Cottbus begins its 29th edition by Smuggling Hendrix

This year’s edition of FilmFestival Cottbus, starting on 5 November and accompanied by the industry event Connecting Cottbus, will immediately provide some laughs thanks to a dog that complicates its owner’s plans to leave Cyprus when it escapes to the Turkish side of the island. “Smuggling Hendrix [+], set in Cyprus, is a mirror image of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: while we have been celebrating the fall of the Iron Curtain, the island in the Eastern Mediterranean has been divided by a heavily guarded border since 1974,” explained programme director Bernd Buder about Marios Piperides’ opening film. “Co-produced by Greece, Cyprus and Germany, it symbolises the expansion of the territory covered by FilmFestival Cottbus, which this year will also show feature-length works from Finland, Turkey and Greece.”

Coming this February: Przemycic Hendrixa (Smuggling Hendrix) on HBO and Cinemax in Poland

Coming this February: Przemycic Hendrixa (Smuggling Hendrix) on HBO and Cinemax in Poland!

You can now watch Smuggling Hendrix, up in the air on all Inflight Entertainment of Emirates

Filming in Cyprus - Tax Incentives and Cash Rebates

Committed to boosting this highly promising sector, the government of the Republic of Cyprus introduced a package of incentives encouraging international producers to choose Cyprus as their next film destination. In specific, production companies that opt to film in Cyprus will be able to choose between cash rebate or tax credit and can also benefit from tax discounts on investments made on equipment and infrastructure, and VAT returns on expenditure in scope.

Qualifying production categories include, amongst others, feature Films (including animation), television Series or mini-series, documentaries for Theatrical or Television release, animation (digital or analogue), television research programs and natural history.

SEE Cinema Network: AMP Filmworks Puts Cyprus on Film Map

AMP Filmworks Puts Cyprus on Film Map

Cypriot production house AMP Filmworks had a big break-through when its feature film Smuggling Hendrix directed by the company’s founder Marios Piperides had its world premiere and won the Best International Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival and was picked up by German sales agent The Match Factory. Now the 14-year-old company is developing a slate of four feature films to keep the momentum going.

As FNE write, producer Janine Teerling and director Petros Charalambous, who is attached to their next film Patchwork, following their presentation at the pitching forum Connection Cottbus, about the slate of films and the situation for filmmakers in Cyprus, Patchwork is likely to be AMP Filmworks’ next film to go into production, with 60% of the budget already in place.

With the introduction of a 35% cash rebate programme in October 2018, Cyprus is poised to join its EU neighbours on the film production scene. Applications for the rebate programme are now open to both film and TV projects with a minimum spend of 200,000 EUR and a cap of 1.5 m EUR. The rebate will apply to funds spent in Cyprus and is expected to increase domestic production, minority coproductions and production services on the island.

Funding is coming from the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture for production, and development funding from the SEE Cinema Network. The film has a Greek coproducer attached, Boo Productions, and is awaiting funding results from the Greek fund and ERT. The producers have interest from other producers from different countries from the Balkans and Western Europe, and it is likely to be a four countries` coproduction.

The film’s story, set in a patriarchal society, is the drama of a young mother troubled by her ambiguous feelings about motherhood and the broken relationship with her own mother. Patchwork, which will be Charalambous’s second feature, is scheduled to go into production in the second half of 2019 or early 2020.

Cypriot writer/director Kyros Papavassiliou is working on the final draft of his second feature film, Embryo, Larva, Pupa, Imago, which is scheduled to shoot in the spring of 2020. The Cypriot/Greek coproduction with a budget of 850,000 EUR is looking for a third coproducer for this surreal drama, a love story of a couple who live in a world where time is arbitrary. Kyros presented his short film in the Official Competition of the Cannes Festival in 2007, while his first film premiered in Rotterdam in 2016.

Writer/director Adonis Florides is working on his third feature film, Africa Star. The film will be a Cypriot production that tells the story of a family stigmatised by crime in the past. The company is also producing Spyros Charalambous`s first feature film Common Good. His latest short film premiered in Clermont Ferrand.

The company has other projects in scriptwriting stages, including Marios Piperides`s second feature film.

Source: Film New Europe