The third Belgrade Industry Meetings, also known as B2B (Business to Belgrade) took place this weekend as a part of the 36th Belgrade International Film Festival FEST(Feb 22- Mar 2).
B2B focuses on 'Europe out of Europe'- a concept including countries which are geographically in Europe but not yet fully included in European integrative currents, and divided into three sections: the East European (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine), Euro-Asian (Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia).
B2B gives the chance to film-makers, producers, distributors, exhibitors, ministries of culture and film centers of these countries to meet and cooperate with representatives of Western European film funds, production companies, festival selectors and TV buyers.
Out of 12 projects in total, one from each section received a $10,600 (Euros 7,000) for development from Belgrade FEST, with additional awards from sponsors and partners.
In the East European group, Russian Maria Saakyan's I'm Going To Change My Name was voted the best project and will receive script doctoring worth $4,560 (Euros 3,000) from Austrian-UK sales company EastWest Distribution.
Kyrgyz Mirlan Abdykalykov Jujube's Perfume was chosen as the best Euro-Asian project and will get a free participation for the 2008 edition of Producers Network at Cannes Film Market.
Serbian Marko Sopic's No One's Child won in the Balkan group and will receive post-production and laboratory services worth $5,320 (Euros 3,500) at the Serbian production facility CineBox 100.
As every year, the 36th Belgrade International Film Festival FEST presented a selection of 75 most notable films from the most important festivals around the world in the past year. Otherwise non-competitive, since the establishment of B2B in 2005, it includes a 'Europe out of Europe ' competition and the award went to the winner of the national Croatian Pula Film Festival, Kristijan Milic's The Living And The Dead.
Another unofficial prize, the 'Nebojsa Djukelic' award, dedicated to one of the former selectors of FEST and legendary film critic and TV author, was given to Eran Kolirin's The Band Visit. Nikita Mihalkov's 12 won the FIPRESCI award, while Fatih Akin's The Edge Of Heaven received a special mention.
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