At the Sofia International Film Festival's sixth Sofia Meetings, atotal of 22 projects werepresented in the Second Films Pitching lineup, the Plus Minus One selection of debut and third features, and the new Sofia Cinelinks Sarajevo programme.

At the end of the two days of pitches and one-to-one meetings with potential co-producers, funders and sales agents, the Sofia Meetings participants voted for the best pitches in the first two programmes.

Romania's Ada Solomon of Hi Film Productions walked away for the second year running with the prize for the Best Pitch in the Main Programme which includes free participation in Cannes' Producers Network and selection to Thessaloniki's Crossroads co-production forum in addition to $6,520 (Euros 5,000) from Nu Boyana Studios.

Solomon and director Radu Jude received the prize for their presentation of his second feature film, the $850,000 (Euros 650,000) Everybody In The Family which is set to be shot in summer 2010 in Bucharest and on the Black Sea coast.

Meanwhile, the prize for the best pitch in the Plus Minus One programme - $6,520 (Euros 5,000) worth of services from Austria's Synchro Film and free participation in the Producers Network - went to Bulgarian director Stephan Komanderev for his third feature The Judgement about the fate of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Turkish-Bulgarian border today.

Komanderev, whose The World Is Big And Salvation Lurks Around The Corner won awards at international festivals last year, explained that the project is at a very early stage and would benefit from such training programmes as ScriptEast, Nipkow or Sources.

At the Meetings, Leipzig-based producer Simona Baumann of LE Vision told ScreenDaily.com that she was keen to work with Komanderev on his project since she had previously planned a documentary about the cases of East Germans murdered by the Bulgarian border guards as they tried to escape to the West through Turkey.

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