CPH:DOX gives the stage to the Eurimages and Unifrance to give away a total of three awards to the best pitches in various categories presented at this year’s CPH:FORUM.
Special Eurimages Development Award for a Ukrainian Project of €20,000
To express the support of and solidarity with the Ukrainian film industry, the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund handed out a Special Eurimages Co-production Development Award as an addition to the long-standing Eurimages Co-Production Development Award of €20,000 for the best pitch at CPH:FORUM 2023.
This year’s jury, composed of Emma Scott (Head of Distribution&Short Film Production, Screen Ireland), Rikke Tambo Andersen (Producer at Tambo Film) and Heino Deckert (Producer at ma.ja.de.), signled out the project ‘RED ZONE’ by Iryna Tsilyk and the production company MOON MAN (Darya Bassel, Ukraine).
The project conveys the idea that the war not only kills people – it also changes those who survived. In particular, on very subtle levels. Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk is sharing her very intimate, female perspective on the question – what it means to be a woman in the war times.
On their motivation for choosing ‘RED ZONE’, the jury said:
“This innovative look at the inner lives of women as they go about their daily lives with humour and courage while in the midst of a terrifying war captivated the imagination of the jury.”
Ukrainian productions and co-productions, eligible for both Eurimages awards, had a strong representation of 12% of this year’s projects line-up, across the selection of CPH:FORUM, CPH:WIP and CHANGE, CPH:DOX’ development co-production training program in collaboration with IMS and EAVE, featuring projects from the European Union’s Eastern Partnership countries.
Eurimages Co-production Development Award of €20,000
For the tenth year running CPH:FORUM and Eurimages are proud to present the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award of €20,000 for the best pitch of this year’s CPH:FORUM.
The prize goes to ‘ONLY ON EARTH’ by Robin Petré, produced by Hansen & Pedersen (Signe Skov Thomsen, Malene Flindt Pedersen, Denmark, Spain).
The project depicts a journey deep into one of Europe’s hottest fire zones, Galicia, where wild horses roam the mountains under the watch of local cowboys. These horses are excellent at fire prevention, but now they are vanishing in the clash between humans and nature.
On their motivation for choosing ‘ONLY ON EARTH’, the jury said:
“The Eurimages co-production development award goes to a visually stunning project, that brought us to a place where nature is burning, climate change is evident, but hope is to be found between humans and animals.”
Unifrance Doc Award
For the first time, CPH:FORUM, Unifrance and TitraFilm are proud to present the Unifrance Doc Award for the best French majority or minority co-produced pitch of this year’s CPH:FORUM.
The award consists of €2300 in post-production support for subtitling at TitraFilm, to be used within 3 years, and a Unifrance membership for one year for the value of €1590 for the producer of the winning project. A Unifrance membership also gives access to other support such as the refund of promotion expenses in a limit of €1500, totaling the value of the award to €5390.
The jury, composed of Nora Philippe (Director at EURODOC, FR), Vibeke Vogel (Producer at Bullit Film, DK), Emelie Persson (Deputy Program Director Culture and Society, SVT, SE) singled out ‘CUBA & ALASKA’ by Yegor Troyanovsky , produced by 2Brave Productions (Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Ukraine) and TAG Film (Christian Popp, France).
The project depicts two young paramedic women Cuba and Alaska live on the edge in the war-torn Kharkiv region – their mission is to save lives while sharing good humour, and belief in victory.
On their motivation for choosing ‘CUBA & ALASKA, the jury said:
“This pitch took us to a space and time where life and death dwell together in an unspeakable proximity, where courage and combat are female, and where fight against oppression is lead in the name not only of Ukraine, but also of us further in Europe and in the world. We wish to acknowledge a project that is bold and strikingly alive, the intimate access to a singular sisterly duo, a portrait that embraces the complexities of youth, care, creativity and trauma, and finally a coproduction endeavor (Ukraine + France) that will hopefully, bring the project to full funding and rapid completion.”
The winners were announced on Thursday, March 23 at the CPH:DOX Industry Awards Happy Hour.
