04/12/2009

The two-day Baltic Event (BE) co-production market in Tallinn closed on Tuesday with an awards ceremony. The Romanian film Adalbert’s Dream by Gabriel Achim, produced by Libra Film, won the Best Project Award.

Achim’s directorial debut is a black comedy based on a real story that took place in a factory in communist Romania in the 80s. A work accident is re-enacted on camera, but the re-enacting becomes a new accident. The film’s producer Tudor Giurgiu (Katalin Varga [+see also:
film review
trailer
Interview Peter Strickland - Director …
film profile]) was awarded €3,000. The second Baltic Event award for Best Pitch went to Finland’s Rat King by Petri Kotwica (Black Ice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kai Nordberg
interview: Petri Kotwica
film profile]) produced by Making Movies.

Two other projects won free accreditations at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival: Aral from Uzbekistan, directed by Ella Vakkasova and produced by Gavin Humphries (Quark Films), and European Psycho by the Estonian Kadri Kõusaar, produced by Aet Laigu.

Professionally run by producer Riina Sildos, the Baltic Event proved another very useful meeting place for the 180 European film participants–essentially from the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. Sildos was delighted to receive 50 submissions for the co-production market, a proof of the growing popularity of the event. “We do take risks by selecting many first-time directors, but we also had established filmmakers like Lithuania’s Sharunas Bartas (Fling a Stone, David!) and Finland’s Kotwica,” she said. “

The numerous screening venues at the Coca Cola Plaza multiplex, the new Artis and Cinamon cinemas and the video library were easily accessible to attendees at the new Black Market Industry Screenings, the BE co-production market and the parallel Black Nights Film Festival.

2010 is bound to be an exceptional year for the BE co-production market set to take place December 1-3, just one day before the European Film Academy (EFA) awards ceremony in Tallinn.