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First round of feature film projects selected for the next edition of CineLink Co-Production Market

The selection brings a balanced range of perspectives across generational and gender lines, spanning diverse cultural contexts from the Balkans to Madagascar and North Korea

This year’s CineLink selection brings together a dynamic mix of established voices and emerging filmmakers, with a particularly strong presence of debut features, seven in total.

Turkish director Selcen Ergun, presents her second feature How to Disappear in the Lake, who follows her acclaimed debut Snow and the Bear. Slovenian director Urška Djukić, whose debut Little Troubled Girls was nominated for the European Discovery Award and won the Adriatic Film Award for Best Debut Feature, returns with a historical drama on the Slovenian witch, while Austrian project Hôtel des Thermes by Maéva Ranaïvojaona and Georg Tiller explores the enduring consequences of colonialism in Madagascar.

A particularly notable strand is the rise of genre filmmaking, most clearly expressed through two Balkan folk horror projects, With Blessings on Your Way by Kan Muftić, presented at this year’s Berlinale EFM Frontières Focus, and Wolf Days by Emilija Gašić, developed through Torino Script Lab. The two projects are linked not only through their shared genre orientation but also through a broader interest in folklore as a framework for dealing with trauma.

The debut selection offers a vibrant cross-section of new regional voices. 

Questions of memory and the fluid relationship between past and present shape the debut of Mladen Kovačević, an established documentary filmmaker (Merry Christmas, Yiwu, Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Documentary Film). Taste of Peach by Elene Mekaberidze, who follows her acclaimed documentary Blueberry Dreams, addresses the consequences of war, as well as Mamayi by Oleksandr Roshchyn (cinematographer of Stop-Zemlia), which explores social upheaval. 

Themes of youth and family are approached from distinct perspectives in Vagabonds by Vlad Buzăianu, The Metallic Sky of Saturn by Azer Guliev (Sanki Yoxan, Cannes Short Film Competition), and Jellyfish Live Forever Until They Get Caught by Nađa Petrović (Smell of Fresh Paint, winner of Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Student Film), a project that originated in the CineLink Books programme as a novel before returning as a feature film in development.

Altogether, the selection brings a balanced range of perspectives across generational and gender lines, spanning diverse cultural contexts from the Balkans to Madagascar and North Korea. It reflects urgent social and political realities, from war and local politics to the consequences of colonialism and historical legacies, while also highlighting the growing prominence of genre filmmaking.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Director/Writer: Urška Djukić Lecamus

Producer: Luka Peterca

Production Company: OINK!

Countries: Slovenia, Greece

Amid the Black Death, pregnant healer Veronika, accused of witchcraft, finds refuge in a Carthusian monastery, where Prior Arnold reluctantly hides her. Her healing skills soon prove invaluable, but her wild, curious nature unsettles the monks as Count Herman of Celje threatens to destroy anyone who dares protect her.

HÔTEL DES THERMES

Directors/Writers: Maéva Ranaïvojaona & Georg Tiller

Producers: Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Bady Minck

Production Company: AMOUR FOU Vienna

Co-Production Company: De L’Autre Côté du Périph’

Countries: Austria, France

A costume ball in a grand hotel in Madagascar turns into a bloodbath when the ghosts of the colonial past awaken…

HOW TO DISAPPEAR IN THE LAKE

Director/Writer: Selcen Ergun

Producers: Diloy Gülün, Selcen Ergun

Production Companies: Karma Films, Albino Zebra Film

Country: Türkiye

In a lakeside town, as fear quietly grows, an eight-year-old girl must navigate compassion, defiance and inherited memory that could shape what she becomes.

JELLYFISH LIVE FOREVER UNTIL THEY'RE CAUGHT

Director/Writer Nađa Petrović

Producers: Katarina Prpić, Danijel Pek

Production Company: Antitalent

Co-Production Company: Non-Aligned films

Countries: Croatia, Serbia

Introverted teen Sara believes she will share her sister’s fate and die on her

nineteenth birthday. Diagnosed with an illness, and as visions of her sister return,

Sara learns that freedom lies in facing pain rather than escaping it.

KORYO

Director: Mladen Kovačević

Writers:  Mladen Kovačević, Ivana Vuković

Producer: Čarna Vučinić

Production Company: Horopter

Co-Production Companies: Eclectica, Vertigo

Countries: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia

Diana returns to the abandoned family home for her estranged father's funeral, and remains there to untangle the secrecy around him. Her sister's audio diary from 1987 family trip to North Korea, sets off a personal investigation across former Yugoslavia, exposing literal and emotional scars in a haunting blend of drama, historical speculation, documentary, and science fiction.

MAMAYI

Director/Writer: Oleksandr Roshchyn

Producer: Viktor Shevchenko

Production Company: Packgauz

Countries: Ukraine

Ukraine, 2009. Two TV reporters are forced into a dirty election campaign for pro-Russian candidate Yanukovych. Can they resist the pressure and stay honest with their work and the people?

THE METALLIC SKY OF SATURN

Director/Writer: Azer Guliev

Producer: Sébastien Hussenot

Production Company: La Luna Productions

Countries: Azerbaijan, France

After several years away, Musa returns home following a prison sentence that his father concealed by telling the family he had been completing military service. As he quietly reintegrates into a fragile household shaped by unspoken tensions, the arrival of a young stranger and the exposure of his father’s secret begin to erode the family’s precarious equilibrium, confronting Musa with the fragile boundary between silence and rupture.

THE TASTE OF THE PEACH

Director/Writer: Elena Mikaberidze

Producer: Labina Mitevska

Production Company: Sisters and Brother Mitevski

Co-Production Companies: Entre chien et loup, Takes Film, Nushi Film

Countries: North Macedonia, Belgium, Georgia

Drawn back to her roots, a young woman builds a peaceful guesthouse near a contested border only to see her quiet dream disrupted as war and politics bring unexpected strangers to her door.

VAGABONDS

Director/Writer: Vlad Buzăianu

Producers: Ana Voicu, Anamaria Antoci

Production Company: Tangaj Production

Country: Romania

In order to save his younger brother from the orphanage, Toma, a 16-year-old teenage boy sets out on a trip across the country with no car or money, searching for his long-gone father and for himself.

WITH BLESSINGS ON YOUR WAY

Director: Kan Muftić

Writers: Kan Muftić, Elma Tataragić

Producer: Dan Dixon 

Co-producers: Amra Bakšić Čamo, Adis Đapo

Production Company: Snafu Pictures

Co-Production Company: SCCA/pro.ba

Countries: UK, Bosnia & Herzegovina

A reserved shepherd’s like is forever altered when he disturbs a hornet’s nest, leading to a traumatic transformation and estrangement from his loved ones. As supernatural suspicions arise, hie is ruthlessly cast out, returning as a haunting spectre to terrorise his wife and the village, blurring the line between reality and deep-seated trauma.

WOLF DAYS

Director/Writer: Emilija Gašić

Producer: Dragana Jovović

Production Company: Non-Aligned Films

Co-Production Companies: Istok Films, Restart

Countries: Serbia, USA, Croatia

Faced with menopause, Jelena turns to a folk healer who draws her into a series of increasingly ridiculous rituals that drive her to the edge of madness in search of her own liberation.