East of the West Works in Progress pitched

07/07/2008

Producers presented 26 projects Sunday at the East of the West Works in Progress panel at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

Press and industry guests listened to pitches and saw footage from projects from 11 Central and Eastern European countries.

Polish producers, empowered by the Polish Film Institute's annual production budget of 61.8m-72.6m zloty, presented six projects, including Waldemar Kryzstek's drama Little Moscow about a Russian military family stationed in Poland during the period leading up to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

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Czech producers presented seven films, including the Czech/Slovak/Ukraine co-production English Strawberries, which also portrays the Warsaw Pact invasion through the experience of two young men – one Russian and one Czech – who want to escape to the West. The €2m film will be released November 13.

Croatian Films sales agent Antonia D. Carnerud presented Arsen Anton Ostojic's completed film No One's Son, about a disillusioned war veteran who lost both legs in the recent Croatian Homeland War who discovers a dark family secret.

New Cinema Distribution's Natalya Lokunina presented the €6m Russian drama Ice: The Ugra Khanty Saga, about the uprising of the indigenous Khanty people of western Siberia against the Soviets in the 1930s. Lokunina screened English-dubbed footage featuring epic battle scenes. The film is looking for a world sales agent.

Genta Film introduced Broken Promise, a SKK 50m WWII drama now in post-production. Adapted from a story by Martin Friedmann-Petras, the film stars Ondrej Vetchy as the head of a family of Slovak Jews struggling under Jozef Tiso's Nazi-puppet regime in Slovakia.

East of the West Works in Progress 2008 (complete list of titles and directors)

0_1_0 (Poland) – Piotr Lazarkiewicz

35 mm (Lithuania) – Saulius Drunga
www.tremora.com/films_35mm.html

Alois Nebel (Czech Republic) – Tomas Lunak
www.negativ.cz/en/films/alois-nebel

English Strawberries (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Ukraine) – Vladimir Drha
www.anglickejahody.cz

Splinters (Poland) – Maciej Pieprzyca

The Hollow (Lithuania) – Gytis Luksas

Guard No. 47 (Czech Republic) – Filip Renc

How To Live? (Poland) – Szymon Jakubowski

Who's Afraid of the Wolf? (Czech Republic) – Maria Prochazkova

Flowers of Sakura (Slovakia) – Ivan Vojnar
www.kvetysakury.sk

Ice: The Ugra Khanty Saga (Russia) – Oleg Fesenko