Projects from France-Iran and India were the big winners at this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market, which is part of the European Film Market.
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, endowed with €20,000 ($22,628), went to the producers of Caractères Productions from France, and Honare Khiyal from Iran for their project “My Favourite Cake” by directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam.
The VFF Talent Highlight Award with prize money of €10,000 went to director Shuchi Talati’s “Girls Will Be Girls.” The film is to be produced by Pushing Buttons Studios, an outfit founded by Indian actors Ali Fazal (“Death on the Nile”) and Richa Chadha (“Gangs of Wasseypur”) and co-produced by Sanjay Gulati and Pooja Chauhan of Crawling Angel Films (2020 Berlinale selection “The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs”) and Claire Chassagne of Dolce Vita Films (2019 Venice and Cairo winner “A Son”).
The award is presented annually by the VFF — Copyright Agency of Film and TV Producers — and promotes one promising young project from the Talent Project Market organized by the Berlinale Co-Production Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. The project was pitched at the market by Chauhan.
Awards of €1,000 each went to the producers Kobi Mizrahi of KM Productions, Israel, for “Available Now” (director: Assaf Machnes) and Bárbara Defanti of Sobretudo Produção, Brazil, for “Cachalote” (director: Angelo Defanti).
“Girls Will Be Girls” also won the €6,000 ARTEKino International Award, presented by ARTE to honor an artistically outstanding project from the Berlinale Co-Production Market.
The producers of the 34 selected feature film projects at the market had more than 1,400 individual digital meetings with potentially suitable partners.
Jury members this year included French sales representative Sata Cissokho from Memento Films International, Norwegian producer Maria Ekerhovd from Mer Film and Spanish funding representative Pablo Perez de Lema from ICAA.