BOOK OF PROJECTS 2016
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NISI MASA member associations Albania - First Step Association Austria - kino5 Bosnia and Herzegovina - International Film Festival Kratkofil Plus Bulgaria - SEVEN Croatia - Kinoklub Zagreb Czech Republic - Kino Praha Czech Republic - In Vitr0 Denmark - Aarhus Short Film Challenge Estonia - NISI MASA Estonia Finland - Euphoria Borealis ry France - Festival du CinĂŠma de Brive Germany - Munich Film Society Germany - Kino Datsche Greece - PSAROKOKALO Italy - Lago Film Fest Kosovo - 7arte Lithuania - Kaunas International Film Festival Luxembourg - Filmreakter Luxembourg - LARS Macedonia - Cre8ive8 Montenegro - Cinemapolis The Netherlands - Breaking Ground Norway - Filmkraft Poland - Ad Arte Portugal - FEST Russia - Generation Campus Russia - Moviement Serbia - Filmkultura Slovenia - Film Factory Spain - Cinestesias Ukraine - CinemaHall Ukraine - Wiz Art UK - Encounters
Index 1 Bathhouse Laurynas Bareiša - Lithuania 2 Deer Boy Katarzyna Gondek - Poland / Belgium 3 From the soil Ola Jankowska - Poland / France 4 Into the blue Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic - Croatia 5 Kafka’s Collection of Porn Aristotelis Maragkos, Tom Floyd - Greece 6 Memoria Leo Ponge - France 7 Milk Daria Vlasova - Russia 8 Mother’s day Kamile Milasiute, Tekle Kavtaradze - Lithuania 9 Ondine Tomasz Sliwinski - Poland 10 Our House Our Rules Eoin Maher - Ireland 11 Patision avenue Thanasis Neofotistos - Greece 12 Pilgrim Charlotte Wolf - UK 13 Selvagem Victoria Visco Mendonça - Brazil / France 14 Steif (Hard-on) Jacques Molitor - Luxembourg 15 (s)words Federico Di Corato - Italy 16 The Call Up Masha Kondakova - Ukraine
6-7 8-9 10-11 12-13 14-15 16-17 18-19 20-21 22-23 24-25 26-27 28-29 30-31 32-33 34-35 36-37 3
17 The Hoarder Leen Vandereyken - Belgium 18 The Van Erenik Beqiri - Albania 19 The Virgin Of Lost Causes Sรกndor Funtek - Hungary 20 Trouble in Mind Marlyn Spaaij - The Netherlands
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Works in progress
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21 Chernobyl Franco Dipietro - Italy 22 Mind my mind Floor Adams - The Netherlands 23 Volte Monika Kotecka, Karolina Poryzaล a - Poland 24 Watchkeeping Karolis Kaupinis - Lithuania ESP 2016 TUTORS
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40-41 42-43 44-45
50-51 52-53 54-55
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ESP pitch 2016 European Short Pitch is an initiative aimed at promoting the European coproduction of short films. It combines a scriptwriting workshop in residency, an on-line session and a coproduction forum bringing together scriptwriters, directors and industry professionals from all over Europe. Selected on the basis of their short film projects, young European talents gather to discuss, rewrite and learn to promote their ideas on a European level. They eventually pitch their project in front of a panel of European producers and distributors. Initiated by NISI MASA, European Short Pitch is now in its 10th edition and is the continuation of our European Script Contest, held from 2001 to 2008. European Short Pitch’s rewriting session was held in Vilnius, Lithuania at the beginning of January, with 20 participants from 16 countries attending. From collective brainstorming to working in groups or individually with professional tutors, participants discussed their projects in depth, receiving various feedbacks to nurture their projects. This year, European Short Pitch’s pitching session will take place on the 4th of March in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg in collaboration with the Luxembourg City Film Festival and the LARS, followed by oneon-one meetings the day after.
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You get inside, the sauna is full of steam, you barely notice anything, but there are people inside, there are things happening to these people, it‘s a shame you can‘t see them…
Bathhouse Laurynas Bareiša - Lithuania
SYNOPSIS A group of teenagers throw a party in a sauna, which they rent from a middle-aged couple. During this party a number of different storylines emerge. One girl is pursuing attention of a boy, who doesn’t notice her. Instead he gets into a political argument with a guy of eastern descent. It escalates and almost turns into a fight. Meanwhile upstairs the couple watches television and wonders whether the neighbors will call the police. Eventually the party dies out, the morning comes and the owners start cleaning the sauna. Inside it, they discover a raped girl.
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Remeikaitė Klementina k.remeikaite@gmail.com (+370) 614 18 571
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Laurynas Bareiša Writer/Director (b.1988) holds a Bachelor’s degree in both applied mathematics from Vilnius University and in cinematography from Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. His first short film “Dembava” was nominated for National Film Award as the Best student film in 2015. Currently he is continuing his studies for a Master’s degree in film directing.
With “Bathhouse” I want to make a film, where the main character is a group, not a person. That is why the story is fragmented between several characters and there is no coherent storyline for any one of them. But as a whole it is a portrait of this group of kids in a bathhouse. In this place characters interact between themselves and there are a number of possible storylines to follow, which all seem important and while they are happening, you cannot choose which one will come to fruition. Much like when you try to follow events during a real party, attention shifts between different points of interest and all the events that happen bear the same importance. The reason for this approach is that in my opinion a brutal event does not happen in a straightforward one-person narrative. Only after you come home and hear that something gruesome happened you start to put things together to try and make a cohesive story. But usually there is no one reason or event that triggered the crime so I want to try and communicate this complexity to the viewer.
Klementina Remeikaitė Producer (b.1988) studied film production in Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and took a part in MAIA workshops for emerging European producers in 2015. She produced 5 short films and “Bathhouse” is going to be the second collaboration with Laurynas Bareiša. They are also co-founders of the film production company Afterschool.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama Length: 15 minutes Format: HD Language: Lithuanian Status: In development
Secured financing: 10 % of the budget
Planning to apply to Lithuanian Film Centre in April 2016
Production Company: Afterschool (Lithuania) Looking for: Co-producer, post-production, sales agent
Budget: € 50,000
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Deer Boy is a tragicomic story about a hunter’s son, who was born with antlers, and about how each man kills the thing he loves.
Deer Boy Katarzyna Gondek - Poland / Belgium
SYNOPSIS A son is born into a hunter’s family. All would be fine, because a son is sure better than a daughter, except for one thing - the little one has antlers. Little soft antlers that resemble the ones deer have. Deer Boy grows, learning how to be what he is. Lost between a human and animal world. His antlers grow too until the day when the boy’s father cuts them off to repair his damaged son. To make him a real boy and a hunter too.
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Paweł Kosuń kosun@centralafilm.pl +48 664 084 949
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Katarzyna Gondek Writer/Director Author of films and literature forms. She graduated from film studies and a documentary course in Wajda School. Her most recent film FIGURE, an ironically poetic story about building a pope, was selected for Sundance Film Festival. You will find her at Berlinale Talents 2016. She also writes and publishes weird stories and goes for walks in the forest.
Several years ago I made a short documentary about hunters who learn the deer language to kill the ani-mals during the rut. After finishing that work I had a strong feeling that this ritual is a fraction of some greater issue or narrative. I decided to write a script for a short film, a tragedy based on combining horror and fairytale. I wanted to give a hunter a deer son and see what happens. How will the boy cope with his identity.
Paweł Kosuń Producer He graduated from Wajda Film School, La Femis in France and NFTS in London. With Centrala, where he works permanently, he produced both fiction and documentary films such as “In the shadow”, “Gottland” and “Return of Agnieszka H.” Co-founder of Wrocław Film Foundation. Sometimes he writes and talks in Spanish.
Deer Boy will be a „biological” film - in terms of imagery and sound, as well as acting craft. The actors will have to play it without using words. A parable-like structure will help us keep the story fully understandable, whereas the method of staging will free the whole from straightforward interpretations. The story will be told with sounds, mainly animal-like ones. I hope it will be a scary fairy ale about the inbetweenness of identity.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Fiction, Drama
Secured budget: € 30,000
Length: 15 minutes
Production Company: Centrala Film (centralafilm.pl)
Format: HD Language: No familiar language Shooting days: 10 Shooting location: Poland Budget: € 70,000
Co-producer: Bekke Films Film’s web site: www.deerboy.pl Looking for: Sales agents, broadcasting partners, investors, postproduction companies, pre-sales 9
In a remote village, in the ground, live human-like creatures whose skin is covered in mud.
From The Soil Ola Jankowska - Poland / France
SYNOPSIS Far away, in a remote, nameless village in northern Europe, the Villagers get into a conflict with human-like creatures, called People From The Soil, who live in the same ground that the Villagers occupy above. As the water from the local pond starts drying up and a child goes missing, the Villagers decide that People From The Soil must go. It will not be very long, though, until they realize how desperately they will want People From The Soil back.
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Ola Jankowska olamariajankowska@gmail.com (+48)601182483
BIOGRAPHIES Ola Jankowska
Writer/Director 89’. Writer & director working in Poland and the UK. She studied Directing in Lodz Film School and the NFTS in London. Her fiction and doc shorts screened worldwide, some bought by TV channels. Ola is currently taking part in CPH:LAB, co-writing a TV series and working on her debut, developed at TorinoFilmLab Script&Pitch 2014 and co-produced by Opus Film (‘Ida’) and Kometa Films. Edyta Janczak-Hiriart Producer She started her i n d e p e n d e n t production company, Kometa Films, in Paris in 2008. It has produced short films that benefited from the support of CNC, ARTE, Canal+ or France Télévisions. Currently, Kometa Films is developing debut features, co-producing films with Poland and continues to produce shorts.
INTENTIONS “From the Soil” is a dark contemporary fairytale with a strong political undertone. Set in present day, smoothly blending fantastical elements with naturalistic observations and minimal use of dialogue, firstly, it is a story about supremacy. It is about this soundless and invisible, yet unbending inner ease with which we assume the certainty of our worldview and status - and the extent to which we are willing to go to keep those intact. Leaving the analyses of large-scale politics in the background, I want to take a closer look at the small-scale expressions of the underlying sense of superiority and entitlement – with their well-meaning, the fear of the other and the innocent ignorance. The film starts off as a lightly fantastical, genre-flavored fable, carefully following the peaceful everyday lives of the Villagers. But as the story evolves and the new details start coming to the surface, it slowly leaves its genre convention – by the end becoming a raw and unforgiving study of a world built upon exploitation and dominance.
PRODUCTION NOTE Live-action Genre: Drama, Fantasy Length: 20-25 minutes Shooting days: 8 Language: No dialogue/French Budget: € 100,000
Financing Plan: CNC € 70,000 (Application in December 2015) Regional Fund: Brittany € 30,000 (Application in April 2016) Looking for: Co-producer, pre-sales, sales agent, distributor
Production company: Kometa Films (France) 11
A teenage group during one sweltering summer afternoon is seduced in a game of power that puts their lives at risk.
Into the Blue Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic - Croatia
SYNOPSIS The story takes place during a summer day on the cliffs of an island. Two boys and two girls are taking a swim. They seem to be careless teens, but their characters are developing and forming complex love relationships. JULIA is in love with PJERO, who is intrigued by her, but fancies ANA. GRGUR secretly desires Julia. Rival emotions escalate to passive-aggressive game of truth and dare. It’s about the promise of love, the fear of loss and the birth of jealousy.
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Antoneta Kusijanovic antoneta.kusijanovic@gmail.com +914-364-6308 Barbara Vekarić vekaricb@gmail.com
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic Writer/Director Antoneta, majored producing from Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and is a screenwriting/ directing graduate at Columbia University. She directed short films Fearful Men, adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut story and Eye For An Eye. Is a Sarajevo City of Film fellow, Croatian Academy of America, Luksic Foundation, Caucus Foundation and Marcie Bloom.
Kids are cruel in the expression of emotion, without social and cultural opposition that society installs in us with years. The hierarchical order and power relations are based on instinct. They have leaders and they have followers. Retrospectively contemplating about that period, I see that children’s everyday life is full of potential dangers. My motivation is to explore it in this film.
Barbara Vekaric Producer She has a master’s degree in film and TV directing from Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. She created and directed travel-documentary series Couchsurfer Girl and directed 30 episodes of TV series Space Lab for Croatian National TV. Her short films First Lady of Dubrava and The Little Raccoon screened on more than 50 international film festivals and won numerous awards.
The camera changes perspective in extreme ways, from the top of the rock to the blue abyss of the underwater and back. I see the movie through the wide shots of nature and the blue surfaces; spindle-shaped silhouette of the magical underwater world, combined with the close-ups and almost macro details of the skin. The aim is to express the power and monumentality of nature in contrast to the fragile world of children. As drama in the film is grading, angles of nature are becoming harsher and harsher, drastic, and suggestively dangerous.
PRODUCTION NOTE Producer: Barbara Vekarić Production company: Motion (www.motion.hr) Secured financing: € 45,000 (Croatian Audiovisual Centre & The City of Dubrovnik) Looking for: Partners Location: Dubrovnik (known as ‘King’s Landing’ from Game of Thrones) island of Lokrum, both the land and under the sea
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An episodic, animated biopic of Kafka, inspired by rumours of his collection of upmarket pornography.
Kafka’s Collection of Porn Aristotelis Maragkos, Tom Floyd - Greece
SYNOPSIS We talk about Kafka... About his long-distance love affair, how he fell in love with her letters, projected an image between her lines… Then about his collection of porn. We meet him halfway. He looks like Kafka and wanders a cavernous mind. He finds our experiences – detritus from a millennial childhood – VHS tapes and our parents’ jazz, Pamela Anderson and vegetarianism. He writes – masturbates – dies. We like him. We want to liberate him from the text the world has imprisoned him in. Or at least laugh. There is no Law against it.
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Aristotelis Maragkos aristotelis.m@gmail.com +44(0)7542 635223 Tom Floyd tom_floyd@hotmail.co.uk +44(0)7706 956595
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Aristotelis Maragkos Director He was born in 1985 in Athens. He has written and directed several short films, including ‘If You Have No Place to Cry’ which won Best Newcomer at the Drama Film Festival 2011. He participated in Berlinale Talent Campus 2013, Locarno Film Academy 2013 and Toronto Film Lab 2013. His most recent film, the short animation ‘A Portrait’, has screened in festivals worldwide, including Encounters 2014, Telluride 2015 and Annecy 2015.
We will animate the scenes with two fluid lines. Two lines are a visual echo of ‘reading between the lines’ and let us explore the translation of text to image. Their simplicity creates a film space that presents thoughts like a stream of consciousness (fitting the texture of Kafka’s prose.) They also let us edit through metamorphosis rather than cuts, so transitions become more associational, freeform, or abstract, liberating us from truthful biography and allowing us to manipulate pace and scale. We can have escalating jokes and recurring motifs as well as ideas that interact with them, and we can experiment with the size of the human figure in relation to other figures or objects (such warping of scale being a major Kafka theme.)
Tom Floyd Writer He was born in 1986 in Northern Ireland. He studied at the London Film School where he met Aristotelis and they have collaborated on many projects since. ‘Kafka’s Collection of Porn’ is their first comedy.
Ours is a comedic take on Kafka and doesn’t lay claim to the merit of his work, or that of his biographers / critics, but we do have a serious interest in him and in the link between sexuality and writing. Perhaps our theme is obsession and frustration, that “All language is a poor translation.” Our primary focus is making jokes and we believe we can make a wide audience laugh and become curious about this great writer and 20th century icon.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Animated comedy Length: 8 minutes Language: English Looking for: Producer
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In a mountain village, Sara understands thanks to her grandfather that her family’s story is linked to the Spanish refugees who crossed the border during the Franco regime.
Memoria Leo Ponge - France
SYNOPSIS 1990 - Sara, twenty-five, arrives in an isolated Pyrenean village to bury her grandmother. She’s welcomed by her grandfather Josep, a ranch owner, who hardly talks about the past... They learn from one another and Sara understands what her father preferred to avoid. By facing the nature and the past, she discovers another facet of her grandmother, Marta, a strong woman committed to the Spanish civil war‌ Like in every quest, the path we use, the encounters we do and the certainty which disappears, matter as much as the revelations.
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Pelassy Laurine laurinepelassy@gmail.com (+33) 6 09 43 41 62
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Léo Ponge Writer/Director He studied at the ESAV, a public cinema school in Toulouse. In 2009, he became gaffer on feature films and cinematographer. In 2014, In Search of Bigfoot, his debut feature documentary was selected by many film festivals in France and abroad (Gindou, Aix-en-Provence, Eindhoven (Holland), Matsalu (Estonia)…). Memoria is his first fiction film.
During the “Retirada” in 1938, hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees fled Franco’s dictatorship and crossed the French border. Through Sara’s quest, I’d like to question our relationship to our past and the handover between generations. I want to film bodies and faces that reflect their own history. I want to experience these moments of silence, to work with those gazes, and what remains unsaid.
Laurine Pelassy Producer She founded Les Films de la Capitaine in 2012 to produce talented young directors and lead them from short to feature films. Business affairs executive at Rectangle Productions since 2007, she worked on twenty feature films with high artistic and market standards. She produced Léo Ponge’s first documentary In search of Bigfoot.
I wish to film the strange, heavy atmosphere that weighs down in an isolated mountain village. The reference to the Western isn’t far. In the harsh landscapes, horses, men and women are plunged into loneliness and confronted to the immensity and strength of nature… I will play with the lights of the day. The early dawn when mountain crests stand out of the sky, the afternoon when the sun is harsh and cutting, and lastly, the evening light with its beautiful blue hour. Memoria finds an echo with the actual migrants escaping from their country at war. How will they reconstruct themselves in another country and what about their children? I’d also like to raise awareness about not repeating the same mistakes.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama
Estimated budget: € 85,000
Length: 25 minutes Format: HD
Secured financing: Region Midi-Pyrénées € 18,000
Shooting days: 6 days between October and December 2016
Production company: Les Films de la Capitaine (France)
Shooting location: Pyrénées mountain (French- Financing Plan: Spanish border) Looking for: Sales Agent, National and Regional Fund, TV, Spanish Coproducer Language: French, Catalan 17
One morning, a cow appears in the kitchen of a perfect family.
Milk Daria Vlasova - Russia
SYNOPSIS The perfect family: Mother, Father, Daughter, Son and Grandad live on the 14th floor of an apartment block. One morning a cow appears in their kitchen. The cow avoids contact, doesn’t eat and does not shit. It just stays put between the dining table and refrigerator. Gradually, the family gets used to the cow and starts to lovingly call it Daisy. Everything is well until a slightly crazy Grandad kills Daisy, mistaking it for an enemy. To remove the cow from the kitchen, there is nothing left for the family to do but to chop it up and eat it.
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Yanna Buryak yanna@mimesis.productions +7 964 797 50 16
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Daria Vlasova Writer/Director In 2014 she graduated from VGIK in Moscow (directing faculty led by V. V. Menshov and V. I. Tumaeva). Daria has participated in many programs, such as Berlinale Talent Campus, Generation Campus (Moscow), Interdoc (Serbia), Workshop with Shirin Neshat (London Film School), Université d’été (La Fémis, France) and others. Her graduation film “Freemasons” (2014) won multiple awards at festivals around the world.
A cow is the kindest animal I can imagine, with its wise calm eyes and imperturbable chewing. The story is not based on reallife events. A cow has never made an appearance in my kitchen. I don’t even know how I would react. I guess I would be shocked. Or not. The boy in our story says “maybe the cow has always been there, we just never noticed.” That’s exactly what inspired me to tell the story. What if we all have an invisible cow in our apartment? There’s always a possibility of a miracle, right? The question is “Are we ready for it?”
Yanna Buryak Producer She is a driven, creative producer pursuing both experimental and commercial filmmaking with expertise across UK, French, Greek & Russian markets. A MET Film School London graduate. She has to her credit 6 completed projects in 2 years, including 2 award winning short films. Main award winning works include: Fedor’s Journey Through Moscow at the Turn of the XXI Century (2015) and Ruslan (2014).
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Absurdist Comedy Length: 10 minutes Budget: € 25,000 Secured financing: 75% funds secured Production Company: Okta Film - www. oktafilm.it Looking for: Co-producers to assist us with post-production
Designing and constructing a set for the world of the film Filming a live cow inside the setting Using CGI graphics to draw the view out of the window and ceiling A pyrotechnician and 2 child actors involved Composing original soundtrack 19
On mother’s day, a group of socially disadvantaged teenagers have a tradition of stealing flowers to give to their mothers. This year, Nerka does not know where his mother is, but he is determined to find her.
Mother’s Day Kamile Milašiute, Tekle Kavtaradze - Lithuania
SYNOPSIS On mother’s day, 16-year-old Nerka, with his other friends from lower class families, have a tradition of stealing flowers to give to their mothers. Even though this year is different for Nerka, as his mother has lost her legal rights to take care of him and lives somewhere else, he is still determined to greet her, convinced that the situation is not her fault. However, the journey to find his mother reveals a different truth – his mother willingly gave up her rights to take care of him and has already begun a ‘new life’.
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Marija Fridinovaitė fridinovaite@gmail.com +37067801868
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Kamile Milašiūtė Director She graduated from Directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre – her short film, After Rave, participated in many film festivals, including San Sebastian.
This script is based on real stories told by socially disadvantaged teenagers who gather every day at a youth centre near the bus station in Vilnius. On my first visit to the centre I was warned to be careful – according to the social workers, these teenagers are prone to aggression and theft, but once I actually started talking to them I observed a very different side. The teenagers opened up and talked about the reasons why they come to the youth centre, of which many are dependent due to either their hostile home environments or poverty; some of the teenagers have been taking care of their younger siblings and disabled parents from an early age. One of the stories that struck me most was their tradition of stealing flowers on Mother’s day to congratulate their mothers, which not all of them had – it seemed to be a striking case of how aggression can come from idealistic pursuits. I want to make a film where beauty and wonder clash with the difficult circumstances these teens are faced with and leave the characters with hope and promise, which the teens radiate in reality, instead of the gloom and violence with which they are usually visualised by society.
Teklė Kavtaradze Writer She graduated from Screenwriting at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and now she works as a freelance screenwriter and playwright. She was the co-writer for one feature film and several short films that have participated in various festivals and workshops. Marija Fridinovaitė Producer graduated from Film management at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and now works as a freelance producer, production manager and coordinator.
PRODUCTION NOTE Length: 15 minutes
Financing plan: € 15,000 – Lithuanian Film Center
Format: HD
€ 5,000 – Investment of the company
Language: Lithuanian
€ 20,000 – co-producer (looking for)
Genre: Social drama
Budget: € 40,000 Production company: Čiobreliai
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The myth of Ondine revisited through three stories revolving around the incurable illness of a young man.
Ondine Tomasz Sliwinski - Poland
SYNOPSIS Three people, three stories, all revolving around the medical condition of Cezary (22) who suffers from a rare, incurable illness called Ondine’s Curse - he stops breathing during his sleep and has to be connected to a ventilator. He lives with his overprotective Mother (50). He hides his illness from his girlfriend Emilia (20), a rock singer, as he is afraid of rejection. One evening he decides to spend the whole night at her place. In the morning she finds him unconscious in her bed. This event changes relationship between all three characters.
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Tomasz Śliwiński tomasz.a.sliwinski@gmail.com +48 501511938 Magdalena Sztorc magda@beforemyeyes.pl +48 604488054
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Tomasz Śliwiński Writer/Director Writer and director based in Warsaw. He is a graduate of Warsaw Film School and Wajda School of Film Directing in Warsaw. His previous short film “Our Curse” has been awarded at many international film festivals and was nominated for an Oscar Academy Award 2015 in the field of Documentary Short Subject.
This story is about self-acceptance, love and sacrifice. It takes up the problem of disabled people, who often, without the regard for their own limits, try to live a normal life. This problem does not only concern the disabled person himself but also people around him, like Cezary’s mother and his girlfriend Emilia. Therefore the film will consist of 3 independent stories revolving around Cezary’s condition, each presented from the perspective of each of the characters. Cezary has to grow up to accept his own limitations, Emilia has to confront a new situation and decide whether she wants to stay in a relationship with Cezary and Mother has to refine her overprotective approach towards her son. At the same time each episode will continue the previous one, thus altogether creating one coherent story related to the myth of Ondine, the water nymph who put a curse on a mortal who betrayed her, so that he would breathe only as long as he remembered it. I am interested in this topic primarily because I am also a parent of a 5-year old boy that suffers from this condition. I’ve already taken up the issue of this illness in my documentary film “Our Curse” (2013).
Magdalena Sztorc Producer Co-owner of the production company Before My Eyes based in Warsaw. She produced the short narrative film “Fragments” by Agnieszka Woszczyńska, which was selected for Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in 2014. She also works as a programmer of the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław, Poland.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama
Budget: € 60,000
Length: 30 minutes
Production company: Before My Eyes
Format: HD
Looking for: Co-producer, international sales agent, broadcasting partners
Language: Polish Shooting location: Poland Shooting days: 9
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Two kids escape to the forest to explore their gender identity and friendship through make believe.
Our House Our Rules Eoin Maher - Ireland
SYNOPSIS In a homemade playhouse in the forest Niamh and Oisin play dress up. Niamh, a girl, want to be soldier and Oisin, a boy, wants to be a princess. As they are pretending to fight imaginary dragons and armies they feel free from the constraints of what a boy and a girl are supposed to be until they impose those assumptions on each other. The other boys and girls make fun of them for not being ‘normal’. It’s this that bonds them together but as they explore who they are, can they hold on to the friendship that protects them from the outside world?
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Eoin Maher eoinvmaher@gmail.com +447794757191
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Eoin Maher Writer/Director I grew up in Dublin, Ireland where I studied English Literature and Film Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Originally I wanted to be a writer because I loved stories and storytelling but after studying film I became obsessed with that as my medium. I moved to London to study filmmaking at London Film School. My graduation film has been screened at festivals all over the world and won me the Filmmaker of the Future Award at Rhode Island Int. Film Festival. I am interested in taking part in the emerging conversation around gender, sexuality and social politics that I believe is self expression at its purest. LGBT films are no longer for niche audiences.
This film is about how important friendship is when you’re different. From an early age we are fed a lot of ideas of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to act and that is reenforced by our peers. When we have someone on our side is when we can break free. My intention is to show how gender stereotypes are our way of exploring who we are but they can only guide you so far and often hinder you. These stereotypes are most acute when it comes to children and what we say they should and shouldn’t do. Girls don’t fight and boys don’t cry... except they do. I want to show the world from the perspective of these children. We’ll be shooting at low angles, at their level and saturating the colours to give a sense of magical realism (without the actual magic). Most people I know played make believe when they were children. I want to use that as a way into a conversation about gender expectation. Having issues with your gender identity might seem foreign to many but I want to show you how much you might have in common with these kids.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama Shooting on: Alexa (through Filmstead) Length: 15 minutes Budget: £20,000 Looking for: An Ireland or England based producer
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Katerina’s most important roles in life will collide over the phone.
Patision Avenue Thanasis Neofotistos - Greece
SYNOPSIS Katerina, a 35-year-old woman, is heading towards the most important audition of her life. Suddenly, her mobile rings and her 6-year-old son, YANNIS tells her that he is home alone. She calls everyone she knows for help, but no one seems able or willing. As she arrives at the audition, Yannis calls to tell her that he has started cooking and then hangs up. Her son may be in danger and is not returning her calls and her leaving the audition may be catastrophic for her career. Katerina is faced with a difficult choice.
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Thanasis Neofotistos thanasisneofotistos@mail.com +30 6936227090 Kyveli Short kyvelialikishort@hotmail.com +30 6978945478
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Thanasis Neofotistos Writer/Director He initially studied Architecture and continued with Film Directing and Acting. PROSEFHI: Greek School Prayer, his thesis film, has been selected by many important international film festivals, including 21st Encounters, 26th Sao Paulo, 23rd Raindance, and it won the Golden Dionysus Award at the 37th Drama SFF. His latest short, Pogoniskos, won the Best Documentary Award in Greece. He is an alumnus of the 2016 Berlinale Talents. He is now in the pre-production stage of his debut feature film, a dark fairy-tale.
Patision Avenue takes place in the center of Athens. This avenue used to be the nexus of a bourgeois area, but in 2016, it shows the ugly face of Greece’s crisis. Katerina, a single mother and an aspiring actress, while walking down this avenue, will have to balance the priorities pertaining to her roles and choices in life.
Kyveli Short Producer She graduated from King’s College London in 2014. Since then, she has worked on three feature films as second assistant director and on a couple of short films as production assistant. She is currently working at Anemon Productions in Athens and is co-director of the San Francisco Greek Film Festival.
An experience I had, while walking down this avenue, lost in a phone call, gave rise to the following thought: in the modern cities that we build, where everything happens at a furious pace, a single stimulus is capable of diverting our course. I wanted to find out what might happen when the stimulus is too strong and it becomes difficult to distinguish where you came from and, even more importantly, where you were heading to?
By shooting it in a single long take, Katerina’s mounting agony will be vividly portrayed. The uncertainty and the suspense will come through, helping the viewer empathize with her. Katerina is the only person that appears in the film, while all the other characters come as voices, only to her, via her mobile phone.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama, Narrative Fiction Length: 15 minutes Shooting: One long take shot-sequence, 1:2.35 HD
Screenwriters: George Angelopoulos & Pavlos Sifakis Estimated budget: € 30,000
Location: Patision Avenue, Athens, Greece
Secured financing: € 15,000 (Equipment and technical services)
Language: Greek
€ 5,000 (Private investment)
Production company: t-shOrt Producer: Kyriakos Chatzimichailidis
Looking for: Co-producers, distributors, sales agents, financiers. 27
Sisters Leah and Esther were raised in a cult. Now stranded in the real world, Leah will do anything to go home.
Pilgrim Charlotte Wolf - UK
SYNOPSIS Leah (16) wakes her sister Esther (7) in a perfect suburban foster home and tells her they are not safe, they must run away. The two girls set off on a journey into the night. Together they must cross a country they don’t understand. They share strange rituals and they believe other people are damned. But while Leah is desperate to return to the isolated cult where they grew up, Esther likes the world beyond it. Their journey will force Leah to betray her beliefs and eventually to choose - her sister or her faith.
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Charlotte Wolf Charlotte.h.wolf@gmail.com +44 (0)7764 498042
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Charlotte Wolf Writer/Director Charlotte studied English Literature at the University of Oxford and Princeton and works as a freelance drama development researcher and script reader in London. Her short film ‘Boy’ premiered at the London Short Film Festival in 2016 and she is currently completing a short documentary about retiring prostitute ‘Sally’. As a writer she is developing several scripts including a feature ‘White Night’ shortlisted for Film London’s Microwave scheme in 2016, and an original TV drama series in development with Company Pictures. She is represented by Olivia Gray at Independent Talent.
Pilgrim is a strange and beautiful road movie about two young girls travelling between two worlds. At the beginning we don’t know exactly where they are going, but through their relationship with each other and reaction to the people they meet we begin to see there is something very wrong with these girls and this journey. I want to use Leah’s physical journey to explore an emotional one, as she finally begins to question her beliefs and through her sister’s eyes, to see the world in a new light. The film will reflect Leah and Esther’s experience, balancing moments of innocence and beauty with a growing tension and sense of unease. It is a story about belief and growing up, inspired partly by my fascination with cults and partly by my own teenage years. When I was Leah’s age I also questioned the beliefs I grew up with and I know how difficult this can be at a time we are also discovering so many other things about ourselves. I want to explore how faith can strengthen and unite people, but also how it can become corrupted and make people do terrible things. Like all of us, as Leah grows up she will have to choose what she believes in and who she really is.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama Length: 15-20 minutes Shooting place: UK Estimated budget: £15,000 Looking for: UK Producer, co-production opportunities
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In an isolated farm in the Brazilian forest, Alice welcomes the awakening of desire while her mother faces the inevitability of aging.
Selvagem Victoria Visco Mendonรงa - Brazil / France
SYNOPSIS Cachoeiras de Macacu, Brazil. Five women reunite in an old farm in the jungle to witness the last moments of life of the family patriarch. With no men amongst them, and with the wild forest and rivers to explore, a mother has to face the aging of her body while her own daughter grows into a woman. Between tales of nymphs and nightmares creeping through the door, the group is soon to be contaminated by the febrile nature of the summer forest, realizing the impossibility of escaping from their own nature.
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Martin Gondre martin@chasseacourts.com + 33 6 72 23 27 18
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Victoria Visco Mendonça Writer/Director Brazilian-Italian director. After working as a producer and assistant director in music videos, shorts and features such as Anita Rocha da Silveiras’s The Living Dead (Director’s Fortnight 2012); she went to Paris to follow a Master’s in Directing. Her graduation film, She Walks, premiered at the IFFR 2015. Based in London, she works as researcher and creative assistant to directors at RSA Films.
I wrote this film because I was looking for a connection with nature that I felt I had lost. I would watch the relationships between the women in my family and imagine them as part of an ancient tribe. It is no secret how women have been associated with nature. From Mother earth, bearer of life, to virgin forest waiting to be discovered. Playing with symbols of genre, I want to explore different myths around the relationship of women and nature: Nymphs, Sirens, Bacchantes, Witches… Different names given in different times to women who were not apart from the nature that lives in them. Growing up in Brazil, with many pagan religions and knowledges covered by Catholicism and patriarchy, I want to make a film about a family of women who gather to welcome their young ones, before they become women. In this film, blood is welcomed and it doesn’t mean wrong. It is no sin. Blood, sexuality, aging, death...They are part of one’s nature that cannot be escaped. This is nature for humans as it is for animals. The nature, in this sense, is the catalyst, for the women to release themselves from any inflicted ropes. To welcome sexuality, and to welcome what is wild inside them.
Winocour.
Martin Gondre Producer Martin works as festivals & sales manager at Indie Sales with films such as Disorder by Alice
Charles Bin Co-founder Works with producers, in Paris & Brussels, on setting up int. co-productions. Together, they have produced with Chasse à Courts the web doc. Des Pianos dans Paris and Victoria’s first short.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama, art house, fantastic
Secured financing: € 5,000 (production company)
Length: 20 minutes
Production company: Chasse à Courts
Format: HD
Crew: DoP
Language: Brazilian Portuguese
Production status: In pre-production
Shooting period: Fall 2016
Looking for: Co-producers, Funds
Shooting location: Cachoeiras de Macacu (Rio de Janeiro - Brazil)
Seeking partners from: Brazil, Benelux, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Worldwide
Estimated budget: € 40,000 31
A dramedy about how getting what you want can be a bitch.
Steif (Hard-on) Jacques Molitor - Luxembourg
SYNOPSIS Steve, nicknamed « Steif/hard-on », (38) likes to pretend he has it all to cover up how inadequate he really feels. After a loaded office party, he’s saddled with driving home beautiful, smart colleague Laurence (27) - the boss’s affair and his secret crush. She’s all he’s ever dreamt of, yet Steve can’t stop making a fool of himself. Both of them will spend the rest of the night finding out that loneliness is in the eye of the beholder and that it’s not always best to get what you want.
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Jacques Molitor jacques.molitor@gmail.com (+35)2661963775
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Jacques Molitor Writer/Director He graduated in directing from IAD film school in Belgium in 2005 after a brief dalliance with medicine. His first professional short “With the Dust”, about the limits of friendship in life and death, was screened in competition at Locarno in 2008. Since then, Jacques has directed a feature documentary (“Sweetheart Come”) about sexual mores in Luxembourg, as well as his first fiction feature “Mammejong” about an unhealthy relationship between a mother and her adult son. Jacques has also co-created the new documentary series “routwäissgro”, screened monthly on RTL.
I’ve always wanted to do a comedy about sad things: loneliness, compensating for your shortcomings, wearing a mask to cope with society: funny stuff! I’m interested in people who are driven by a need to pretend to connect with others, because deep down they hate themselves. What does a guy who always fishes for attention do when he goes home and sits on his couch? What would that same guy do when he finally gets to go home with the girl of his dreams? And what if she’s not a “bimbo”, but an intelligent, sharp businesswoman who challenges his chauvinist prejudices? The comedy will come from the gap that exists between Steve’s grandiose image of himself and how people actually see him. These moments will be cringe-inducing and pathetic at first, but later reveal what loneliness can make us do. For me, comedy doesn’t mean laughing all the time: I also want to make the audience feel empathy. It is primordial that after first laughing at Steve, they will in the end understand his pain. The style of the film will be realistic, almost documentary: light equipment, long takes, no use of extra-diegetic music.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Comedy (live-action) Length: 18 minutes Format: HD Language: Luxembourgish Shooting days: 6 Budget: € 20,000
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The human attempt to remove the blame nullified by the technological fault and the power of image. The story of a glitch.
(s)words Federico Di Corato - Italy
SYNOPSIS Anna is just a teenager and she’s already an ex-promising fencer. She finds herself stuck in a limbo, unable to win and forced by her mother to re-watch each of her failures on video tapes. Due to a glitch, the past reappears in the parts of the tapes that have not been overwritten, revealing fragments of the last holiday before the separation of her parents. Anna will try to delete her own failures and the fault of her mother hidden in the past, overwriting the tapes with the unique and redemptive image of Nina, her first love.
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Federico Di Corato federicodicorato@gmail.com +39 3888561283 Okta Film info@oktafilm.it +39 3923841494
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Federico Di Corato Writer/Director He obtained a BA in Film & New Media from NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan). His first short La baracca (27’, 2014) is the first part of a trilogy about the aesthetics and formats of amateur filmmaking. It premiered at 67 Locarno FF.
(s)words is the second chapter of a trilogy whose intention is to analyze the formats and aesthetics of home movies, using their language within works of fiction.
Graziana Di Santo Production manager She produced La baracca and has been collaborating with Federico Di Corato on the development of the project (s)words. Paolo Benzi Producer Okta Film chooses creative indiscipline, blends of genres, friction and conflict of languages. Films produced: L’Estate di Giacomo - Alessandro Comodin (78’, 2011), Redemption - Miguel Gomes (26’, 2013), The Other Side by Roberto Minervini (92’, 2015).
The home movie, as a form of amateur filmmaking, comes from the need to establish an epic of the daily life. It includes the family in a cinematic story which could be enjoyed posthumously and privately, allowing the identification of each member as part of an evolutionary process, as if images were saying: look how we were happy, and still we are! What happens when life sets aside a different future? What is the feeling in finding a tape believed lost and then watch ourselves again in a reality that is no longer recognized in that way? Which emotions will be felt in front of the hypocrisy of those smiles? Arising from a filmic reflection on the theme of memory, (s)words is an intimate portrait of adolescence through the eyes of a teenager.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Short Fiction Length: 20 minutes Format: VHS, HD Video Estimated budget: € 80,000
Waiting for: € 25,000 (Italian Ministry of Culture, April 2016) Looking for: Co-producers and international sales agent
Production company: Okta Film - www. oktafilm.it Secured financing: € 5,000 - Milano Film Network 35
A 50-year-old woman is ready to do everything to prevent her only son from going to war.
The Call-up Masha Kondakova - Ukraine
SYNOPSIS In 2015, it is war in Eastern Ukraine. More and more young men are called to join the army. Elena (47) is hopeless because her only son Sasha (18) received a military call-up. She tried every-thing to prevent him from joining the army but the time of departure has arrived. On a last desperate attempt, Elena seeks help from an old friend with a past as a gangster. She wants to hire someone to attack her son and break his arm. The man agrees as he still has warm feelings for her. But everything goes wrong when Sasha kills the attacker.
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Dennis Ivanov producer@arthousetraffic.com +38-050-386-83-95
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Masha Kondakova Writer/Director She is a 26-year-old writer/director born and graduated in Kiev currently living in Paris. In 2014 she directs her first short film, LYSTOPAD. So far it has been selected in more than 40 international film festivals including Locarno and Clermont-Ferrand and won 11 awards.
I believe that this war has its roots buried deep into the inner history of my country. With this family drama I want to show how the split between people can create violence even within a mother and son who love each other.
Denis Ivanov Producer He has made 3 feature films and over 40 shorts. As a coproducer, he was involved in the TRIBE, the film by Myroslav Slaboshpitskiy, Grand-Prix of Cannes’ Critics week 2014.
Elena is a lonely mother. Her husband left her for another woman and the only person who is important for her is Sasha. She was born in the USSR and is a typical character from Svetlana Alexievitch’s books. The fall of the Soviet Union has destroyed her life. She doesn’t believe in politics anymore. For her there is no ideal for which people should die. Sasha was born when Ukraine became independent. He’s been expelled from university because he missed the exams doing the revolution in Maidan. Now he doesn’t work and chills with his friends in the neighbourhood. When he receives the military call-up, he feels useful again. The possibility of getting out of his mother’s control and show his father that he is a man, creates an unknown inner strength that convinces him to go to war and ultimately makes him able to kill.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama Length: 15 minutes Shooting location: Ukraine Estimated Budget: € 27,000
Financing Plan: Apply to Ukrainian state film agency (50%), 1.85 films (15%) Looking for: Co-producers, sales agents, funds, investors
Production Company: Arthouse Traffic (Ukraine) Producers: Denis Ivanov (Ukraine), Julien Berlan (France) 37
A woman burdened by guilt creates her own world to survive, not aware it’s killing her.
The Hoarder Leen Vandereyken - Belgium
SYNOPSIS An elderly woman blames herself for the dead of her daughter 20 years ago. Burdened by guilt, she develops a hoarding behavior as a way of keeping her daughter ‘alive’. The house is mainly stuffed with teddy bears and toys, and is neglected inside as well outside. The neighborhood complains, unpaid bills pile up, and after several warnings she has only one week to clean up or she will lose everything. Due to a trick of a social assistant she realizes she has to act now, and the only way to be redeemed from her guilt and situation is to die.
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Leen Vandereyken leenvdr@gmail.com +32(0)495888112 Frederik De Wilde f.d.w.angelfire@gmail.com +32(0)476717020
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Leen Vandereyken Writer She started as an actress before she became a fulltime creative writer. She has written several books and works as a ghostwriter for publishers, translates children books and provided creative content for the production company Studio 100. ‘The Hoarder’ will be her first screenplay to be filmed.
The Hoarder is a dark visual poem with shreds of absurdity dealing with loss, guilt and punishment as the main leitmotifs. It’s about a woman who is tormented by guilt, consumed by loss. To deal with these emotions she develops an obsessive compulsive hoarding behavior. Hoarding gives her a temporary relief from guilt while keeping her deep emotional connection with her daughter alive.
Frederik De Wilde Director He is an interdisciplinary artist acting on the border of art science and technology. His experimental short Sievert Rising combines found footage and computer generated 3D visuals made with custom open source software for artistic data visualization. His most famous art project is the Blackest-Black in collaboration with NASA.
After 20 years of hoarding she created a world wherein she can survive. It is an imaginary world in a terribly cluttered, yet fascinating, house which functions simultaneously as a mausoleum, a moving labyrinth, a safe-zone and a trap wherein she can hide and deal with her emotions. We are fascinated by eccentric characters and outsiders like hoarders. After seeing countless TV programs about this subject, we found ourselves intrigued by the discrepancy between their perceived reality and the tragic situation they live in. Through a cinematographic experience we want to reveal something deeper and more complex of their psyche, behavior, and by extension consumer society.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Live action drama Length: 13 minutes Language: Dutch (English subtitles) Estimated budget: € 100,000 Applying for funding in Flanders end of February Producer: Ben Vandendaele – BEKKE FILMS / RADIATOR IP Sales (BE)
Producer contact: bekkefilms@gmail.com +32(0) 477632746 Looking for: A brilliant production manager who wants to work in Belgium; everyone insane enough to contribute to the project is welcome; hoarders who want to lend their stuff, or temporarily their house; and by the way we need ten thousand teddy bears.
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A father and son story shaped through love and violence.
The van Erenik Beqiri - Albania
SYNOPSIS The city looks dead. Soundless. The Van shows up in the horizon disturbing the monotonous feeling of peace, quietly driving around the streets of Tirana, going through its precise route. Nobody suspects that the Van has been turned into a bloody ring where people enter and fight each other for money. This is the story of Ben, a boy in his early 20’s and his fight for a better future. He’s been successfully fighting inside the Van to save money, but the sudden illness of his estranged father makes Ben’s plans more complicated.
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Beqiri Erenik iaa.project@gmail.com (+35)5674054516 Keta Ermir ermir.keta@anima.al (+35)5692069852
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Erenik Beqiri Writer/Director Graduated from the Academy of Arts in Tirana, for Film & TV Directing with Seed Money, a short film written by Jim Uhls (Fight Club). He’s currently in postproduction of his new short film Bon Appetit. For over four years has been working in Advertising, covering different roles such as directing, editing and writing.
Even though the story is set in Albania I believe there is a universal appeal to the father and son relationship that the story tries to tell. For me it is important to shift the attention toward the characters to see the violent and human part of them and how it merges and shapes them.
Ermir Keta Producer Graduated as a Director in Milano ‘s “Scuola di Cinema Televisione e Nuovi Media”. Ermir has worked with some of Italy’s major TV stations, such as Rai, Mediaset, MTV and La7; production houses such as “Magnolia” and “Endemol”, as well as numerous domestic and internationally-directed movies. Works in advertising for more than seven years.
The Van displays itself not only as a bloody ring but also as a visual metaphor of the dreams that people have for a better future. These dreams are trapped in a violent box that can be opened only through bloodshed. These are reflected through Ben’s journey to leave Albania. I find the subject matter to be both overwhelming and deeply affecting, as it tells the complex story of Ben and his broken family and what leads them into making these choices. Ben is a trapped character followed by invisible walls that run along with him wherever he goes, from the bloody sprayed walls of the van to his cave like home, and hospital. Ultimately these walls have slowly progressed to trap his emotions. The raw brutality presented in the script tries to reach the corruption of innocence.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama; Thriller CAST: Sandor Funtek (La vie d’Adèle; Dheepan); Arben Bajraktaraj (Taken; Harry Potter; Sarah’s Key)
Looking for: Co-Producers; Post-Production; Pre-Sales
Estimated budget: € 35,000 Secured financing: € 6,000 (Private Investor) Applying to the National Film Fund. Production company: Anima Pictures 41
A 20-year-old transgender girl travels back to her Hungarian village to face the family she last saw when she was still a boy.
The Virgin of Lost Causes Sándor Funtek - Hungary
SYNOPSIS Anna is a 20-year-old transsexual beauty living in the Pigalle district of Paris. Before the final step of her transformation she decides to go back home to her remote Hungarian village and face her family, whom she last saw when she was still a boy. She arrives in the snowy village during a traditional feast, where her father refuses to acknowledge her and her grandmother does not even recognise her. She can only count on her sister’s understanding comfort. During the traditional killing of a pig, the hostile attitude of the villagers towards the one they used to know as István leads to Anna’s tragic ending.
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Osvath Gabor gosvath@gmail.com (+36)306677613
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Sándor Funtek Writer/Director Born in Paris in 1990 to a Hungarian father and a French mother, Sándor studied at ATLA School of Music and later at the Studio d’Asnières drama school. As an actor he has had roles in movies like ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ (La vie d’Adèle) and ‘Dheepan’, as well as in numerous short films. His interest has only recently turned to writing and directing, with another short film underway at the beginning of summer this year.
The difficult relationship I had with my Hungarian father strongly influenced my wish to tell this story: the only reason Anna goes back home is to get her father’s acceptance. However, pride and prejudice are a terrible waste of time and can lead to destruction, which is eventually what happens to her. By destroying her male self, she also ends up destroying her female self.
Gábor Osváth Producer Born in 1985, Gábor studied at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest before founding his company, Filmfabriq, in 2012. As a producer, his focus has been on authordriven short films and documentaries, with his first feature fiction currently in preproduction. His most recent films include the feature music doc ‘Balaton Method’ and the French-Hungarian short animation ‘LOVE’, in competition at Berlinale Shorts.
When I met Magda, a transgender prostitute from Pigalle who inspired this story, I was moved by her difficulties with regard to her Tunisian culture. She had strength, determination and courage. She believed in God even if He had not created her as she wanted. Sadly, Magda passed away last year. This film pays homage to her. From colourful Pigalle to the monotonous and grey streets of the Hungarian village, I wish to enhance Anna’s power and beauty by filming her like a fashion queen, in contradiction with the plain and quaint villagers. I want the emotion to come from these oppositions as well as from a pure and simple way of filming, without too much intervention by music or any other element that might distract the audience.
PRODUCTION NOTE Length: 20-22 minutes Shooting days: 7 Shooting language: French, Hungarian Shooting location: Hungary Expected filming dates: Jan./Feb. 2017
Funding: CNC and Médiamecenatúra in Hungary are our main targets in financing (applying later this year with a new draft). The cheaper costs in Hungary and the Hungarian tax rebate will allow us to make the movie on a modest budget.
Budget: € 75,000
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Teenage alligator Lucille tries to get closer to her dad Bill helping him out on tour with his band, but Bill’s narcissistic personality gets in the way.
Trouble in Mind Marlyn Spaaij - The Netherlands
SYNOPSIS After her parents’ recent divorce 14-year-old alligator Lucille comes to spend the summer on tour with her dad Bill, a blues guitarist with a narcissistic personality. Lucille looks up to Bill and is excited to spend a long period of time with him. She tries hard to please her dad, even turning on her mom. But as she tries harder, Lucille learns that being close to Bill means neglecting her own happiness to serve his. Once she understands why her mom left, Lucille comes to the same decision. She leaves Bill, taking his guitar with her.
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Marlyn Spaaij m.spaaij@gmail.com +31 647264049 Jantiene de Kroon jantiene@mooves.nl +31 645618669
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Marlyn Spaaij Writer/Director Worked on several big animation productions over the past years, as a character animator on Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) and Triple Trouble (2014), and storyboard artist on Woozle & Pip the Movie (2016). She holds two Master’s degrees in animation, from the Utrecht School of the Arts and St. Joost Academy. The short animated film Trouble in Mind, currently in development, marks her debut as a writer/director.
Trouble in Mind is an animated comingof-age drama for a young adult audience in which teenager Lucille ends up cutting off contact with her dad. For many people such a decision is hard to comprehend, because after all, your parents will always be your parents. But if staying loyal to your dad or mom means putting them before yourself, I find that ending that relationship is justifiable - and even necessary.
Mooves (Jantiene de Kroon) Producer Mooves is an awardwinning production studio creating animated shorts, comic strips and illustrated stories.
The world that Lucille and her dad live in is human-like, but all the characters are anthropomorphic reptiles. This roughness inherent to reptiles strengthens the film’s gritty realism, as well as the personalities of the characters, especially the emotionlessness of Bill. The use of animals as characters also prevents the viewer judging the film’s characters by their looks in a way you would human beings (choice of clothing, body size, skin colour, etc.), instead allowing the viewer to focus on the behaviour of the characters and to project more of himself onto the characters. story of Lucille I hope Trouble in Mind will be able to offer support to young adults who find or have found themselves in a similar situation.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Drama, coming-of-age
Status: In development
Length: 8-10 minutes
Looking for: International co-producer (espeTechnique: 2D hand-drawn computer animation cially from Benelux/France), distributor, sales agent, festival programmers Language: English Estimated budget: € 100,000 Producers: Jantiene de Kroon (Mooves), Tünde Vollenbroek (Studio Pupil) 45
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work in progress PITCH
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A young couple is going through the experience of fostering a “Chernobyl Child”. This gesture of altruism soon proves to have other reasons: the inability to have a child is undermining their relationship.
Chernobyl Franco Dipietro - Italy
SYNOPSIS Cristiano (30) is married and in love with Anna (30), but he’s going to lose her because he knows his infertility makes him unable to give her a child. Cristiano suggests a solution to Anna: fostering a “Chernobyl Child.” That’s how Viktor (9) arrives in their home. Cristiano quickly finds a connection with the little boy and so Anna. But unspeakable thoughts break through the couple’s mind. Peer pressure begins to be unbearable and Cristiano’s frustration bursts out in rage as he desperately tries to transform himself into a father.
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Emanuela Barbano emanuela.barbano@duelfilm.com +39.329.41.955.46 Franco Dipietro franco.dipietro@duelfilm.com +39.347.87.53.144
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Franco Dipietro Director Director. Producer. Born in 1978. Selected for European Short Pitch in 2008. The short “The change” has been screened at “Semaine De La Critique” in 2010. Selected for Script&Pitch Torino Film Lab 2010. Berlinale Talents 2013. The short “Ruggero” won Capalbio Film Festival in 2013 and has been bought by Canal + for international broadcasting. His recent feature film project is among the 12 finalist selected by “Premio Solinas”, the most important Italian scripwriting award and has been selected by Sources2 Lab.
I think the idea of writing a film like Chernobyl came to me on the day when my best friend told me he had been trying to have a baby for two years. He never mentioned that before, nor their difficulties about having one. My friend’s story is quite a common one. Nobody forgets to have children: it’s usually either a positive choice or there’s a raw and painful battle dragging on behind the scenes. Infertility is a deeply private experience, something most of us wrangling with never discuss. Fertility, on the other hand, is not. “Do you think you’ll ever have a baby?” “You two should hurry up and have kids.” “Best thing I ever did.” “I know what you career man are like.” I want infertility to be more openly discussed, as a personal matter and as a sign of the physical decadence of human kind as a specie. In the last 30 years fertility has gone down by an overall 20%. Chernobyl happened 30 years ago. I think we all are “Chernobyl Child”, we should face it.
PRODUCTION NOTE Producers: Emanuela Barbano and Franco Dipietro Overall budget: € 60,000 Post production Budget (estimated, including music composition, compositing and color correction): € 12,000
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Chameleons change colour to demonstrate their interest in the other sex.
Mind My Mind Floor Adams - The Netherlands
SYNOPSIS Museum guard Chris camouflages his social limitations and his obsession with Stuka dive bombers, together with a little guy in his head (Hans) who prepares his social scripts. When chameleon expert Gwen invites Chris to take a look at her favourite chameleon, he and Hans expeditiously move ahead with a flirt script. When the chameleon dies and Gwen turns to Chris for support, he must show his true colours.
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Floor Adams mail@flooradams.nl +31 (0)6 40482020 Willem Thijssen willem@cinete.nl +31 (0)6 29454950
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Floor Adams Director After graduating cum laude in 2005 at the department of Fine Arts at the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, Floor Adams worked on commission for Public Broadcasting, MTV, the Dutch Government, publishers and documentary filmmakers. Her art has been on display in museums, galleries and at film festivals. Floor also worked as an animation teacher and was a member of several creative advice committees.
Mind My Mind is about how having a brain wired differently affects your social and love life. Flirting, sex and relationships are challenging for people with Asperger’s syndrome, as they are associated with unwritten rules and exceptions. The idea for this film is a result of the director’s professional and personal experiences with people with different forms of autism.
Willem Thijssen Producer He graduated in 1973 at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam, specialising in production and directing. His most famous productions are ‘A Greek Tragedy’ by Nicole van Goethem and ‘Father and Daughter’ by Michael Dudok de Wit, which both won an Oscar for Best Animated Short.
Chris, the main character, deals with his social and emotional limitations together with Hans, a little guy who lives inside Chris’s head and who serves as an information processor. In his unique way, Hans tries to help Chris survive the social jungle, with sensory overload as their mutual enemy. Mind My Mind offers insight into the autistic mind: an abstract world for most people. The 2D hand-drawn animation, changing colour schemes, expressive lighting, dynamic pacing and original score add to this experience. It is an optimistic film that encourages people to be patient with each other. It reminds us that if you don’t judge too quickly, you might find something beautiful.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Animation, drama, comedy, romance Length: 28 minutes Format: 2K CinemaScope Language: English
Production company: CinéTé Filmproduktie & Floor Adams Animation Project supported by: the Netherlands Film Fund, the province of Gelderland and the province of Overijssel, the City of Nijmegen
Technique: Hand-drawn animation, 2D computer Looking for: Co-producer, postproduction, distribution, sales Estimated budget: € 248.800 Secured financing: € 161.000
Website project: www.mindmymind.nl 51
Growing up is not easy. You have to get used to your “new“ body and take more serious responsabilities. There is nothing you can do about it.
Volte Monika Kotecka, Karolina Poryzała (kurkot kollektiv) - Poland
SYNOPSIS Zuzia (12) has been training vaulting for two years and has extraordinary role topping the acrobatic pyramid. She is “flyer” lifted by the stronger and more experienced vaulters-“base”. Another intensive season begins. During training sessions it becomes apparent that the girl has lost some of her grace and lightness. At first the coach blames the “base” but they admit that Zuzia is too big to lift her. It beacme clear that she is “just growing” and her role is given over to a younger girl. If Zuzia wants to stay in the team, she will need to take on new responsibilities.
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Kurkot Kollektiv kurkotkollektiv@gmail.com
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Monika Kotecka Director She graduated from National Film School in Lodz with honors. Her short films have been shown at many Film Festivals (including Cannes/ Camerimage / Berlinale). In 2008 she was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus.
We have always been interested in the theme of maturation and wondering how we could show it in a film, avoiding clichés. Meeting the vaulting team “Volteo” gave us a different perspective on that subject.
Karolina Poryzała Writer Graduated Photography from National Film School in Lodz and scriptwriting in KSF in Krakow. Working as a screenwriter and script consultant. Since 2012 they work as Kurkot Kollektiv, working on video clips, commercials, theatrical performence and photo exhibitions. http://kurkotkollektiv.com Currently, Kurkot work on their documentary debut „Volte“ produced by the MUNK STUDIO under the auspices of FIRST DOCUMENTARY program.
In the team there is strict hierarchy. The role of each girl depends on her skills and age. Along with its growth, they take on subsequent responsibilities. After being the “flyer” they must become the responsible vaulters occupying lower positions –“base”. This cycle seems very similar to life in general. We tell the story from the perspective of Zuzia (12), who is entering into the irreversible process of puberty. Until now, she has been an extraordinary “flyer”. But because she has grown and taken on more feminine build, she has lost control over her “new” body. She is in the moment of transition, and if she wants to remain part of the team, she will need to take on new responsibilities. To us it is important to take a close look at the emotions – both hers and other team members’ – involved with the change which is, naturally, unavoidable, because, after all, how could one prevent puberty?
PRODUCTION NOTE Production company: the MUNK STUDIO
Looking for: Co-production possibilities
Estimated Budget: € 20,000
would like to obtain additional funding for professional sound post-production
Secured financing: € 12,000 from FIRST DOCUMENTARY programme
music composer
Post-Production budget: € 8,000
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Darius and his father try to persuade each other that the situation is improving anyway.
Watchkeeping Karolis Kaupinis - Lithuania
SYNOPSIS Late hours of a hot summer evening. Darius brings a special anti-ulcer mattress to his terminally ill mother’s ward. While Darius and his father wait for the mattress to turn on, casual street noise appears behind the window. Both men decide to transfer mother to a new ward, but the switch doesn’t change much as the new one faces the stadium. An international football match is about to start. Darius and his father try to persuade each other that the situation is improving anyway.
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Marija Razgutė marija@ciobreliai.lt +00 370 601 07802
BIOGRAPHIES
INTENTIONS
Karolis Kaupinis Director Born in Vilnius, 1987, Karolis Kaupinis graduated from Vilnius University with MA in Comparative Politics. Since the end of his studies Kaupinis has been working as a presenter and editor of a weekly show dedicated to current affairs on Lithuanian National TV. His first short fiction film ‘’The Noisemaker’’ was selected to Pardi di domani competition in Locarno film festival and has been screened in more than 40 international film festivals ever since, also winning two Lithuanian Film Academy awards ‘’Silver Crane’’ for the best short fiction film and the best actor of the year in 2015. Kaupinis’ second short ‘’Watchkeeping’’ is currently in postproduction.
The situation of the film – a certain ‘’standby’’ during the last hours of your close relative’s life, when a human being is forced to acknowledge their helplessness. Such extremities might open up any unhealed grievances between the closest family members of the patient. Such is the case of this story. Father’s over-concern about mother and his wish to slightly improve her condition by installing a new mattress is treated as a fake compensation by his son for what hasn’t been done in the past. The reasons aren’t revealed, the tension is there. While FATHER conducts his small unsuccessful fight to install the mattress and to prove DARIUS he’s done everything he could to save mother, DARIUS reads FATHER’s efforts as an impossibility to recognize the unavoidable death. It is embodied by a construction noise behind the open window. It is constantly getting louder and thicker. My main creative goal in this film is to touch a delicate topic while avoiding cliché cinematographic standards related to it. Also I seek to come to a question of choice between truth and hope through a slightly absurd but easily recognizable real situation.
PRODUCTION NOTE Genre: Fiction
Producer’s investment: € 20,000
Length: 15 minutes
Remaining: € 7,000
Format: Language: Lithuanian Producer: Marija Razgutė Total budget: € 60,000 Lithuanian Film Centre: € 33,000 55
ESP 2016 TUTORS Nadja Dumouchel Nadja Dumouchel is currently engaged in script consulting for various filmlabs such as Torino Film Lab, Groupe Ouest and Next Step run by Semaine de la Critique. During the past years, she has been working in international feature film development at ARTE in Strasbourg and has been trained as a story editor at Torino Film Lab. She is co-founder and script consultant at « La Scénaristerie », a development platform for screenwriters in Paris, where she supports authors with feature film projects “on spec”.
Vanja Kaludjercic Vanja Kaludjercic Croatia-born festival programmer and project market manager, who started out working at the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia and the Slovenian Cinematheque before organizing several festivals and festival sections in Zagreb like the Human Rights Film Festival, the ZagrebDox Pro workshop and the Animafest. After moving to Paris, she was in charge of acquisitions at Coproduction Office from 2008 to 2010. She managed Paris Project for two years behind the Paris Cinema International Film Festival, while in 2012 she joined Les Arcs European Film Festival as Head of Industry. In 2014, with Les Arcs FF team she has established a new project market in the French capital called Paris Coproduction Village. Since 2013, Vanja has also been working for HAF – Film and Financing Market in Hong Kong as a matchmaking consultant. Currently Vanja works for the CPH:DOX as head of studies for the production workshop CPH:LAB and she is programing for Sarajevo Film Festival.
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François Pirot François Pirot is a Belgian director and screenwriter. After directing three short films (including Retraite, awarded best first european short film at Premiers Plans film festival in Angers) and a mediumlength documentary, his first fiction feature film, Mobile Home (selected for the official competition at the 65th Locarno Film Festival), was released in 2012. Since then, he directed a documentary feature film, Eurovillage (about a center for asylum seekers in Belgium), which will be released in end of 2015, and is currently working on the writing of his second feature film, Life in the woods. As a scriptwriter, he co-wroted several fiction feature films, including two with Joachim Lafosse: Private Property (selected for the official competition at the 63th Venice Film Festival) and Private Lessons (Cannes 2008, Directors’ Fortnight), and works as a consultant on numerous scripts.
Leonardo Staglianò Born in Poland and grown up in Italy, Leonardo Staglianò earned an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Florence, an M.A. in Techniques of Narration from the Scuola Holden in Turin and an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. His short stories have been published in various anthologies and literary magazines, including the Italian edition of Granta, and his plays have been staged in Italian theaters like the Teatro Piccolo in Milan and the Teatro dell’Orologio in Rome. He wrote the script for “Yuri Esposito”, a low budget feature film that won the first edition of the Biennale College and debuted at the 70th edition of the Venice Film Festival. He collaborates as a story editor with writing schools, film labs, publishing houses and film companies, and he’s a former participant of the European Short Pitch.
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credits Head of script department Wim Vanacker wim@nisimasa.com
LAYOUT & design
PROJECT COORDINATOR Aleksandra Zakharchenko aleksandra@nisimasa.com
Nora Bertone nora.bertone@gmail.com
CO-PRODUCTION FORUM MANAGER Jerome Nunes jerome@nisimasa.com 58
Francesca Merlo francesca-merlo@libero.it
Funders
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
In Partnership with
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