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EUROPEAN WORK IN PROGRESS COLOGNE 2019 Awards

European Work in Progress Cologne 2019 hands out its awards

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- João Paulo Miranda Maria's Memory House, Eri Mizutani's Grace and Sonia Liza Kenterman’s Tailor have received €10,000 each

European Work in Progress Cologne 2019 hands out its awards
The winners of EWIP Cologne 2019 (© Juliane Guder)

The second edition of European Work in Progress Cologne (EWIP, 14-16 October), an event aimed at creating opportunities for carefully selected arthouse projects to meet appropriate distributors, co-producers, world sales agents and festival representatives, unveiled its winners during an awards ceremony that took place on 15 October at Kunsthaus Rhenania in Cologne. Considering that many of the projects selected last year went on to be awarded at prestigious film festivals, much is to be expected of this edition’s laureates.

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“We are delighted about the high quality and the diversity of the projects presented. Additionally, it is exciting to see that EWIP has continued to enjoy enormous popularity during its second run. We obviously struck a chord with this event. We wish all of the projects the best of luck and congratulate the winners from the bottom of our hearts,” said Björn Hoffmann, chairman of the board at AG Verleih.

This year, 28 carefully selected and extremely varied projects that are either in production or in post-production were given the opportunity to be presented during a pitching session in front of industry professionals, as well as discussed in more depth during one-to-one meetings. This year’s jury comprised Lili Hinstin, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, Margrit Stärk, director of acquisitions for Feature Films at ZDF EnterprisesSabina Kodra, co-founder of the Albanian film production company ERAFILM, and Yohann Comte, sales agent and co-founder of world sales agency Charades (France).

Endowed with a voucher worth €10,000 for colour-grading services, the EWIP ARRI Media Award went to Memory House (Brazil/France), the first feature-length project by Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria (see the news). The film, produced by Paula Cosenza (Bossa Nova Filmes) and co-produced by Didar Domehri (Maneki Films), will focus on a Brazilian man who works in a milk factory in one of the country’s former Austrian colonies. Lonely and ostracised, he discovers an abandoned house, where he takes refuge and ends up losing his sanity and committing murder. “This promising first-time director shows strong visual creativity, a rich imagination and sensitivity in approaching the political situation of his country through a main character representing the major issues of minorities today,” the jury stated.

This year, documentary projects were also eligible to take part in European Work in Progress Cologne. Of the four participating doc projects, one received the EWIP K13-Studios Award, a prize consisting of a voucher worth €10,000 for sound mixing: the lucky title was Grace (Poland/Finland) by Eri Mizutani. Set in the Kawaguchiko region in Japan, the movie follows a female teacher and her group of young, virgin girls who practise chigonomai, a dance intended to keep Mount Fuji from erupting.

Furthermore, Sonia Liza Kenterman’s debut feature, Tailor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sonia Liza Kenterman
film profile
]
(Greece/Germany/Belgium), received the European Work in Progress LAVAlabs Moving Images Award, a prize endowed with €10,000 for visual effects. The project tells the story of a tailor who finds surprising ways to keep his business afloat during the economic crisis in Greece.

The EWIP Eclair Award, which comes with a voucher worth 2 x €2,000 for the subtitling of a movie in two languages, went to Prayers for the Stolen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Mexico/Germany) by Tatiana Huezo, which will be the Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker’s third feature-length project. Set in the mountains, the movie tells the story of three little girls who find out what it means to be a woman in a rural town plagued by violence.

Lastly, the European Work in Progress ZOOM Medienfabrik Award (€7,500 intended for international festival public relations) went to two projects: Philipp Yuryev’s debut feature, The Whale Hunter (Russia/Poland/Belgium), and Melanie Waelde’s coming-of-age drama Naked Animals (Germany), which is also a debut feature.

Here is the complete list of winners at European Work in Progress Cologne 2019:

EWIP ARRI Media Award
Memory House - João Paulo Miranda Maria (Brazil/France)
Producer: Paula Cosenza (Bossa Nova Filmes)
Co-producer: Didar Domehri (Maneki Films)

EWIP K13-Studios Award
Grace - Mizutani Eri (Poland/Finland)
Producer: Anna Fam (Polished Productions)
Co-producers: Finnish Television - YLE (letter of intent), Niklas Kullstrom, Hillstream Pictures (letter of intent)

EWIP Eclair Award
Prayers for the Stolen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Tatiana Huezo (Mexico/Germany)
Producers: Nicolás Celis, Jim Stark (Pimienta Films)
Co-producers: Michael Weber, Viola Fügen (Match Factory Productions)

EWIP LAVAlabs Moving Images Award
Tailor - Sonia Liza Kenterman (Greece/Germany/Belgium)
Producer: Ioanna Bolomyti (Argonauts Productions)
Co-producers: Tanja Georgieva (Elemag Pictures), Melanie Andernach (Made in Germany), Isabelle Truc (IOTA Production)

EWIP: ZOOM Medienfabrik Award
Naked Animals [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Melanie Waelde (Germany)
Producer: Anja Wedell (Czar Film GmbH)
Executive producers: Thorne Mutert, Jan Fincke

The Whale Hunter - Philipp Yuryev (Russia/Poland/Belgium)
Producers: Alexey Uchitel, Kira Saksaganskaya (Rock Films)
Co-producers: Marion Hansel (Man’s Films Productions), Radoslawa Bardes (Orka Studio Produkcyjne)

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