The CineMart co-production market drew to a close on Wednesday night, with a number of projects given prizes.
The 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam's co-production market CineMart — part of the fest's IFFR Pro industry umbrella and now in its 37th year — came to a close on Wednesday night with six awards handed out to promising projects.
"This edition of IFFR Pro proved that bringing together talent and ideas, and those who can support them, remains a very important thing to do," said IFFR Pro head Marit van den Elshout. "Cinema and the stories we aim to bring to fruition are relevant and have meaning. I am very proud of this year's edition and look forward to tweaking our endeavors in the future to both create and reflect change."
Among the prizes, the Eurimageg Co-Production Development Award — worth $22,000 — was given to Argentinean feature Infanta from Natalie Garagiola, which the jury said promised to be "an intense drama, with a starting point in real historical events."
Elsewhere, the $8,200 Filmmore Post-Production Award went to John Trengove's South African psychodrama A Shadow Creeps in Silver Trees, while the $6,600 ArteKino International Prize was awarded to Romanian director Radu Jude for Sleepwalkers.
The Station by Yemeni-Scottish director Sara Ishaq — an Oscar nominee for her 2012 short doc Karama Has No Walls — won the $5,500 Wouter Barendrecht Award. The jury said it thought the filmmakers behind the project could "make a difference with regard to a country's film culture and industry, or more precisely the lack of the latter."
Two new awards were among the 2020 crop of prizes. The Splendour Omnia Award saw $10,500 worth of postproduction won by Ivan Granovsky's Argentina-Portugal co-production Celosos hombres blancos, while the $2,700 IFFR Pro Young Network Award went to Zeynep Dadak's Electric Sleep.
The 2020 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam draws to a close Feb. 2.
