This year will see the ten ‘works in progress’ projects presented as part of the Red Square Screenings in Moscow, ahead of the Warsaw presentation for the first time.

New films by Alexey Uchitel, Wojciech Smarzowski [pictured], Vladimir Blazevski and Anca Damian are among the projects selected for platforms being held in Warsaw, Moscow and Cottbus in October and November.

The CentEast Warsaw-Moscow line-up of ‘works in progress’ this year will include Uchitel’s Breaking Loose, produced by his company Rock Film Studio, while Smarzowski, who made a name for himself at festivals last year with Rose, will introduce Traffic Department.

In addition, footage of the Russian-German co-production of veteran documentary film-maker Vitaly Manskiy’s Pipeline will be shown alongside such projects as Romanian Tudor Giurgiu’s The Japanese Dog and Volodymyr Tykhyy’s Green Jacket from Ukraine.

In a change from previous years when the Moscow CentEast ‘works in progress’ were shown as part of the 2Morrow Film Festival, 2012 will see the ten projects being presented to an audience of festival programmers, sales agents and distributors in the Big Cinema Hall of Moscow’s GUM on as part of the first edition of the Red Square Screenings (October 15-19) – and ahead of the Warsaw presentation for the first time.

In addition, the Red Square Screenings (RSS) will host ‘works in progress’ showcases for documentaries and Russian films on the same day.

According to the provisional RSS programme, the latter showcase will include such films Oleg Stepchenko’s VYI 3D, Alexander Veledinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe Away, Georgy Danielya’s animation film Kin-Dza-Dza-Dza and Natasha Merkulova & Alexei Chupov’s Intimate Parts.

The heart of the RSS will consist of some 50 new feature films and documentaries from Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgystan and Armenia, including Roman Prygunov’s Dukhless, Sergei Loznitsa’s In The Fog, Rezo Gigineishvili’s Love With An Accent, Dunya Smirnova’s Kokoko, Eva Neymann’s House With A Turret and Kirill Serebrennikov’s Betrayal.

CentEast Warsaw (Oct 18-21) will be held during the Warsaw International Film Festival and present the 10 ‘works-in-progress’ on Oct 19. There will also be the Warsaw Screenings of new Polish films.

Meanwhile, the 14th edition of the East-West co-production market Connecting Cottbus (Nov 8-9) has selected 13 new feature film projects from 12 countries out of a pool of 83 submissions from 29 countries.

The 2012 lineup covers a wide range of genres from social drama to thriller, from close daily observations to sarcastic political satire, and includes The Storyteller, the new project by Russian director Angelina Nikonova which was automatically invited to pitch at Connecting Cottbus after previous film Twilight Portrait won the Grand Prix at last year’s FilmFestival Cottbus.

Other projects selected to pitch to potential co-producers or financiers include the psychologically complex marital drama A Good Wife, the first directorial outing by Serbian actress Mirjana Karanovic (known to audiences for her roles in Grbavica and Here And There), to be co-directed by Stevan Filipovic; Kosovo-born director Isa Qosja’s Three Windows And A Hanging; the comedy Freedom Or Death by Punk’s Not Dead director Vladimir Blazevski; and Hotel Eden, a new project by Romania’s Anca Damian who travelled the festival circuit the past 12 months with the animated documentary Crulic – The Path Beyond.

The full lineup of projects for this year’s Connecting Cottbus are as follows:

FAMILY FILM, director: Olmo Omerzu, producer: Jiri Konecny / endorfilm (Czech Republic / Slovenia)

HOUSE OF OTHERS, director/producer: Rusudan Glurjidze / Cinetech Production (Georgia)

KILLS ON WHEELS, director: Attila Till, producer: Judit Stalter/ Laokoon Film (Hungary)

THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING, director: Isa Qosja, producers: Nicole Gerhards / NiKo Film, Shkumbin Istrefi / CMB (Germany/Kosovo)

MELLOW MUD: director: Renars Vimba, producer: Alise Gelze / Tasse Film (Latvia)

FREEDOM OR DEATH, director: Vladimir Blazevski, producer: Darko Popov / Punk Film (Macedonia)

THE MUTE, director: Bartek Konopka, producer: Anna Wydra / Otter Films (Poland)

HOTEL EDEN, director/producer: Anca Damian / Aparte Film (Romania)

ONE FLOOR BELOW, director: Radu Muntean, producer: Dragos Valcu/ Multimedia Est (Romania)

A GOOD WIFE, director: Mirjana Karanovic, Stevan Filipovic, producer: Snezana Penev / This and That Productions (Serbia)

MOTHERLAND, director: Senem Tuzen, producers: Olena Yershova / Yeni Sinemacilik (Turkey)

LENIN?!, director: Marat Alykulov, producer: Joanna Bence / Curb Denizen Productions, Oleg Vybolchenko / Kovcheg Films (UK/Kyrgyzstan)

Special Pitch Award:

THE STORYTELLER, director: Angelina Nikonova, producer: Olga Dykhovichnaya / Baraban Films (Russia)

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