MIDPOINT’s training programme for emerging film professionals working on their debut or sophomore features, Feature Launch 2017, has welcomed nine promising projects handpicked from among 75 submissions (a number that has grown threefold, boosted by MIDPOINT’s active scouting efforts) from 35 countries. The selected participants will take part in an intensive script and project development programme, including two residential workshops along with online consultations, followed by pitching and training awards.

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This year’s line-up includes the Macedonian project 19, written and directed by Kosara Mitic, about an event that changes the destinies of two women; a Swiss-Moldovan project written and directed by Grigore Becket, Alive in Moscow, revolving around a Moldovan medicine student working illegally at a Moscow morgue; the Swedish project Asunden, produced by Eliza Jones, centring on an island community torn apart over limestone mining in the Asunden forest; Kenya’s Hawa Hawaii by Amirah Tajdin, about a Muslim drag queen patching up his relationship with his mother; the Slovenian project Inventory, produced by Vlado Bulajic, featuring a protagonist who finds out that his perception of life is merely an illusion; the Dutch-Turkish coming-of-age project with a superhero motif Mnk Boy, written by Sibel Altinbas and set to be directed by Mete Gümürhan; the Czech project Night of the Whale by Prague-based Iranian director Kaveh Daneshmand (read the report); the Belgian female-centric coming-of-age project Waterwolf by Ann-Julie Vervaeke, on the topic of a girl-to-woman transformation; and the Kosovar dark psychological drama Zana, produced by Casey Johnson, about “the collision of modern-day faith healers and the post-war trauma of survivors in Kosovo”.

The projects will vie for the MIDPOINT Development Award, the coco Award, which is a pitching opportunity for four projects (in partnership with Connecting Cottbus), and the Rotterdam Lab/CineMart Award, initiated as part of the new collaboration between MIDPOINT and CineMart, which will send one producer to the Rotterdam Lab training and networking platform. The selection committee comprises MIDPOINT artistic director Pavel Jech, a scriptwriter, script editor and professor at Chapman University, California; Slovenian producer Danijel Hocevar, programme consultant and core tutor at Feature Launch; Alessandro Gropplero from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Audiovisual Fund, and head of the When East Meets West co-production forum; Inke Van Loocke, coordinator of CineMart and Rotterdam Lab; and Kristyna Plhonova, project manager at MIDPOINT Feature Launch.