The 9th edition of FEST’s Pitching Forum, the festival’s only industry event, took place online for the first time, spanning three days (August 12,13 and 14). This year, the Pitching Forum maintained its core goal of showcasing ongoing projects to a panel of jurors, experts, distributors, producers and investors, giving the projects a chance to compete for development and mentorship awards, following up successful editions. As Paul Miller, member of this year’s Pitching Forum jury, states: “the event has been going from strength to strength” and “the pitching and quality of projects both in creativity and viability continues to increase” in what has become “an important networking and co-production platform”. This year, in the eyes of festival director Filipe Pereira, the Pitching Forum “had excellent projects and a great professional audience, and the connection between both signals that the projects were very sought after, and are up to the standards of the film industry”.

Out of the 28 selected projects, 10 were awarded in four different categories: Fiction Feature Films; Short Fiction Films; Feature and Short Documentary Films; and Documentary Films (Post-Production).

In the Fiction Feature Films category, the jury awarded Petra Priskin’s project about grief-induced depression and its impact on family dysfunctionality, Hell and Heaven (UK, US), with the FEST Mentorship Award (3 months tutoring and project development with an expert). The Fest Film Lab Award — a weekend training at a FEST Film Lab workshop of the winners’ choosing — was given to two different projects: Becoming Emileen (Singapore), a project that sheds light on the weight of traditions among members of contemporary Singaporean society (such as the marital requirements to access public housing, for example), by Edwin Ho; and James Choi’s All Things Considered (South Korea, US), a project that depicts mental health issues whilst also reflecting on fake South Korean funerals on a personal and general level. In the same category, Zanadoo (UK), an animated stop-motion comedy by Trevor Hardy, received the FEST Post-Production Award (services in post-production provided by one of FEST’s partners).

Two projects were awarded in the Fiction Short Film category. The FEST Mentorship Award was given to Margarida Madeira’s animation film In Her Face (Portugal), a project that was inspired by the unearthing of a picture of the director’s (bearded) great-grandmother, who built the house her family lives in to this day. Nelson Polfliet’s Allegory of the Painted Woman (Belgium), a short, magical-realist film centred on Sabine, a 59 year old fishmonger who decides to escape her everyday life in order to find happiness, received a FEST Film Lab Award.

The Documentary category was divided into two different production stages: in development, and post-production. Bald Women (Spain), by Sandra Roman Peñalba, which focuses on the daily lives of women with alopecia, was awarded the FEST Mentorship Award, while Nikolai Galitzine’s Prophet of Doom (Russia, US, Spain, Italy), an investigative documentary on the disappearance of Soviet climatologist Vladimir Aleksandrov, received the FEST Film Lab Award. The Post-Production Award went to Sumba, Slave Island (Estonia, Belgium), a film directed by Jimmy Hendrickx and Jeremy Kewuan that exposes the current state of slave trading traditions on the island of Sumba. Morenita (US, Dominican Republic, Mexico), a poetic docu-fiction directed by Gabriela Ortega and Diana Valencia which examines displacement and womanhood through the story of two Latina immigrants in Los Angeles, received a FEST Film Lab Award.

Here is the full list of award winners:

Fiction Feature Film

FEST Mentorship Award
Hell and Heaven - Petra Priskin (UK, US)

FEST Film Lab Award
Becoming Emileen - Edwin Ho (Singapore)
All Things Considered - James Choi (South Korea, US)

FEST Post-Production Award
Zanadoo - Trevor Hardy (UK)

Fiction Short Film

FEST Mentorship Award 
In Her Face - Margarida Madeira (Portugal)

FEST Film Lab Award 
Allegory of the Painted Woman - Nelson Polfliet (Belgium)

Documentary (In Development)

FEST Mentorship Award
Bald Women - Sandra Roman Peñalba (Spain)

FEST Film Lab Award
Prophet of Doom - Nikolai Galitzine (Russia, US, Spain, Italy)

Documentary (Post-Production)

Post-Production Award
Sumba, Slave Island - Jimmy Hendrickx and Jeremy Kewuan (Estonia, Belgium)

FEST Film Lab Award
Morenita - Gabriela Ortega and Diana Valencia (US, Dominican Republic, Mexico)