Cannes Docs

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: February, 2023

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: €700,000 (50% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: All rights available worldwide except MENA Region. Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents, Distributors, Gap Financing

Synopsis:

This is Ali’s story. Ali met Spanish filmmaker Paula in an EU financed detention center for refugees in Ukraine in 2011. He fled the war in Somalia at the age of 14. Stuck in an unwelcoming country as a teenager, he tried to cross the EU border but got caught twice… Thanks to the UN, he eventually obtained legal residency in the US. Filmed over 10 years, “My brother Ali” reveals the twists and turns of an unusual friendship.

Director’s profile:

Paula Palacios has worked for 15 years as a documentary filmmaker from Madrid and Paris. Her field of interest is mainly about migration. Paula has produced and directed for channels such as Aljazeera Documentary Channel, Aljazeera English, ARTE France, Public Sénat, France 3…Her first film for cinema, Cartas Mojadas (Drowning Letters) was supported by filmmaker Isabel Coixet and it premiered in Official Selection at Malaga Film Festival winning Silver Biznaga Audience Award. It was on cinemas in Spain and Mexico, and it was nominated for best documentary at Goya, Forqué and Platino 2021 Awards. Cartas Mojadas won Best Social Documentary at FIGRA Film Festival 2021 in France.

Producer’s profile:

Pumpernickel Films is an independent production company based in Paris and New York. Through well founded business relationships, they produce high quality and innovative films for Cinema and Television. They constantly explore possibilities for co-productions. They build distribution strategies and creatively develop films with an eye towards maximizing the position of each project in the domestic and international markets. Films produced by Pumpernickel Films have won the best festivals.

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: January, 2024

Production stage: Development

Budget: €280,900 (10% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Gap financing, Co-producers, buyers,

Synopsis:

This is the story of Habib, a father who discovers his daughter’s illness through his passion for cinema. He is then forced to change his life and adapt to it. The archival images that this father was able to capture with his small video camera are the expression of an intimate life that he spontaneously filmed since the birth of his daughter Fatimazahra whose features have been completely changed.

Director’s profile:

Asmae El Moudir has been working in film and audiovisual since 2010. She has directed documentaries for SNRT, AlJazeera Documentary, BBC. Asmae was first assistant director on several Moroccan feature films. She has directed three short fiction films and studied at La Fémis (French film school) where she produced Thank God It’s Friday her most awarded film. In 2014, Asmae founded the film production company INSIGHTFILMS then in 2020 Asmae directed and produced her first feature film The Postcard selected for IDFA 2020, Visions du Réel 2021, Durban IFF 2021, MAAF 2021 and others. His current project, The Mother Of All Lies, is a new step in his career. The mother of all lies has received the most prestigious funds such as: AFAC, IBF, Netflix, Hot Docs Blue ICe Docs Fund, DFI, Atlas workshops, IMS, CNC, Aljazeera coproduction, Iles de France and LA Scam.

Producer’s profile:

Insight Films is a production company founded in 2014 by Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir.
 The company has produced Moroccan and international feature films, for cinema and television, series, single dramas, web-docs, live performance recordings and magazines as well as many documentaries for Middle Eastern and Maghreb television channels such as SNRT, AlJazeera Documentary, BBC and Al Araby TV. The company has also produced the films of Asmae El Moudir.
Insightfilms aims to promote films that question contemporary themes and aesthetics, through fiction, documentary and experimental idioms. Since its creation, the company has received support from the Moroccan Film Center, French regional funds, the CNC , the IDFA Bertha fund, Afac, Scam, IMS, Hot docs, Iles de France, the Doha Film Institute or the Red Sea Fund.

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: 2024

Production stage: Pre-Production

Budget: €600,000 (13% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Coproducer, gap financing, buyers, sales agents, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

Sekou Timite has one ambition: to follow in his late father’s footsteps and become a “Djeli”, a griot, guardian of the oral memory in West Africa. Interested in the obsolete art of the griot, he leaves his family behind and sets off to confront the modern world on the roads of the legendary Mandingo Empire.

Director’s profile:

Boubacar Sangaré is a filmmaker and lawyer specialising in film and audiovisual law. He has perfected his filmmaking skills through internships at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium and La Femis in France. From 2012 to 2015 he collaborated with the association Semfilms in the programming of the festival Ciné Droit Libre. He is an author of short and feature films. He is co-director of the documentary film Une révolution africaine, les dix jours qui ont fait chuter Blaise Compaoré.

Producer’s profile:

Specialised in creative documentary filmmaking and Communication for Development (CPD), Mamounata Nikièma has been working both as a director (since 2007) and as a producer (Pilumpiku Produdction since 2011). Since 2014 she has also been a trainer at the documentary writing residencies in Bobo-Dioulasso. In 2018 she launched the event Ciné-équipement and the digital platform on cinema Sulunsuku (www.sulunsuku.com) in January 2019. During the Fespaco 2021 she was awarded the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre de Mérite, des Arts, des Lettres et de la Communication with Clasp ”Cinématographie”.

Runtime: 72'

Expected release: December, 2023

Production stage: Pre-Production

Budget: €91,000 (10% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Co-producers, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

The braves are a group of hooligan young women (soccer fans) in Colombia, whom despite having been part of the hooligan’s gang for ten years, are not allowed to have an official group, nor to wave their own flag at the stadiums where they cheer the local soccer team. During this journey of female alliance, these women are confronted with the cost of their struggle. ¿How far will they go to get their flag?

Director’s profile:

Director and screenwriter, founded Cine Latina in 2013, she made a series of documentaries on the peasant and native exodus at the Colombian Northeast jungle by the hand of Human Rights Organizations. Her first independent work The Children of Catatumbo was evidence before the IACHR.
Diana is a San Francisco based latin-american filmmaker who strives for her films to be decolonizing in terms of topics, narrative structure, characters as well as in the production process. Working with marginalized subjects whose stories are not seen in the main media or considered important by the colonial society. This includes peasants who defend their land from the paramilitaries, refugees, native people, and racialized Latin American women who struggle for equality and liberation.

Producer’s profile:

General producer of the company Cine Latina SAS. Her first independent work Los Hijos del Catatumbo is evidence before the IACHR. Her first fiction Pantaleón won the Peer Raven Award.

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: February, 2024

Production stage: In production

Budget: €371,000€ (in place 25%)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, buyers, co-producers, gap financing, strategic guidance

Synopsis:

In an ancient valley devastated by a hurricane caused by climate change, a scientist listens carefully to the “genius loci” of the wounded forest, in search of a close encounter between humans and trees. Will intelligence of plants change our future?

Director’s profile:

Since 2006 Alessandro Bernard has been writing and directing documentaries mainly focused on science, technology and environment, broadcasted by the main international channels such as Rai, Arte, Fox, History, YLE, SBS, DR, SBS, RTBF, VPRO… He works also on the audiovisial production of events and exhibitions as a video designer and as a writer of transmedia projects. Paolo Ceretto is an independent film-maker, writer and director of documentary films, TV formats and cross-media communication projects. He created video and communication campaigns for well-known brands. Paolo, together with Alessandro Bernard, wrote and co-directed documentary films broadcasted by the main international channels such as Rai, Arte, Fox, History, YLE, SBS, DR, SBS, RTBF, VPRO…

Producer’s profile:

Graduated EAVE and Eurodoc, Massimo Arvat is a member of the board of Eurodoc and Italian Doc Screenings. Founding member of Zenit, as producer he has collaborated with major international broadcasters and produced films screened in major international festivals (Cannes, Venice, Turin Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Sheffield Doc Fest, DOK Leipzig, Japan Prize, Prix Europa…). He also works as a media trainer in Italy and abroad.

Runtime: 100'

Expected release: August, 2022

Production stage: Post Production

Budget: €245,587 (73% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Investors, Festivals, Programmers, Sales Agents, Distributors, Buyers.

Synopsis:

The documentary story of an elderly couple -who survived decades of slavery inside a powerful enclave in the south of Chile and now lives in isolation in Patagonia- intertwines with the fictional journey of a former agent of the dictatorship in search of redemption. Two stories that come together to delve into the intimate and hidden scars of a country.

Director’s profile:

Matías Rojas Valencia is a director, screenwriter and editor who’s first feature Raíz premiered at San Sebastián, won the best Chilean film award at FICV and was selected at diverse festivals in the international circuit such us: La Habana, FICCI, BAFICI, Palm Springs and Málaga.
His short film I Need to Know was produced under the Cannes Factory and premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight of Cannes in 2015. His second feature A Place Called Dignity premiered at the Official Competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2021. The project was previously selected at Berlinale Coproduction Market, Venice Production Bridge and at L’Atelier of the Cinefondation. Today Rojas is in post-production of his new film Our Memory, a hybrid project between documentary and fiction, with Paulina García (Berlin Silver Beard) in a lead role.

Producers’s profile:

Clara Larraín is a chilean actress/producer recognized with the Promising Producer Award 2022 by Marché du Film, selected at BA Talents, Rotterdam Lab and EAVE Chile, she specializes in international co-production of stories that defy cinematic genres and stereotypes. Her films have been awarded and selected at Baltic Event, SANFIC, Sapcine, FICG, Bolivia Lab and Seattle Latino, among others. Her last production White is for Virgins is available on HBO Max.

Tomás Gerlach is a chilean coproducer of the documentaries The Waltz a multi awarded film nominated to the Platino awards; and Flying Machine special jury award at FIDOCS. He also produced The Rings Of The Serpent (CineLatino Toulouse). Is currently in post production of Our Memory and developing two best seller adaptations How Long Do You Think I’m Going To Love You and Patas de Perro starring Alfredo Castro.