13/10/2011

When the 7th CentEast Market at the Warsaw International Film Festival opens tomorrow (Friday, October 14) with 11 selected projects, the 180 participants will not discuss co-production deals -the films are fully financed and ready for international distribution.

"Ten of the eleven features are in post-production will be delivered in the first half of 2012," explained Market Director Magdalena Banasik, who has been in charge of the festival's industry side since 2009. "The producers are now looking for international sales agents, foreign distributors and festival exposure."

Launched 11 years ago with two local projects, the market took off three years ago, when festival director Stefan Laudyn instigated a collaboration with Russian producer Yevgeny Gindils, of TVIndie, who was trying to set up a business event at Moscow's 2morrow International Film Festival.

"Until then CentEast Warwaw had mainly presented new films from Poland and its close neighbours. Now both festivals call for submissions from Eastern Europe and Russia, and decide for a joint programme which is first launched in Warsaw, then in Moscow - this year on October 22, during the festival between October 18-24."

"The two previous years 24 new film projects have been on display; all of them have been finished, and at least 10 of them have started at international life after CentEast and are still touring the festival circuit. Two are in this year's competition at Warsaw, Polish directors Greg Zglinski's Courage and Wojciech Smarzowski's Rose."

From a total of 50 submissions, Warsaw and Moscow have selected a showcase of productions, including three from Poland, four from Russia, one from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. They will be introduced tomorrow at Warsaw's Kinoteka, which also hosts the screenings of recent Polish films," Banasik concluded.

Projects include the new feature by Polish director-producer Andrzej Jakimowski (Tricks [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrzej Jakimowski
interview: Tomasz Gąssowski
film profile]), starring Alexandra Maria Lara and Edward Hogg, set up with France and Portugal; Hungarian director Szabolc Hajdu (Bibliothèque Pascal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Szabolcs Hajdu - director
interview: Szabolcs Hajdu
film profile]) has The Gambler almost ready, from Hungary's Mirage Film Studio and a US partner.

Russian director Ivan Vyrypaev, of Oxygen [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Euphoria fame, is currently editing Delhi Dance - seven short films about a famous dancer who invented a special dance, all set at the same hospital; Romania is represented by Andrei Zinca's feature debut after 1,000 hours of TV programming, Puzzle for a Blind Man.