Cannes Docs

Runtime: 90', 60'

Expected release: November, 2022

Production stage: Post production

Budget: €388,800 (50% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Gap financing, strategic guidance, buyers, sales agent, distributors, festivals

Synopsis:

A Sad and Vulgar Loner explores what happens when an abusive man speaks out, positioning himself as a critic of violence. Without excusing his acts, the film creates a space in which the abuser has a voice, bringing a new perspective on violence and abuse with a focus on the breaking of violent cycles and the urgent need for a healing process in society.

Director’s profile:

Efthymia Zymvragaki works as a director, writer and cinematographer. Drawn to social and gender issues, she is attracted towards intimate, first-person approaches to complex and lesser-known realities, with the desire to explore spaces of intimacy within and between people.

After graduating in Psychology. University of Crete, Greece in 2001, studied photography Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain (2003-2005) and completed a Master in Artistic Production and Research at the University of Barcelona (2011-2012).

Her film career began during her Master’s degree by means of artistic productions and by collaborating with Angelo Orlando for the production company Gris Medio. She is an alumni of the IDFA Academy, the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator and the Acció Producció, Dones Visuals, LIM Development Angels, DOK.incubator International Program 2022.

Producers’s profile:

Patricia Sánchez Mora, graduate in Library Science and Documentation, Audiovisual Communication (University of Extremadura), Master in Audiovisual Anthropology (UB). Alumni of Acció Producció Dones Visuals, 2021, LIM Development Angels, 2021, DOK.incubator International Program 2022. She is head of the L’Alternativa Professionals program (pitching, mentoring, meetings and industry activities) since 2010. In 2007 she created the production company Novena Nube. The films she has produced have been selected for festivals such as DOK Leipzig, Visions du Réel, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Busan, BFI London Film Festival, Cinespaña, Festival de Málaga, Sevilla European Film Festival, D’A Film Festival, Mecal, Seminci and Zinemaldia.

Runtime: 80'

Expected release: January, 2023

Production stage: Post production

Budget: €92,300 (100% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents, distributors, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

A life loving, successful gallery owner’s life turns upside down when at the age of 50, he is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He takes it as a chance to confront his long suppressed existential questions. But coming face to face with his true self turns out to be more frightening than death. If not a fatal illness, what can make us slow down to be able to listen to what we really need?

Director’s profile:

Asia Dér graduated as a documentary director from the DOCnomads MA program. Her graduation film was nominated for the best short film at the Hungarian Film Festival. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies at the University of Theatre and Film Arts Budapest.

Her first feature film, Her Mothers (co-directed with Sári Hargonics), was premiered at Hot Docs 2020 and it was screened at more than 30 international film festivals. It won Best Film Award at Moscow International Documentary Film Festival DOKer and at CROSSING EUROPE Film Festival Linz. Asia is a member and a professor at FREEszfe association and a presidium member of the Hungarian Documentary Association.

Producers’s profile:

Noémi Veronika Szakonyi is a freelance film director and producer. She is the owner and managing director of Match Frame Productions, a Budapest based boutique film production company, focusing on social issues driven documentaries and short films. The films she produces are supported by HBO Europe, Creative Europe MEDIA and the Hungarian Film Institute. As a director, she works on her first long-term feature documentary, Afterglow, and on her first television film, Six weeks, which is currently in post-production. Noemi is a Sundance Documentary Film Program Grantee 2015, 2019 and 2021, due to Afterglow and her first feature documentary as a producer, Her Mothers which premiered at Hot Docs 2020. She has currently four documentary projects is production and post-production and one VR piece in post production.

Runtime: 80'

Expected release: September, 2023

Production stage: Production

Budget: €394.819

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Co-producers, sales agents/distributors, festivals

Synopsis:

Set in Slovakia, and the countryside of Mallorca, the film examines motherhood as an identity, a calling, a journey. In pursuit of a dream, Ema and her husband, spend their savings on a plot of land on Mallorca. While expecting their second daughter, they embark on an exhaustive journey to build a settlement. Ema believes she has chosen the best life for her family, close to nature, full of connection.

Director’s profile:

Patricia Drati is a director, creative producer and film development consultant, working with both documentary and fiction. Between 2009-2015, Patricia was Head of CPH:LAB at CPH:DOX International Documentary Film Festival. She curated, developed and managed the cross-cultural training and production lab for international filmmaking talents. Patricia completed Torino Film Lab as a story editor in 2016, where she has since then been a member of the selection committee. Patricia also works as a consultant for Doha Film Institute, Qatar and International Film Festival Rotterdam. Becoming Ema is her debut film as a director.

Producers’s profile:

Sidsel Lønvig Siersted has worked on widely distributed and internationally awarded titles such as Nielsson’s Democrats (2014, PBS), Polak’s Something Better to Come (2014, HBO Europe), Greenfield’s The Kingmaker (2019, Showtime) and Kossakovsky’s Oscar short-listed Aquarela (2019, Sony Classics). She is the producer of Jepsen’s Natural Disorder, selected for IDFA’s feature length competition 2015 and nominated for a Danish Film Academy Award and Danish Critics Award. She was a consulting producer on Costa’s Oscar nominated The Edge of Democracy (2019, Netflix) and development producer of Mulvad’s Love Child, which premiered at TIFF 2019. Most recently she co-produced the award winning, IDFA Bertha Fund supported My Darling Supermarket by Brazilian director Yankelevich.

Runtime: 90', 60', 48'

Expected release: January, 2023

Production stage: Post production

Budget: €916,584 (90% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Sales agents, distributors, buyers, outreach, festivals

Synopsis:

Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter fights to ensure Indigenous people a seat in European policy when her son suddenly dies by suicide and she embarks on a personal journey writing her story. At the same time she struggles to break free from an abusive relationship, but as tension builds, a key question arises: is it possible to change the world and yourself at the same time?

Director’s profile:

Lin expresses herself through international, character-driven documentaries. She aims to portray brave women who want to change themselves and the world, while cinematically exploring how to amplify their stories to an audience by challenging the limits of reality. From 2013-2017 she was admitted to the National Film School of Denmark as one of only six directors. Lin has been selected one of the new Nordic Talents by Nordic Film and Television, and is a Euroimage grantee as well as a IDFA Academy, UnionDocs, DFI Outreach and Circle Doc Accelerator lab fellow. Lin is chair member at the Danish Film Directors association and the film director’s representative adviser at the Danish Artists Council, as well as co-founder and spokesperson for Oplysningsgruppen (NGO for higher education of filmmakers in Denmark).

Producers’s profile:

Producers Emile Hertling Péronard and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril are both Inuit producers, but from opposite sides of the colonial borders that Denmark and Canada have imposed on their people. Emile produces authentic stories in a Greenlandic context for international audiences, while promoting Indigenous film content, as well as improving the general conditions for Indigenous filmmakers. Alethea is based in Iqaluit, the same town where Aaju lives, she has worked with Aaju on several projects, and has archive footage of Aaju going back around 15 years. Twice Colonized will be the first formal co-production between Inuit from Greenland and Canada. The collaborative aspects of Lins work methods with Aaju, Emile and Alethea is enabling us to come together as a team and tell this very important story from a unique, insider perspective.