The 20th edition of the connecting cottbus East-West co-production market, aka coco, which will be held on 8-9 November during the 28th Cottbus Film Festival (6-11 November), is shaping up to be a markedly feminine edition. In keeping with the direction already taken under her predecessor, Rebekka Garrido, new director Marjorie Bendeck has made a point of putting a special emphasis on women in filmmaking: 15 out of the 19 projects being presented in both sections of the industry event (cocoPitch and cocoWiP) are by a female producer and/or a female director, and more than half of the projects selected revolve around a bold female protagonist.

This support for female creators will certainly give their projects a boost, as coco's now well-established formula – which is to gather selected projects from Eastern Europe (which are presented to a hand-picked audience of co-producers, sales agents and other potential partners, and which also benefit from the intensive cocoLab as well as invaluable feedback from top-level experts, whilst competing for a variety of awards), and give Eastern and Western European producers and film-industry professionals the chance to form new partnerships, network and discuss current production trends – has certainly proven itself to be effective. Once again, coco alumni have truly shone this year, as they include Ognjen Glavonic's The Load [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Ognjen Glavonić
scheda film] (selected in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight), Vladimir Blazevski's Year of the Monkey [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Vladimir Blazevski
scheda film], Darya Zhuk's Crystal Swan [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Darya Zhuk
scheda film] (which premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and won the Grand Prix at Odesa), and Giedre Beinoriute's Breathing into Marble [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Giedrė Beinoriūtė
scheda film] (also unveiled at Karlovy Vary).

This year’s cocoPitch line-up "ranges from modern chase movies and existentialist dramas to crime comedy", the organisers have announced. The selection consists of seven debut features as well as projects by award-winning filmmakers such as Nicolae Constantin Tanase (Men of Deeds, Tangaj Production, Romania), Piotr Domalewski (I Never Cry, Akson Studio, Poland/Ireland) and Anna Jadowska (who won last year's edition of the Cottbus Film Festival with Wild Roses [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Anna Jadowska
scheda film] and will present Mira, staged by Donten & Lacroix Films, Poland). Projects pre-selected by coco at partner events include Cristian Pascariu’s October (selected at Transilvania Pitch Stop; Libra Film Productions, Romania) and Piaoyu Xie's The Ugly Mandarine (Midpoint Feature Launch, Karlovy Vary; Analog Vision, Czech Republic). The other projects selected are Irma Puzauskaite's 9th Step (IN SCRIPT, Lithuania), Emre Kayis' Anatolian Leopard (Tato Film, Turkey), Nandor Lorincz and Balint Nagy's As Far as I Know [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] (M&M Film/Filmpartners, Hungary), Lee Filipovski's The Myth of a Real Man (Dart Film, Serbia), Andrius Blazevicius' Paralysis (M-Films, Lithuania), Petros Charalambous' Patchwork (AMP Filmworks, Cyprus), Victor Asliuk's Sphagnum (Denmarsh Film, Belarus) and Michal Blasko's Victim (nutprodukcia, Slovakia).

The second edition of cocoWiP, the programme dedicated to works in progress, which also combines newcomers and established names, is welcoming two more titles than last year, for a total of six projects, which range from absurdist comedy to historical detective story: Levan Koguashvili's Brighton 4 (Georgia/Monaco/Bulgaria/Russia/USA), Cagil Bocut's Geranium (Turkey), Aleksey Fedorchenko's Last Dear Bulgaria (Russia), Antonio Lukich's My Thoughts Are Silent [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] (Ukraine), Ismail Safarali's Night Tide (Russia/Azerbaijan) and Antoneta Kastrati's Zana [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Antoneta Kastrati
scheda film] (Kosovo/Albania).