Prizes awarded to selected feature film projects at the Berlinale Co-Production Market

On Sunday and Monday, four cash prizes and one in-kind prize were awarded to selected feature film projects at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 18 to 22).

The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, endowed with 20,000 Euros, went to the producers of Avalon PC from Spain for their project Iván & Hadoum (director: Ian de la Rosa). The award is presented by the European film fund Eurimages to promote the development of the project. The jury members this year were director and Georgian Eurimages representative Nino Kirtadzé, world sales agent Marcin Łuczaj (Poland, New Europe Film Sales) and producer Mariela Besuievsky (Spain, Tornasol Media).

This time around, an additional prize with the same endowment was donated by Eurimages to support a particularly promising Ukrainian project: the Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award. It went to the Ukrainian company 2Brave Productions, headed by producers Olha Beskhmelnytsina and Natalia Libet, for the project The Blindsight by Ruslan Batytskyi.

The VFF Talent Highlight Award with the prize money of 10,000 Euros, annually presented by the VFF – Copyright Agency of Film and TV Producers, promotes one promising project from the Talent Project Market organised by the Berlinale Co-Production Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. This year the award goes to God and the Devil’s Cumbia (director: Carlos Lenin), pitched at the Berlinale Co-Production Market by its producers Daniel Loustaunau (Colectivo Colmena, Mexico) and Paloma Petra (Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica, Mexico). Nominee awards of 1,000 Euros each went to the producers Vildan Ersen (Gatalo Films) from Turkey and Jaime Guerrero Naudin (Rara Cine) from Colombia.

The ARTEKino International Award 2023 goes to Peeled Skin by Leonie Krippendorff, produced by Kineo Filmproduktion (Germany). This award worth 6,000 Euros is presented by ARTE to honour an artistically outstanding project from the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market also works closely with the Berlinale World Cinema Fund to help exciting new films expand their audiences. For the first time this year, an in-kind prize, the World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award, will go to a Co-Production Market project from a WCF-supported country: the producers of Colectivo Colmena and Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica from Mexico and director Carlos Lenin will receive extensive consultations on optimising the audience and communication strategies of their film project God and the Devil’s Cumbia.

At the 20th Berlinale Co-Production Market, the producers of the 33 selected feature film projects meet co-producers and financiers. Over 1,500 individual meetings with potentially suitable partners among the total of over 600 participants were planned and coordinated in advance.

Eleven books for screen adaptations and ten new series projects will also be presented. These are the focus of the pitch events Books at Berlinale and Co-Pro Series.

More than 350 films and 20 series that have sought partners at the Berlinale Co-Production Market in recent years have now been completed.

Five outstanding earlier projects are screening in this year’s Berlinale programme: 20,000 Species of Bees by Estibaliz Urresola in the Competition, The Siren by Sepideh Farsi and Matria by Alvaro Gago in the Panorama section and Sea Sparkle by Domien Huyghe and Tomorrow is a Long Time by Jow Zhi Wei in Generation.

Directors Carla Simón and Radu Jude, who won the 2022 and 2021 Golden Bears with their Berlinale Co-Production Market projects Alcarràs and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn respectively, are members of the International Jury this year.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market is a Berlinale Pro* initiative of Berlin International Film Festival and is supported by MDM – Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and the European Union’s Creative Europe – MEDIA programme. Another cooperation partner and main venue is the Berlin House of Representatives.