Successful conclusion to Connecting Cottbus 2005

124 participants from 13 countries came to Cottbus to exchange experiences at the same time as the FilmFestival Cottbus. The guests included old regulars to our forum like Pavel Strnad (Negativ Film), Andreas Eicher (BOX! Film), Frank Frenschkowski (grand hotel pictures gmbh), Karsten Stöter (Rohfilm) or Kalina Wagenstein (Sofia Film Festival) as well as such first-timers as Thorsten Ritter (Bavaria Media International) or Agnieszka Odorowicz, the director of the newly founded Polish Film Institute.

Focus: Hungary

Hungary was at the focus of the events this time round. As part of Connecting Cottbus there were presentations of new Hungarian tax models and funding guidelines for international co-productions. The case study of the Hungarian-Romanian-German-Austrian co-production Dallas Pashamende illustrated the new production possibilities in a practical way.

New German-Polish Co-Development Fund

On November 11, 2005, Agnieszka Odorowicz (Polish Film Institute) joined Dariusz Jablonski (Polish Audiovisual Producers´ Chamber of Commerce), Kirsten Niehuus (Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg) and Manfred Schmidt (Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung - MDM) in signing the new German-Polish Co-Development Fund as the first joint funding initiative of the Polish Film Institute, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM). The fund has a budget of Euros 150,000 and aims to support the development of co-productions between Poland and Germany.