Benelux is the regional focus for Trieste’s fourth edition of its When East Meets West (WEMW) co-production forum (January 20-22, 2014) being held during the Trieste Film Festival.

Eight of the 22 projects being presented in public pitches at the forum, which runs Jan 20-22, will be projects from the Benelux countries - Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - looking for potential co-producers and distributors from Italy or Eastern Europe.

They include new projects from Luxembourg’s Bady Minck, 1313 Dante’s Emperor, and The Netherlands’ David Verbeek, Full Contact, as well as the Belgian documentary film-makers Daniel Lambo, Eternal Silence, and Gilles Coton, Meet Enver Hadri.

WEMW’s project manager Alessandro Gropplero told ScreenDaily that this year’s call for projects had attracted a record 200 entries - 23 from the Benelux, 32 from Italy and 145 from Eastern Europe - with 140 fiction film projects and 60 documentary projects.

An international jury then selected 10 fiction and 12 documentary projects in development to be pitched during WEMW.

The projects from Eastern Europe include feature debuts from Macedonia’s Gjorce Stavreski (Krani) and Albania’s Andamion Murataj (Man of the House), who already has Germany’s Alexander Wadouh (Oh Boy) onboard as a partner.

Estonia’s Ilmar Raag will present his new feature, The Game of Pirates, to be co-directed with Marje Jurtschenko and produced by his regular partner Riina Sildos of Amrion, and Georgian documentarist Tamara Mshvenieradze (No Train To Germany).

An innovation at the 2014 edition will be the introduction of a new prize, the FILMMORE Talent Emerging Award, worth $6,800 (€5,000), from FILMMORE, one of the leading post-production studios in the Benelux.

In addition, an international jury will award the WEMW Development Award to the best project as well as a study grant for participation in the next edition of the EAVE producers workshop.

Previous editions of WEMW have presented such projects as Moldovan film-maker Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu’s Anishoara and Elfi Mikesch’s Fieber,both of which went into production during this year; Georgian Alexander Kvatashidze’s See You In Chechnya, a prize-winner at Locarno’s Open Doors co-production lab; and Nejc Gazvoda’s second feature Dual, which had its world premiere in the East of the West competition at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Full line-up

1313 Dante’s Emperor
Dir: Bady Minck, Pro: Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu / Amour Fou, Luxembourg

A Passo D’uomo
Dir: Francesco Falaschi, Pro: Enzo Porcelli / Achab Film, Italy

Blood Money
Dir: Kıvanç Sezer, Pro: Soner Alper / Nar Film, Turkey

Burning Picasso (Doc)
Dir: Remus Achim, Pro: Andrei Boncea, Cristina Badea / Euroart Film/Adenium Film, Romania

Coureur
Dir: Kenneth Mercken, Pro: Koen Mortier & Eurydice Gysel / Czar Tv, Belgium

Endless Garden
Dir: Galin Stoev, Pro: Martichka Bozhilova / Agitprop, Bulgaria

Eternal Silence (Doc)
Dir: Daniel Lambo, Pro: Maarten Schmidt / Storyhouse, Belgium

Full Contact
Dir: David Verbeek, Pro: Leontine Petit / Lemming Film, The Netherlands

Krani
Dir: Gjorce Stavreski, Pro: Emilija Cockova / Fragment Film, Macedonia

Man Of The House
Dir: Andamion Murataj, Pro: Andamion Murataj, Alexander Wadouh / Lissus Media, Albania

Meet Enver Hadri (Doc)
Dir: Gilles Coton, Pro: Isabel De La Serna / Playtime Films, Belgium

My Ras Tafari Roots (Doc)
Dir: David Verhaeghe, Pro: Maarten D’hollander / Off World, Belgium

Never Give Up (Doc)
Dir: Matej Minac, Pro: Matej Minac, Patrik Pass / W.I.P., Czech Republic

No Train To Germany (Doc)
Dir: Tamara Mshvenieradze, Pro: Alexander Kvatashidze / Lokokina Studio, Georgia

Partisan & Courtesan
How To Be The Niece Of A Dictator (Doc)
Dir: Bojana Papp, Pro: Judit Stalter / Laokoon Film, Hungary

Rafaël
Dir: Dennis Bots, Pro: Reiner Selen / Rinkel Film, The Netherlands

Searching For Antigravity (Doc)
Dir: Arunas Matelis, Pro: Arunas Matelis / Studio Nominum, Lithuania

The Frog
Dir: Elmir Jukic, Pro: Ademir Kenovic Snezana Maric / Refresh Production, Bosnia And Herzegovina

The Game Of Pirates
Dir: Marje Jurtshenko, Ilmar Raag, Pro: Riina Sildos / Amrion Production, Estonia

When Fucking Spring Is In The Air
Dir: Danyael Sugawara, Pro: Trent / Nfi Motion Pictures, The Netherlands

White Elk (Doc)
Dir: Giuseppe Leonetti, Pro: Giuseppe Leonetti / Incandenza Film, Italy

Women On The Border (Doc)
Dir: Erika Rossi, Pro: Marta Zaccaron / Quasar Multimedia, Italy

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