Blue Box
Blue Box

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

Blue Box follows a detective on the case of mysterious murders and inexplicable phenomena taking place in the US, Europe and Africa. Seemingly unrelated places are linked by mysterious societies and sects that perpetrate evil of supernatural dimensions. We follow the story from a 1st person VO narrative in six chapters, with no actors. The film unites different genres (film noir, crime, mystery, mockumentary) in two storylines – the past (VHS image) and the present (digital). The creative concept uses the mythology of real places, which push the story forward. The story has some scripted points, but they are linked by a documentary approach and real situations that happen during the shoot.

Director’s filmography

Marie Hájková (b. 1990) studied intermedia at Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology and frequently collaborates with Petr on their projects (all parts of Moravia, O Fair Land, Warped Ján and others). She is the writer and co-director of Blue Box. Petr Šprincl (b. 1986) graduated from intermedia at FaVU and made his way to filmmaking through installations, performance and visual arts. His short film Warped Ján was selected for several international festivals and galleries. Petr is now working on a zombie-lyrical-epic Moravia, O Fair Land III. Vienna Calling is his feature debut, which premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018.

Producer’s filmography

Marek Novák (b. 1988) graduated in law and film production from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He works with upcoming authors of both fiction and documentary projects in his company Xova Film. Vienna Calling by Petr Šprincl just premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018, as did the documentary Circus Rwanda by Michal Varga at this year’s Karlovy Vary IFF. Moravia, O Fair Land III by Petr Šprincl is in post-production and Marek is now preparing the production of the fiction-debut Erhart by Jan Březina and is developing other projects both domestic and international.

Producer’s statement

Blue Box conceptualizes extremist attitudes and beliefs of various sects, religions and nationalist movements, which are set in a fictional world. The guide through this world, where universal hatred is on the rise, is the detective, who journeys through dystopian lands and experiences flashbacks from before the “fall of civilisation”. The film is a commentary on contemporary times, escalated social tensions and their impact on the world. The sci-fi setting of such escalated themes provides a distance from malign ideologies while warning against their abuses and the gravity of their impact.

Contact / Presenters

Marek Novák | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +420 607 240 966

Petr Šprincl | Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +420 606 567 909

Catharsys or The Afina Tales of the Lost World
Catharsys or The Afina Tales of the Lost World

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

This is the story of a dying man. A man who doesn’t know he is dying. It begins as a single, individual exploration of an ordinary person. An anonymous. Except he’s not. He’s Jamal Afina. He has an otherworldly appearance and a “hidden” dream to find the lost love of his life. The story travels from the famous Balkan plays of Eastern Europe to terrorist training camps in the Sahara desert; from the US of 9/11 to a polluted and dry future world where the story is set. This regular guy’s life inspires many, especially the seven listeners of the Dark Morning Show, where he accidentally tells his story to the satirical Chairman, who is the radio host. The whole world tunes in to listen to the adventures of Jamal Afina.

Director’s filmography

Yassine Marco Marroccu graduated in audiovisual arts from the University of Udine. He has broad knowledge of international productions, working in Morocco and Italy as producer and director since the 2000s. As the owner of Casablanca-based Eclipse Film, he has facilitated the development of many projects, directed advertisements, several short films, and participated in humanitarian projects in the region of North Africa and refugee camps in Southeast Europe. He directed his first short film in 2001, Gnawas, which was selected for many international film festivals; he received the Grand Prix in Alger Mediterranean Festival in 2013 for his short film “Entropya” (Dubai, Institut du Monde Arabe Paris...). He is now working on his epic feature film Catharsys or The Afina Tales of the Lost World.

Producer’s filmography

Andrea Taschler is a member of the European Film Academy and a graduate of EAVE 2012. She was selected for Producers on the Move at Cannes Film Festival 2013. In 2010 she launched her Budapest-based production company called Mirage Film. The company was among the first to produce minority projects in the new national film financing system and participation in international projects is one of the main goals of the company. Recent feature film releases: Genesis, dir. Arpad Bogdan, main producer, int. premiere at Berlinale Panorama (2018), Hier, dir. Balint Kenyeres, main producer, to be premiered this year, That Trip We Took With Dad, dir. Anca Miruna Lazarescu int. premier at Munich FF (2017), Out, dir. György Kristóf, int. premier at Cannes Un Certain Regard (2017).

Producer’s statement

In the current world of global awareness, characterized by the proliferation of individualistic behaviours – the return of populist political visions and the collapse of all ideological, religious, political and economic orders – our aim is to tell a universal story that goes beyond borders. It is a story that has been written by 15 hands, from Saskatchewan’s tribes to Beirut, Kabul, Algiers, Abidjan, Basque Country, Belgrade, Idomeni refugee camps, and the great Sahara. As engaged filmmakers, this film represents a struggle against the establishment symbolised by the Weinstein-scandal, our faith in art as the key for getting people closer and detaching them, and the omnipresent global drought – something we consider in the film to be the lost world, the drought that is within man’s heart in this day and age.

Contact / Presenters

Andrea Taschler | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +36 302 700 270

Yassine Marco Marroccu | Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +381 655 379 332

Nevena Savic | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +381 648 588 574

Dream Baby Dream
Dream Baby Dream

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

Dream Baby Dream is a black-and-white film about one man, one city, one madness, and one dream. Alexander is an expat returning from the West to Belgrade for the restitution of his family's property and with the intent of making an opera based on Shakespeare's Richard III. While trying to mend his strained relationship with his older brother, he pursues the project with maniacal determination all while going from bar to bar, rediscovering the charm of the city and its women and shooting his memories with a Super 8 camera. As pressure mounts, so does his obsession with his anarchist psychiatrist as he faces mental breakdown.

Director’s filmography

Marina Radmilac (b. 1981, Doboj BIH). Graduated film directing in Belgrade, 2008 with the film Good Morning (17 min., one take), which was relatively successful and won several awards. In 2013 she enrolled in Bela Tarr’s film.factory PhD programme where she completed the film How I Quit Drinking and Became a Mother (30 min.), which was presented in 2014 at Berlinale. Meanwhile, she has been involved in numerous short film projects variously as a director, writer, producer or actress.

Producer’s filmography

Satibara is a collective of friends who believe in humane dignity, freedom, beauty and making art without borders and administrative boredom.

Producer’s statement

Two years ago I met Strike at a party. My first impressions of him made me think of making a movie together, with Strike as the main protagonist. We immediately started working on a script and a few months later we were in production. My initial concept was to construct a character-centric plot exploring radical mood swings, altering joy and anger, enthusiasm and despair. But it evolved into a film where the character takes on the world, desperately trying to change it, to make an imprint through art, creating a path for himself in the dark and menacing forest of therapy, love and madness while navigating hard questions of unending war and identity lost and found. It is about trying to gain a foothold on the turning wheel of dreams and reality.

Contact / Presenters

Marina Radmilac | Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +381 644 247 117

Jean Lucicki | Scriptwriter, Actor
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +381 612 911 092

Fondante
Fondante

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

1769, somewhere in the Alps. Philosopher Edmund Burke is confused about the wild landscape, the smells of nature, his future and the aesthetics of the world. He is here to write a new edition of a treatise on the beautiful and the sublime that he wrote as a young man. He is now in a midlife crisis. Edmund has never been outside the city and nature soon begins to scratch and sting. But the stakes are high – Burke has lost everything in risky colonial investments and his future depends on the success of his bond with nature. Traveling with him is Awak – a servant with native blood on loan from his brother’s plantation in the West Indies. Burke stumbles through the woods in his wig and powder and struggles to connect with something.

Director’s filmography

Frederik Jacobi comes from a background in mountaineering and long expeditions into the Arctic and Amazon. He studied cinematography at the Danish Film School before moving into video art. The relationship between human and nature is a strong theme in his work, which has been shown at museums such as MoMa SF, Palais de Tokyo and the National Gallery of Denmark. Frederik jumped into screenwriting with his first feature, The Expatriate, a noir thriller set in Port-au-Prince based on the life of director Jorgen Leth and the Torino Film Lab project Polynia. Both projects are still in development. Fondante will be his feature debut as a director.

Producer’s filmography

Marina Perales Marhuenda worked for several international film festivals before producing short films in Mexico, Germany and Spain. She worked at the international sales companies Celluloid Dreams and Coproduction Office, where she was also producer of international award-winning films by Roy Andersson, Ulrich Seidl or Ruben Östlund. She created the production company La Fabrica Nocturna with Xavier Rocher. Recent releases include Wolf and Sheep by Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat (Art Cinema Award Director’s Fortnight Cannes 2016) and The Heiresses by Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi (Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize & Silver Bear for Best Actress Berlinale Competition 2018).

Producer’s statement

Fondante is a film about our feelings towards nature and our failure to connect with it. Edmund Burke’s midlife crisis is the crisis of our present relationship with nature. The film is set in the beginning of the fossil fuel revolution starring the father of conservatism, but nothing has changed since then. The cruellest time of all is still eternity. Fondante deals with my own unresolved relationship with nature and a lifelong attempt at understanding the sublime. I don’t know what it is. Burke doesn’t know either, but I think we all feel it around us somehow. To touch upon this, the film is psychedelic and takes a narrative path between the genres of comedy and tragedy to approach the subject.

Contact / Presenters

Frederik Jacobi | Producer, Director, Scriptwriter
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +33 767 561 185

Marina Perales Marhuenda | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +33 683 939 799

The Golden Snake
To Chryso Fidi

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

The Golden Snake is a vision of the apocalypse that began as a documentation of the ageing population in Crete; by plunging into their past and incorporating present-time economic and environmental concerns, it soon became evident that we were filming a future. This future is a thick gold cloud beneath which a man tries to tune his radio in search of other life. “The sky takes the colour and the density of the metal by which value was once understood. This is the colour reflected in the tears shed by the man, who cries not for the realisation that he is the last one left alive, but for the realisation that he was always alone.”

Director’s filmography

Christina Koutsospyrou (b. 1980, Athens) and Aran Hughes (b. 1983, London) both studied at the University of Arts London and began working together in 2010. Their debut feature To the Wolf, a docu-fictional exploration of the lives of shepherds in the mountains of Greece, premiered at the Berlinale in 2013 and went on to screen at over 50 film festivals worldwide; highlights included Toronto, Sao Paulo, Viennale, Torino and Thessaloniki. It was awarded best newcomer at Dokufest in Kosovo, best film at Syros International Film Festival, given a special mention at Doclisboa and nominated for a Hellenic Academy award. It was also selected for Documenta 14 in 2017.

Producer’s filmography

Founded in Athens in 2008, Faliro House has been involved in a wide array of projects both in Greece and internationally, including Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight and Alex Ross Perry’s critically acclaimed 2014 Sundance Film Festival entry Listen up Philip. Linel Films is a London based production company that was initiated to produce the work of Christina Koutsospyrou and Aran Hughes. Its catalogue includes To the Wolf (2013), The Golden Snake (in post-production) and The Land of No One (in development).

Producer’s statement

The cinema of Christina Koutsospyrou and Aran Hughes is at once almost indefinable, opaque and murky within its merging and blurring of boundaries and forms; documentary takes the guise of fiction and then back again, all within a wholly experimental and unlikely approach. And yet somehow, conversely, it is full of clarity, aesthetically pure and direct. It is precisely these elements that drew me to work with these filmmakers and a belief in their vision to keep pushing at the edges of what we consider cinema. - Christos V. Konstantakopoulos

Contact / Presenters

Christina Koutsospyrou | Producer, Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +447 866 249 663

Aran Hughes | Producer, Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +306 955 041 088

Hurrah, We Are Still Alive!
Hura, wciąż żyjemy!

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

In Hurrah, We Are Still Alive!, a team of hipster filmmakers is awaiting the comeback of an influential director who has left without a trace. They all seem to be obsessed with him. We accompany Rita, an actress and ex-poet, and Dirk, the director’s ex-lover who, now rejected, hires a killer to get rid of him. Also, a member of a far-left militant group arrives to take back the money she has stashed with the filmmakers. The money is already spent on the director’s new film project and the consequences may be devastating for everyone involved. The group is heading for a meeting with the director but he doesn’t show up. As the disenchanted actors return home, they find the director’s dead body in the bedroom.

Director’s filmography

Agnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin, Poland) – visual artist and film director. Solo exhibitions have been organized by the New Museum in New York, the National Gallery in Prague, Nottingham Contemporary in the UK and the Salzburger Kunstverein in Austria. Polska’s work has been included in exhibitions and screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, 19th Biennale of Sydney, 57th Venice Biennale, and many others. Winner of Film Award by the Polish Film Institute and Museum of Modern Art. Last year she was awarded the prestigious Preis der Nationalgalerie founded by Hamburger Bahnhof.

Producer’s filmography

Anna Gawlita, winner of Best Producer at Era New Horizons International Film Festival (2008) and Krakow Film Festival (2017). She is dedicated to make documentaries and fiction movies with a strong authorial vision. Co-owner and chairwoman at KIJORA FILM. Participant Berlinale Talents, Emerging Producers Programme, EKRAN + at Wajda School. producer and production manager for films by e.g. Tomasz Wolski, Jakub Radej, Piotr Stasik, and Aleksandra Maciuszek, which won awards at Ji.hlava FF, Krakow FF, Palms Springs FF, Margaret Mead in NY and many others. Also co-producer and executive producer of shorts and feature fictions (e.g. Via Carpatia in East of the West Competition KVIFF).

Producer’s statement

Hurrah, We Are Still Alive! is a film that functions at the intersection of drama, comedy and suspense. I tried to combine the experimental style of editing, close-up cinematography and hypnotic sound effects – elements which I often use in my video arts – with a classical crime story. The main aim of the film is to examine how the phenomenon of influence functions in societies. Can we find an analogy to the powers dominating our society? Is the sense of uncertainty and rivalry that we share produced by a body that’s already dead? And how can we use unexpected freedom?

Contact / Presenters

Anna Gawlita | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +48 609 421 497

In(di)visible
In(di)visible

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

In 2017 filmmaker Ben Ferris spent three months in his studio at the Cité internationale des Arts in Paris filming the same view from his window every day. Ferris merges the sounds of the outside world (bells, birds, traffic) and the sounds of the studio (footsteps, coffee cups, chairs) with socio-political commentary by news reporters of the day and an interior voice-track that recounts personal observations mixed with readings from writers such as Marx and Deleuze. The result is an intensely personal journey of an artist trying to make meaning of the contemporary world from the confines of his small studio, the privacy of which is disrupted by world events at the time (such as the inauguration of new US President Donald Trump).

Director’s filmography

Ferris, a film writer/director, has screened films and won numerous awards in Paris, New York, Croatia, Italy, Tokyo, Singapore, Greece, Switzerland and Amsterdam, including the prestigious Akira Kurosawa Grand Prix in Japan. Ben’s first feature Penelopa, an Australia-Croatian co-production, screened in National Competition at the 56th Pula Film Festival and had its worldwide release in 2011 to critical acclaim. His second feature film 57 Lawson is being released this year worldwide through the distributor Art Films. In 2017 Ben Ferris was Power Institute Fellow at the Cité internationale des Arts in Paris. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Sydney Film School.

Producer’s filmography

Marie Berriex graduated both in finance and law at EMLYON Business School and Sorbonne University. She worked as International Financing Assistant for Backup Media in 2015 and currently as Credit Analyst for Cofiloisirs – Film Finance Solutions, where she has put together several financing and legal packages for European co-productions. She recently worked as a co-producer on Ben Ferris’ short film Orphée Ascends (currently in post-production) and is currently developing several short film projects and a feature documentary.

Producer’s statement

How much of the present can we comprehend? What of it is (in)visible to us? And how will we talk about it in time? The disjunction between the illusion of the exterior and the reality of the interior is explored through the discordance between the image and the sound, which peels off, layer by layer, the full reality of captured moments. Underneath what the eye can see, invisible socio-political (and resulting psychological) changes are brewing. The innocence and surface tranquillity of “still-lives” is thus contrasted and disturbed by the turbulence of events. The present will always be understood only in the future, belatedly.

Contact / Presenters

Ben Ferris | Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +61 422 950 595

Marie Berriex | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +33 670 183 085

Jordane Oudin | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +33(0) 953 126 649

Normal
Normal

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Working version of the film will be presented.

Film synopsis

An unsettling visual journey through gender norms in contemporary Italy. Blending realist and experimental aesthetics, Normal sketches a disorienting portrait of the accepted ideas of normality. A kaleidoscopic mosaic of everyday-life scenes observes the ritualized performance of femininity and masculinity in ordinary interactions, from birth to adulthood, interpreting gender as a corporeal and performative practice, a social ceremony, a collective mise-en-scène affecting our gestures, desires, behaviours, and aspirations. With an innovative and visionary film language, Normal meditates on the everyday constraints of gendered reality, producing a poignant reflection on a current and crucial matter.

Director’s filmography

Adele Tulli is a filmmaker and an academic interested in experimental practices in the expanded realm of documentary, as well as in gender studies and visual anthropology. She is completing a practice-based PhD at Roehampton University in London on subversive cinematic representations within queer and feminist contexts. She has directed films such as 365 without 377 about LGBT struggles in India, and Rebel Menopause on feminist activist Thérèse Clerc. Both have been broadcasted internationally and screened at numerous festivals (Sheffield DocFest, WatchDocs, Guadalajara FF, FlareBFI/London, Frameline/San Francisco, NewFest/NY, Films de Femmes/Creteil, and many more) and have won several awards.

Producer’s filmography

FilmAffair is a brand new independent production company based in Rome, implementing projects of strong artistic value that confront contemporary social, political and ethical questions. Its founders, Valeria Adilardi (Paneikon), Luca Ricciardi (DocLab/Sacro Gra), Laura Romano (GA&A), and Mauro Vicentini (graphic designer and post-production manager) are an experienced team working on the development, production and distribution of powerful documentaries exploring new frontiers of storytelling. Current projects: Sqizo by D. Fabbri, co-produced with EPSI Film (USA), Les Films d’Ici (FR), RAI Cinema (IT), Bow&Arrow (USA), distributed by Cinephil, The Mount of Ants by Riccardo Palladino, Locarno FF Competition 2017.

Producer’s statement

The film explores how social norms are implicit, unsaid rules that permeate our lives and are often so deep within us that they go unnoticed and unquestioned, becoming “normal”. The daily spectacle of gender normativity is looked at through a slightly distorting and yet intimate lens, revealing the contradictions and struggles that populate our existences while having to conform to society’s expectations. Blurring film genres, Normal does not simply represent reality but interrogates it, delving into its intrinsic mechanisms and requires the viewer to be the protagonist of a visual journey that generates critical and open-ended perspectives on the performative nature of our social identities.

Contact / Presenters

Laura Romano | Producer
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +393 334 244 247

Adele Tulli | Director
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +393 248 661 395