrin

Writer: Mate Ugrin

Producers: Daria Blažević, Mate Ugrin, Karsten Krause, Frank Scheuffele, Julia Cöllen, Tiphaine Robion

Production Company: Fünferfilm (Germany)

Co-production Companies: Kadromat (Croatia), In The Cut (France)

Young loner RIO gets by with seasonal jobs and petty thefts in resorts on the Adriatic coast. His carefree everyday life is thrown off balance by ANDREA, a seasonal worker from Serbia who becomes his partner in crime. During the course of the summer, they will spend a short but intense time together, that they will never forget.


SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS

Director: Dina Duma

Writers: Dina Duma, Lidija Mojsovska

Producer: Labina Mitevska

Production Companies: Sisters and Brother Mitevski, Entre chien et Loup

Country: North Macedonia, Belgium

When a conservative tradition of bridal sale becomes a solution for a financial family problem, ADELA dives into a completely new world where she gets caught between traditional and modern values.


WE ALL DIE NAKED

Directors:  Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci

Writers: Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci

Producer: Enea Gramo

Production Company: Art Film sh.p.k

Country: Albania

A recovering Albanian alcoholic and a drunken, dying Italian drive across the Balkans searching for the perfect place to die. 


YUGOSLAVA

Director: Ivan Bakrač

Writer: Ivan Bakrač

Producers: Ivan Bakrač, Nikolina Vučetić – Zečević, Guillaume de Seille

Production Company: Quadrifolium Films (Montenegro)

Co-production Companies: Biberche Productions (Serbia), Arizona Films (France)

On her 55th birthday, in order to overcome complete loneliness, YUGOSLAVA uses a vacation in searching for a new apartment. However, that quest will change her life in different way than she imagined. 


CineLink Drama 2022:


BROTHERS

Creator: Simon Farmakas

Writer: Simon Farmakas

Producers: Alexandra Hoesdorff, Désirée Nosbusch, Fenia Cossovitsa, 

Production Company: Deal Productions

Co-production Company: BLONDE s.a.

Country: Greece, Cyprus, Luxembourg

When the son of a German politician is found dead inside no man’s land dividing Nicosia, opposing detectives, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot are forced to work together to investigate the crime.


BY LAW

Creator: Hari Šečić

Writer: Hari Šečić

Producer: Hari Šečić

Production Company: Association Spektar

Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina

By Law is a police drama series set in modern-day Bosnia. It tells the story of young detective who is solving crimes, realizing that the main problem of the society is corrupted system that he fights.


GLORIA

Creator: Balázs Zachar, Marcsi Tóth

Director: Fanni Szilágyi

Producer: Balázs Zachar

Production Company: Proton Cinema

Country: Hungary

A young nun has to start a new life in the secular world and faces the awakening woman in herself. 


HELA AFTER ALL

Creators:  Saša Podgorelec

Writers: Jelena Paljan, Antonio Gabelić

Producers: Aleksandar Janković, Vojislava Janković

Production Company: United media production

Country: Serbia, Croatia

As Croatia's football team paves its way towards the 2018 World Cup finals, the police investigation of the powerful priest's intriguing death devastates the young girl's life. 


NIGHTTIME

Creators: Nikola Ljuca, Milan Marić

Writer: Staša Bajac, Nikola Ljuca

Producer: Milan Marić

Production Company: Mechanism

Country: Serbia

Horror is other people.


RUMPUS

Creator: Dubravka Turić, Danijel Žeželj

Writer: Dubravka Turić

Producer: Ankica Jurić Tilić

Production Company: Kinorama

Country: Croatia

Investigating the murder of a teenager, the female detective discovers the dark secret of a small industrial town and sinks into the swamp of the evil spirit Rumpus. 


THE TURKISH AMBASSADOR

Creator: Darko Lungulov

Producer: Darko Lungulov

Production Company: Papa Films

Country: Serbia

A brave Yugoslav man gets killed while trying to stop the assassins of the Turkish ambassador. A controversial Yugoslav lawyer defends assassins blaming the police for accidentally killing the man.
 

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