This year’s MIDPOINT Feature Launch programme had its final showcase during the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, helping to launch the careers of nine promising projects and their talented participants from Central and Eastern Europe.

After residential workshops in Trieste and Belgrade, at Karlovy Vary's Eastern Promises Industry Days, the teams had the opportunity to present their projects during a pitching session, and meet and network with professionals from different areas of the audiovisual industry as well as with a number of MIDPOINT’s partners, who announced the winners of three awards for this year’s participants.

The connecting cottbus Award, which takes the winner to a pitching session at its co-production market, went to the project The Ugly Mandarine from Czech company Analog Vision. “The range and quality of the projects at MIDPOINT Feature Launch this year were impressive,” said Marjorie Bendeck, the director of connecting cottbus. “During our selection process, we took into consideration the current stage and needs of each project, and how this would suit them taking part in the upcoming edition of our market. The Ugly Mandarine provides a fresh perspective on those who have chosen immigration and the absurd obstacles they have to overcome, told through an intimate love story. Writer-director Piaoyu Xie and producer Veronika Kuhrova are talented up-and-coming filmmakers who show a strong passion for this important topic.”

Adi Dizdarević, the producer of the Serbian film The Myth of a Real Man, a comedy-drama dealing with the recent past, was chosen to participate in the next edition of the Rotterdam Lab created for emerging film producers. “The Myth of a Real Man addresses pressing, human issues and dilemmas that are still pertinent today, told from a very personal perspective. Dizdarević is at the perfect stage of his career to make the most out of the Rotterdam Lab, and we're looking forward to closely following the team on their journey completing The Myth of a Real Man and all of their future projects to come,” said Inke van Loocke, the manager of CineMart and Rotterdam Lab.

The Hungarian near-past period drama Erasing Frank [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Gábor Fabricius
fiche film] was selected by Ieva Buzinskaite and Domante Urmonaite, of the Art Department Masterclass. Writer-director Gabor Fabricius and producer Miklos Havas now have the opportunity to work on the production design of their project with other emerging art directors during the practical workshop in Lithuania. “We have selected Erasing Frank because of its ambitious nature and how visual this project is," said Buzinskaite and Urmonaite. "In our experience, such projects require the writer, director and production designer to be very collaborative and hard-working. We believe that this project will be interesting for our participants, and all of them will benefit from the creative team work.”

MIDPOINT Feature Launch is a training and networking platform for emerging film professionals, which aims to support the writer, director and producer in the development process for their first or second feature films. The call for applications is currently open for MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2019, with the deadline set for 21 September 2018.