22 new projects by Greenaway, Lungulov, Amati and Nikonova to be pitched in Moscow, 15 features presented in Sochi

Greenaway [pictured] and producer Kees Kasander will be in Moscow to present Food Of Love, a new adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella Death In Venice, while Serbian filmmaker Lungolov will be joined by producer Snezana Penev of his new Belgrade-based company Papa Films to introduce the drama The King And The Queen about a 17-year-old girl managing to persuade Bobby Fischer to play a rematch of his 1972 game with Boris Spassky.

Meanwhile, UK producer Gavin Emerson of Cowboy Films will pitch BAFTA nominee Amati’s drama Competition about three teenage girl gymnasts coming to Russia for the Olympic Qualifying Competition with unexpected results.

Moreover, Nikonova, whose last feature was the festival hit Twilight Portrait, will attend the co-production forum with the comedy Welcome Home intertwining the stories of five immigrants in New York into a grotesque picture of a modern world.

Other projects selected from over 100 submissions include Victor Ginzburg’s fantasy sci-fi film Empire V, the sequel to his Generation P and also adapted from a novel by Victor Pelevin; Bulgarian Javor Gardev’s sci-fi thriller ConTra; and Oscar Vega’s Spanish-Irish-Estonian comedy Stupid Party.

This year’s Moscow Business Square (MBS) will be having a special focus on the film industries of the US and Canada with roundtables to  discuss such issues as the prospects for a Russian-US co-production treaty and collaboration between Russia and Canada.

Chestnut Ridge Productions’ Paula Wagner, Lakeshore Entertainment’s Linda Valter, Park Ex Pictures’ Kevin Tierney, marketing specialist Leslee Dart of 42West, film financier Hal Sadoff and ICM talent agent David Unger are among the North American industry figures coming to Moscow.

The Moscow pitchings will come just two weeks after 15 projects had been presented at the Kinotavr festival in Sochi.

The 2012 edition included seven debut projects for the first time, including films by Maxim Rozhkov (Cinema and Germans), Alexander Karavaev (At The District) and Ekaterina Telegina (The Habit of Leaving).

Another innovation at the Sochi pitching was the admittance of projects from any country as long as the action of the film is connected with Russia and the film uses Russian language. Two such films were selected: Kyrgyz filmmaker Marat Alykulov’s Lenin?!, described as a drama with elements of absurd comedy, and Helsinki-based Yana Konofalskaya’s Tallinn – Moscow.