Projects
Projects
ROCK. PAPER. GRENAGE
Category: Ukrainian Features Preview
Directed by: Iryna Tsilyk
Produced by: Vladimir Yatsenko, Anna Yatsenko (ForeFilms)
Country of production: Ukraine
Original title: Я і Фелікс
Genre: Feature film
Language: Ukrainian
Runtime: 90
Completed in: 2022
Synopsis:
A coming-of-age story, based on Artem Chekh “Who are you?” autobiographical novel about relationships between a teenager and broken adults in Ukraine, 1990s. One day Tymophiy befriends a Felix – an Afghanistan war veteran, who has has PTSD and he loves classical music…
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
Electric Child
Category: Buyers Showcase
Directed by: Simon Jaquemet
Produced by: Michela Pini, Aurelius Eisenreich, Simon Jaquemet, Judith Lichteneckert, Titus Kreyenberg, Raymond van der Kaaij (8 Horses)
Country of production: Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands
Genre: Computer-Thriller, Drama, Science-fiction
Language: English, Swiss-German, Japanese
When his newborn son is threatened by a rare disease, a computer-scientist enters a pact with the complex AI life-form he is developing. This initiates a chain reaction that puts an end to the world as we know it.
Paws
Category: Proof of Concept
Directed by: Lukas Rinker
Produced by: Neopol Film
Country of production: Germany
Genre: Creature Horror
Language: English
Young climate-researcher Nook is in grave danger. Her science-vessel has broken down way deep in the Arctic ice and her team is about to betray her and her cause – and dig for oil! When a hungry polarbear-mother then attacks the estranged crew, chances for survival decline rapidly.
Five and a Half Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius
Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Tomas Vengris
Produced by: Uljana Kim, Alicia Ní Ghráinne, Roberts Vinovskis + Studio Uljana Kim / Tiger Darling Productions / Studio Locomotive
Country of production: Lithuania, Ireland, Latvia
Original title: PENKIOS SU PUSE MEILĖS ISTORIJOS, NUTIKUSIOS VIENAME VILNIAUS BUTE
Language: Lithuanian, English, Hebrew, Hungarian, Polish
Runtime: 112 min
Completed in: 2023
Five guests experience a crisis of love in an AirBnB in Vilnius; unaware of the stories that have transpired within the same walls and under the same bedsheets. Between each, the quiet cleaning lady, Jolanta, arrives to clean away the debris, while her own silent love story unfolds.
Loch Ness: They Created a Monster
Original title: Loch Ness: They Created a Monster
Directed by: John MACLAVERTY
Produced by: John ARCHER
Country of production: Scotland
Runtime: 88'
Expected release: August, 2023
Production stage: Completed
Budget: €455.000 (100% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Festivals, Distributors, Buyers
Synopsis:
In the 1970s, beneath the murky waters of Loch Ness, lay a world of violent rivalry, fakes’n’ fraud, sexual shenanigans and monster egos. Cameras peered into the depths – but the real action happened on the banks. The Loch was a natural history frontier – even Attenborough was impressed. Flimsy evidence became scientific fact, frustration turned to fakery – but the deeper you go, the darker it gets.
Director’s profile:
From swearing, to kilts, to accents to…. Scotch pies – John MacLaverty has been writing and directing documentaries in Scotland – and about Scotland – for over 25 years. Though born in Belfast, he’s made long form and entertaining films that celebrate Caledonian cultural life, with wit and stylistic flair. With his partner, John co-runs Indelible Telly, a new(ish) boutique production company who’ve been commissioned by BBC and others to produced film about the Scottish newspaper industry, about the travails of tourism, the scandal of anthrax testing in rural Scotland. Loch Ness, They Created a Monster heralds his arrival into the world of feature docs, and the combination of an epic subject, and epic setting and an epic era, makes for an epic debut.
Producer’s profile:
Bafta winner John Archer runs Hopscotch Films who specialise in international feature documentaries. Recent premieres include Mark Cousins’ My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (Telluride ‘22); Jono McLeod’s My Old School (Sundance, HotDocs ’22) which opened in US and UK cinemas last summer; Mark Cousins’ Story of Film a New Generation (Cannes ’21) and Women Make Film (Venice, TIFF,) which was awarded the inaugural Innovation in Storytelling Award from European Film Academy. Other recent feature docs from great directors are: The Ballad of a Great Disordered Heart, Dùthchas (EIFF 2022), Eminent Monsters, Make Me Up, Arcadia, Glasgow Love & Apartheid, and Harry Birrell Presents Films of Love and War. Hopscotch Films are co-producing Beast with Denmark’s Bullitt Films and Sweden’s Plattform Productions and recently combined forces with Channel X to produce comedy and drama together from Scotland.
The Death Tour
Original title: The Death Tour
Directed by: Stephan PETERSON, Sonya BALLANTYNE
Produced by: Sergeo KIRBY (H2L Productions, Canada)
Country of production: Canada
Runtime: 90', 44'
Expected release: November, 2023
Production stage: Post-production
Budget: $615.500 (92% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: A list Festivals, European Distributors
Synopsis:
The Death Tour is a feature documentary following professional wrestlers on “the hardest tour in indie wrestling”. For weeks, these wrestlers travel across frozen lakes to put on shows for Canada’s most remote Indigenous communities. Sleeping on floors and eating canned food, this trip will force each wrestler to draw from their checkered pasts if they dare dream of a future in wrestling.
Director’s profile:
Stephan Peterson (Director/ Writer) is a Canadian Screen Award nominated documentary director, shooter, and story-editor. Since 2014, Stephan has been traveling the world shooting and directing TV series for CBC, Discovery, History, Nat Geo, Velocity and Motor Trends. Stephan’s experience working as a both a director and story editor on series like Big Rig Warriors (History), Hellfire Heroes (Discovery), Mega Trains (Discovery) and Restoration Garage (Velocity) has given him the ability to follow story in the field and to carefully craft it in the edit suite. Having directed on Ice Road Truckers (History), Cold Water Cowboys (Discovery), and Licence to Drill (Discovery), Stephan has proven he has what it takes to work with multiple characters in extreme conditions. This experience will serve him well in the filming of Death Tour, his first feature documentary.
Co-Director’s profile:
Sonya Ballantyne is a Swampy Cree writer and filmmaker from the Misipawistik Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Her work focuses on contemporary and futuristic portrayals of Indigenous women and girls. Her published works include children’s book Kerri Berry Lynn as well as contributions to anthologies such as Pros and Comic Cons and Resurgence. She has written for numerous creative properties such as Sesame Street, The Walking Dead: LAST MILE and CTV’s Acting Good. She was recently nominated for a Writer’s Guild of Canada award for her work on Acting Good. The Death Tour is her feature directorial debut.
Producer’s profile:
Sergeo Kirby has been producing, directing and filming award-winning feature documentaries for two decades. Notable credits include THE FORBIDDEN REEL, ABU, SHINERS, PATSY, H2Oil, ROADSWORTH, WAL-TOWN, and FENNARIO: THE GOOD FIGHT. Sergeo is the founding member of Loaded Pictures, a Montreal based documentary film company focusing on complex social documentaries. His documentaries have been seen on CBC, the Documentary Channel, GlobalTV, Canal D, Discovery, the Sundance Channel, and Bravo! among others and have been screened at hundreds of film festivals around the world. In 2017 ABU won the best documentary prize at 14 film festivals and SHINERS, released in the same year, won best documentary at 5 film festivals.
Meril (WT)
Original title: Meril (WT)
Directed by: Victoria VERSEAU
Produced by: Malin HÜBER (HER Film, Sweden), Mathilde RACZYMOW (Les Films du Bilboquet, France)
Country of production: Sweden, France
Runtime: 70'
Expected release: February, 2024
Production stage: Production
Budget: €559.936 (94% in place)
1st feature: No
Looking for: Festival, Sales Agents, Buyers, Strategy
Synopsis:
Having reached her innermost dream, Victoria tries to understand what changed when she went through gender confirmation surgery. After all that struggle, should she not be happy? Instead, her aspirations were placed on hold when Meril, a close trans friend, decided to end her life. Victoria retraces her memories traveling to Chonburi and Paris piecing together the past in order to face the future.
Director’s profile:
Victoria Verseau is a director, screenwriter and artist. Her films move freely within the genres of documentary, fiction and art film. Her work addresses subjects such as transition, memory, gender constructions, the private and the public experience. She searches to tell untold stories, remaining in the periphery towards oblivion. Verseau is currently working on her two debut feature films Meril and Boundaries that will premiere in 2024.Her solo exhibitions and films have been awarded and presented internationally. ao. Outfest LA, Encounters UK, Gothenburg International Film festival SWE, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Para Site, Hong Kong. In 2017 she was the first trans person to receive The Anna Prize for her work with film, a stipend awarded by Women in Film & Television and UN Women.
Producer’s profile:
Malin Hüber is a producer that works between the fields of film and art. Selected titles include Blomster by Neil Wigardt (2023) Lucky One by Mia Engberg (2019), Sometimes it was Beautiful by Christian Nyampeta (2019) and the childrens short documentary series Sport Kids (2015) in collaboration with Final Cut for Real, Sant & Usant and ARTE Junior. Malin is an alumna of Eurodoc and Berlinale Talents and co-founder of HER Film.
Terra Incognita
Original title: Terra Incognita
Directed by: Enrico MASI
Produced by: Stefano MIGLIORE (Caucaso, Italy), Loïs ROCQUE (Les Alchimistes, France)
Country of production: Italy, France
Runtime: 110', 130’, 55’x2
Expected release: September, 2023
Production stage: Post-production
Budget: €650.000 (80% in place)
1st feature: No
Looking for: Festival Curators, National Theatrical Distributors, Buyers, Gap Financing
Synopsis:
Weaponization of energy and nuclear family life in the wilderness intertwine in Terra Incognita, a documentary feature ode to the search for survival resources on planet earth. Starting from Alexander von Humboldt’s oeuvre Cosmos, made of sketches describing the natural universe, the film is a poetic post-human investigation, in and out of atomic energy, in the modern geopolitical context.
Director’s profile:
Enrico Masi (1983) is an author, film-director and musician, Phd at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, involved in cinematic research and phenomenological studies. His debut feature length, The Golden Temple premiered in Venice Film Festival, Cinemateca Uruguaya and Festival dei Popoli in 2012, then released worldwide. The Mega Event Trilogy (2012-2019) studied the impact of metropolitan postmodern mutations between London, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo. Shelter-Farewell to Eden, final chapter of the trilogy, is the story of Pepsi, a transgender militant born in the southern Philippines. The film premiered in CPH:DOX main competition, with Doc Alliance special mention, Cinema du Reél, Sheffield Doc Fest, DocLisboa, Festival Mix Milan, BFI Flare. During the Terra Incognita writing and development he has been selected as Berlinale Talents in 2021.
Producer’s profile:
Stefano Migliore (1984) is a producer and author of documentaries for cinema and audio documentaries. Since 2010 he has been president of Caucaso, with which he produces and develops several audiovisual projects including numerous institutional films and research documentaries. He produced 4 audio documentaries for RSI – Laser and for Rai Radio 3. He produced all films directed by Enrico Masi. His relationship with the director is decades old, and thanks to his management, organizational and creative skills, he has always managed to support and realize Enrico’s creative flair.
The Remnants of the Pass
Original title: Los restos del pasar
Directed by: Alfredo PICAZO, Luis SOTO
Produced by: José Alberto ANDRÉS LACASTA (DU CARDELIN STUDIO) and Daniel PEÑA BARREDO (MUBOX STUDIO)
Country of production: Spain
Runtime: 81'
Expected release: June, 2023
Production stage: Post-production
Budget: €85.000 (80% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: International Sales Agents, Distributors, Festivals, Co-Producers
Synopsis:
Antonio remembers a Holy Week from his childhood in a remote village in Córdoba. Seven days that turned him into the man he is and the child he cries to be again. A letter from an adult mind, in memory of the past.
Director’s profile:
Alfredo Picazo. Director, filmmaker and colourist Baena (Córdoba). He studied at the Escuela Universitaria de Artes TAI and specialised in Film Directing. At the same time, he trained and qualified as a certified colourist. His career includes the direction of the medium-length film “Buona Novella” (2019, Alfredo Picazo and Soto Muñoz) and the short film “Apollo”. He has also directed music videos such as “Su Mirada” and “Bruma Sobre Madriz” by the artist L’Voy. Together with Soto Muñoz, he directed the cinematography of “El Cuento del Limonero”. His first professional short film as director and scriptwriter is “Cuando se hundieron las formas puras”, a free version of the story of Federico García Lorca during the Spanish Civil War. Winner at the Montreal International Film Festival as Best New Director 2022. “The remnants of the pass” (2023) is his first feature film as a director.
Co-Director’s profile:
Luis Muñoz, “Soto” Baena (Córdoba). Graduated in Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts at TAI School. Specialised in directing at TAI School.At the age of 19 he founded the collective La Huelga de las Sardinas, through which he produces most of his work.His films are characterised by the use of rural areas as a backdrop. Interested in decentralised production models, he shoots his films, imbuing them with an aura of escapism in the face of urban freneticism. His work deals with themes such as absence, memory and adolescent drifting, inevitably impregnated with traces of magical realism and phantasmagoria inherited from Latin American literature. In addition he develops his work in other audiovisual fields such as advertising production and pedagogy. Works: El Cuento del Limonero (medium-length film 2021) Circo de Pulgas (short 2022); The remnants of the pass (documentary 2023).
Producer’s profile:
J. Alberto Andrés Lacasta.Doctor in Legal Sociology (University Zaragoza) Master’s Degree in Film Scriptwriting. Master in Production and Direction of Audiovisual Content. He studied Video at the Professional School of Fine Arts. He has developed his career as a scriptwriter, script reviewer, producer and director. He has won more than 40 awards and has participated in more than 300 festivals. He is a member of Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences and founder of Du Cardelin Studio. Recent Work as director, writer or producer: A woman without a shadow (2013 documentary); Behind Nazarín (2015 documentary); Epilogue to the death of Faun (2016 short); Ofra&Khalil (2019 short); Sebastienne (2021 short); Buñuel un cineasta surrealista (2021 documentary); Manolo Kabezabolo (2023 documentary); Las gemelas Atomikas (2023 documentary Movistar+);The remnants of the pass (2023 documentary).