CineLink Completes 2026 Co-Production Market and CineLink Drama Line-Ups and Announces New €10,000 Award

Eleven projects were announced in May, and the official selection is now completed by additional titles.

 

Completing the official selection are new projects by two acclaimed Bulgarian filmmakers, both returning to CineLink. Nadejda Koseva presents Fleur de Mar, following her previous feature The Trap, which was part of CineLink Work in Progress in 2022. Koseva is also known for her acclaimed short films screened at the Berlinale and Sundance. Ralitza Petrova returns with Peace, her third feature. Her debut, Godless, was developed through the CineLink Co-Production Market 2015 and went on to win the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, while her second film, Lust, was developed at CineLink in 2021 and presented at CineLink Work in Progress in 2024 before premiering in the Berlinale Forum earlier this year.

 

The line-up also includes two guest projects presented through CineLink’s long-standing collaboration with the Doha Film Institute. The Peacock Queen, a film for young audiences, is directed by Qatari directing and animation duo Aisha Al-Jaidah and Kholood Al-Ali. Madness and Honey Days is the new project by award-winning Iraqi writer and director Ahmed Yassin Al-Darraji, whose debut feature, Hanging Gardens (2022), premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was selected as Iraq’s submission for the Academy Awards.

 

CineLink+ will present a new project by acclaimed Serbian filmmaker Goran Marković. His films National Class, Variola Vera and Special Education remain defining works of Yugoslav cinema.

 

The CineLink Drama selection expands to eight projects with Chasing the Clouds by Karla Lulić and Jelena Mađarić. The Croatian-Finnish co-production joins the line-up as a guest project presented in collaboration with the TV Beats Forum Co-Financing Market in Tallinn.

 

 

“This final line-up brings together seven debut features and new projects by filmmakers whose work we have followed through CineLink over many years. Nine of the sixteen projects are directed or co-directed by women, reflecting the strength and range of women filmmakers working across the territories represented in the selection. We are also very pleased to welcome the new award from the Kosovo Cinematography Center. At a time when development financing is increasingly difficult to secure, this kind of direct support can give a project real momentum,” said Asja Krsmanović, Head of CineLink.

 

CINELINK CO-PRODUCTION MARKET

 

Directors: Kholoud AlAli, Aisha Al-Jaidah

Writers: Kholoud AlAli, Aisha Al-Jaidah

Producer: Ben Robinson

Production company: Blue Penguin Animation / DFI

Country: Qatar

 

Brother & Sister, ABDULLA (8) and HESSA (13), are transported to a mythical world - embarking on a deadly quest to find three magic pearls - allowing them to return home before being stranded forever.

 

Director: Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji

Writers: Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji

Producer: Mayhtam Jbara

Production company: Purattu Films

Countries: Iraq, Canada, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

 

After accidentally cursing President Saddam Hussein on stage, theatre actor Salem convinces a military court of his insanity to escape a death sentence. Exiled to a psychiatric hospital in Baghdad during the final months before Saddam's fall, Salem must navigate his sanity, knowing that the execution awaits if the doctor declares him mentally fit.

 

Director: Nadejda Koseva

Writers: Simeon Ventsislavov, Nadejda Koseva

Producer: Stefan Kitanov

Production company: RFF International

Country: Bulgaria

 

After the huge international success of her last film, Nina (in her 30s) suffers a serious accident and is forced to undergo rehabilitation with Black Sea mud, where she meets Irini (in her 50s). She is a gatherer of the “Fleur de sel” and a self-taught healer with a questionable gift. She helps Nina realise that the wounds of her body are far lighter than those of her soul.

 

Director/Writer: Ralitza Petrova

Producer: Katya Trichkova

Production companies: Contrast Films, Aporia Filmworks

Co-production Company: Mater Pictures

Countries: Bulgaria, Denmark

 

When the privileged wife of a weapons testing range owner barely survives an accidental explosion and emerges from a coma profoundly changed, she begins to undermine her family's security, while her husband sets out to undermine hers.

 

Director/Writer: Goran Marković

Producers: Čarna Vučinić, Stefan Ivančić, Ena Bajraktarević

Production Company: Naked 

Country: Serbia

 

Fritz, Dobrila and their son Mate live off Swiss disability pensions in a tiny apartment in Belgrade. Without ever stepping to the outside world, they face the absurdities of Balkan socio-politics and the fractured realities shaped by their intrusive neighbors. Based on a book by Srđan Valjarević.

 

CINELINK DRAMA

 

Director: Karla Lulić

Writers: Karla Lulić, Jelena Mađarić

Producers: Karla Lulić, Jelena Mađarić

Production company: Dobar film

Co-production companies: Good Hand, Drugi plan

Countries: Croatia, Finland

 

When Spin the Bottle Truth or Dare game at a teenage party goes terribly wrong. A boy named Luka is dead. Over six episodes, we follow six teenagers, connecting the pieces of puzzle of a mysterious tragedy.