Inside the festival
Festival
New Cinema Network Awards
New Cinema Network, the co-production market of the International Rome Film Festival has, at the end of its sixth edition, once again proved itself to be an efficient launch pad for its carefully selected parterre of projects and international producers; a place where they can find concrete opportunities to develop and finance their new films, all within a pleasant, informal atmosphere.
For its sixth edition NCN has gathered over 280 professionals, of which 140 international producers and 29 directors, from 30 countries. It has organized 900 meetings in three days for its 27 selected projects, and on the 30th of October has announced the winners of the 2011 New Cinema Network awards during its closing ceremony.
As of 2010, each year Eurimages - the Council of Europe’s fund- in recognizing NCN as one of the four most important co-production markets in Europe, has given the NCN Jury the task to assign theEurimages Co-Production Development Award: a 30.000 Euros prize to the best project presented during NCN, that also fulfils the inspiring criteria and principles of co-production and cooperation among European countries of Eurimages.
The NCN 2011 Jury, made up of Peter Gustafsson, Simon De Santiago and Rosanna Seregni, have assigned the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award to the French-Palestinian project OFF FRAME by Mohanad Yaqubi “for using hidden and forgotten filmic treasures from the past to highlight the importance of filmmaking as a revolutionary tool to inspire people to fight for change”.
In addition to the prestigious Eurimages award, New Cinema Network has also assigned its own award of 10.000 Euros – provided by Fondazione Cinema per Roma – to the best project of its Focus Europe section. The New Cinema Network Focus Europe Award has been assigned to RISING VOICES by Bénédicte Liénard and Mary Jimenez Belgium) “for its brave, passionate and balanced investigation of a politically complex current issue, which is a relevant and uncomfortable reality for most Europeans today”.
The NCN Jury has also given two special mentions. “For its comic and tender depiction of universal conflicts in an extreme setting”, the first special mention has been assigned to COLD SPRINGby Hafsteinn Sigurðsson (Iceland).
Through the second special mention, the Jury would like to “encourage a young and promising filmmaker to continue his personal and interesting exploration of family roots”: PROFOUND NORTH by Marco Luca Cattaneo (Italy).
