Projects
Projects
NEW CONTINENT
Category: Thessaloniki Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Pandelis Pagoulatos
Produced by: Nikos Moustakas + Bad Crowd, Bandur Films, Arizona Productions
Country of Production: Greece, France, Serbia
Original Title: ΝΕΑ ΗΠΕΙΡΟΣ
Genre: Feature film
Language: Greek
Runtime: 90min
Completed in: 2023
« New Continent » is a love drama about the people who wander without a compass. The ones who are constantly trading without rules, wear the role of « evil », but in reality they survive by sulking between the most infamous streets of the capital. Above all, though, it’s a dead-end love story.
Do you love me?
Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Tonia Noyabrova
Produced by: Anastasiia Bukovska, Danylo Kaptyukh (Family Production)
Country of Production: Ukraine
Original Title: Do you love me?
Genre: Feature film
Language: Ukrainian
Runtime: 90min
Completed in: 2023
One has to be brave enough to accept loosing old self for the sake of growing up. Kira becomes adult briskly, watching her family and soviet childhood smashing into pieces. So does Ukraine in the early 90th, launching painful process of transformation into an independent country.
Mavka The Forest Song
Directed by: Malamuzh Oleg, Ruban Oleksandra
Produced by: Kostyuk Iryna, Koval (Eliseeva) Hanna (Anna), Olesov Egor. ANIMAGRAD (FILM.UA GROUP)
Country of Production: Ukraine
Original Title: Mavka The Forest Song
Language: English
Runtime: 90min
Completed in: 2022
Mavka, a magical sprite, responsible for protecting the forest from the outside world, faces her greatest challenge when she meets a human for the first time — and falls in love with him.
Seoul Horror Story
Category: Fantastic 7
Directed by: Kim Hyunjin
Produced by: LEE Dongha
Country of Production: Korea
Original Title: 서울의 공포
Genre: Horror
Language: Korean
Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
3 Colored omnibus stories occurred in Seoul. 1. Fluorescent blue color : “A Ghost station” in the northern area of Seoul. 2 . Colorful neon color: “Lost face” Plastic Surgery in Gangnam 3 . Gloomy Ash Gray: “Two worlds” College graduates looking for work in Noryangjin.
Virtual Virtual Reality 2
Genre: Action/Adventure
Produced by: J Noland, Yuxin Gao, Tender Claws
Directed by: Samantha Gorman, Danny Cannizarro
Original Title: Virtual Virtual Reality 2
Lead Artist: Samantha Gorman
Runtime: 10 hours
Language: English
Completed in: 2022
Synopsis:
Virtual Virtual Reality 2 (VVR2) is a 10 hour comedy, satire game. The latest project from Tender Claws and a highly-anticipated sequel to their 2017 VR game Virtual Virtual Reality (VVR). In this darkly funny action-adventure game, pilot your mech body through the chaos of a dying metaverse, rescuing abandoned avatars along the way. Each new avatar-roommate brings unique tools to aid your escape back to meatspace!
Director’s statement:
VVR2 satirically explores the stakes of a privatized metaverse. Who is responsible for sustaining our digital “public commons”? You have left your body behind to upload into the peaceful retirement community of Scottsdale. Suddenly! Scottsdale’s VC funding is pulled and the servers begin to shut down one by one. Without the ability to log off, players have no choice but to outrun the digital destruction – ultimately escaping the metaverse and finding a new home in meatspace.
Origin: US
Devices: Oculus Quest 2
Platform: VeeR
Gloriavale
Original Title: Gloriavale: New Zealand’s Secret Cult
Directed by: Noel Smyth, Fergus Grady
Produced by: Fergus Grady, Noel Smyth
Country of Production: New Zealand, Australia
Runtime: 95'
Expected Release: September, 2022
Production Stage: Production
Budget: €677,035 (100% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Festivals, sales agents/distributors, buyers, & strategic guidance
Synopsis:
When widespread abuse is uncovered at a New Zealand cult, a family must turn to the legal system in an effort to save themselves and their community from the all powerful leaders.
Director’s profile:
Noel Smyth is an Australian based documentary writer, director, producer, cinematographer and editor. Having worked in the industry for 17 years, he started as an editor and cinematographer before moving into directing and producing. This experience across all stages of production has greatly informed his creative practice that centres around intimate stories of the human condition told through a verite lens. His debut feature documentary Camino Skies (co-directed with Fergus Grady) won the Doc Edge Film Festival awards for ‘Best NZ Directors’ and ‘Best NZ Emerging Filmmakers’ and was nominated for ‘Best NZ Feature’, ‘Best NZ Editing’ and ‘Best NZ Cinematography’. His nuanced and empathetic approach to following real life stories comes from a place of curiosity and it is this approach to storytelling that makes him an exciting new voice in the Australian cinema landscape.
Co-Director’s profile:
Fergus Grady is a producer, sales & distribution consultant who has over fifteen years experience in the film industry. His debut feature documentary Camino Skies was the second highest grossing NZ documentary of 2019 and won the Doc Edge Film Festival awards for ‘Best NZ Directors’ and ‘Best NZ Emerging Filmmakers’. He also associate produced West of Sunshine which competed for the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival in 2017.
Producers’s profile:
Noel Smyth & Fergus Grady’s debut feature documentary Camino Skies was the second highest grossing NZ documentary of 2019 and won the Doc Edge Film Festival awards for ‘Best NZ Directors’ and ‘Best NZ Emerging Filmmakers’. Gloriavale: New Zealand’s secret cult is their second feature.
Meezan
Original Title: میزان
Directed by: Shahab Mihandoust
Produced by: Shahab Mihandoust (Canada)
Country of Production: Iran, Canada
Runtime: 75'
Expected Release: August, 2022
Production Stage: Fine Cut
Budget: $98,000 CAD (100% in place)
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Festivals, Sales agents and distributors
Synopsis:
Beside its significance in the physical geography and its salience to the history, economy and politics of the The Middle East, waterways of Khuzestan in Iran remain to be a significant source of income for the communities who inhabit the region. Meezan (Scales) looks at the physical and emotional aspects of labor among these communities and reflect on the relation between bodies and scales.
Director’s profile:
Shahab Mihandoust is an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker. His practice stands at the intersection between cinema and anthropology. Inspired by ethnographic approaches to research and creation his work deals with issues of identity and labor in relation to natural and built environments to study how social, cultural and political processes affect people and places. His attention in his practice is to how everyday social and sensorial experiences are formed in response to current circumstances and transformations of our environments. Shahab’s first documentary, Zagros, which won the national award at RIDM 2018, follows the creation of carpets across the Western mountains of Iran to reflect on the ways labor and culture are interconnected. Zagros has been shown and awarded internationally in several documentary and ethnographic festivals.
Listening to the World
Original Title: Прислухаючись до світу
Directed by: Yelizaveta Smith
Produced by: Eugene Rachkovsky, Olha Beskhmelnytsina (TABOR, Ukraine)
Country of Production: Ukraine
Runtime: 90'
Expected Release: Late 2023
Production Stage: Production
Budget: € 205,500 (4% in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Co-producers, sales agents / distributors
Synopsis:
Iva doesn’t hear the world because of her disability. She is an art curator and human-right activist trying to find her place in the world and make it hear her. But unfortunately, she and her son Mykyta faces the war and are evacuated from bombed Kharkiv to Lviv and then to Germany, where they as well as thousands of other Ukrainians try to find peace until the war ends.
Director’s profile:
Yelizaveta Smith graduated from the KNUTC as a film director. In 2014, she co-founded the film production company Tabor Production. After the Ukrainian revolution, she started volunteer work with children in the city of Mykolaivka in the Donetsk area, which the war partly destroyed. Her experience there led to the documentary School Number 3, co-directed by George Genoux. The film premiered at Berlinale 2017, winning the Grand Prix of the Generation 14plus, and a Special Award at HumanDOC in Warsaw. Her debut short fiction Solitude was selected to Odesa IFF and Raindance in 2019 and was nominated for Best Short Film at the Ukrainian Film Academy Awards 2020. Currently working on development of Vacuum – feature fiction film that took part at Torino Film Lab Extended, MidPoint Feature Launch etc. Yelizaveta is a Berlinale Talents alumni and member of the Ukrainian Film Academy and EFA.
Producer’s profile:
Eugene Rachkovsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine. Graduated from the Odesa National Maritime University as a Master of Transport technologies and systems. He was working as a Director of sales for a petroleum trading company, but changed his professional way and move to Kyiv for working in the film industry. In 2018 worked as associate producer on a short film Solitude directed by Yelizaveta Smith. In 2019-2021 worked for the service production company Radioaktivefilm, which shoot commercials for brands like Apple, Samsung, Honda, Jo Malone and etc. After working few years in advertisement he focus on film producing. From October 2020 has worked as Chief Commercial Officer in TABOR Production. Producer of a short fiction film Black Dog, which release are going to be in the summer 2022. Participant of the EURODOC22 programs with the project Silent Flood by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk.
Leaving Jesus
Original Title: Leaving Jesus
Directed by: Ellen Fiske
Produced by: Michael Krotkiewski, David Herdies (Momento Film, Sweden)
Country of Production: Sweden, Denmark, Norway
Runtime: 88'
Expected Release: May, 2023
Production Stage: Production
Budget: € 651,240 (80 % in place)
1st Feature: No
Looking for: Prebuys, Sales Agents, Distributors, financiers, festivals
Synopsis:
A group Christian ex-fundamentalists gather at Journey Free retreat in San Fransisco. Lost and with traumatic experiences they attempt to free themselves from their fundamental communities that they were born into. But how do one find meaning, identity and a moral compass in our frantic world, while at the same time having to question your closest friends and the truths you once took for granted?
Director’s profile:
Ellen Fiske studied documentary filmmaking at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Fiske’s feature doc, Scheme Birds won Best Documentary Feature and Best New Documentary Director award at Tribeca in 2019. Her latest feature doc Josefin & Florin received a Guldbagge for Best Editing at the ”Swedish BAFTA’s” and won the prestigious Prix Europa Iris award in 2020.
Producers’s profile:
Michael Krotkiewski born in 1980 in Sweden, is a director, tutor, producer and co-owner of Momento Film. As a producer Michael has produced and coproduced several fiction and documentary films and some of his latest releases include; Amparo by Simon Mesa Soto (won the Rising Star Award at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes 2021, Yung Lean: In My Head by Henrik Burman (competed at Tribeca FF 2020, theatrical release in over 113 cinemas worldwide, sold to VICE), Transnistra by Anna Eborn (won the Big Screen Competition at Rotterdam IFF, the Dragon Award for best Nordic Documentary at Gothenburg IFF and The Swedish Guldbagge Award for Best Documentary in 2019). Michael has a diploma from Stockholm Academy Of Dramatic Arts, EURODOC and EAVE.
Out of Place
Original Title: خارج المكان
Directed by: Mohammed Al Majdalawi
Produced by: Manolo Diaz Rämö, Beatrice Pourbagher Garcia (Filmilia AB, Sweden)
Country of Production: Sweden, Qatar
Runtime: 90', 58'
Expected Release: April, 2023
Production Stage: Production
Budget: € 302,259 (20,3% in place)
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Co-producers, gap financing, sales agents/distributors
Synopsis:
A coming of age story about four Palestinians dabke dancers from Jabalia refugee camp, who now live in Europe. Through material filmed for 20 years, the film explores dabke and how its meaning and importance changes for the characters – from resistance of the occupation in Gaza to the struggle to revive their cultural heritage in exile.
Director’s profile:
Mohammed Al-Majdalawi was born in Palestine. He has a masters degree in documentary film from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. While living on the Gaza Strip, he worked as crew for a number of international films including Bridges Over Blood and Eyewitness Gaza. He also made his own film, Gaza Art Through Barbed Wire. He is currently working on his documentary Out Of Place and To Mai.
Producers’s profile:
Manolo Diaz Rämö was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He has a bachelor’s degree in Documentary film from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. In his films Manolo often explores the longing for something unreachable, in the past or the future, usually connected to migration. His films have been nominated for numerous awards and his latets documentary Like a mountain is screened at SVT.
Beatrice Pourbagher Garcia was born in Halland, Sweden. She has a bachelor’s degree in film production from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Beatrice became a producer since she is convinced that everyone has a story to tell but many lack the privilege to do so. She has worked with numerous fiction and documentary films that have been screened in festivals around the world.