Projects
Projects
The Camera Never Cries
Original title: الكاميرا لا تجيد البكاء
Directed by: Elsadig Abdelgayoum, Abuzar Adam
Produced by: Alyaa Musa (Black Balance Artistic Production, Sudan)
Country of production: Sudan, Qatar
Runtime: 75'
Expected release: April, 2024
Production stage: Production
Budget: €200.000 (25% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Co-producers, sales agents, buyers, festivals
Synopsis:
When Elsadig and Abuzar meet while filming the Sudanese revolution 2019, neither knew they would eventually turn the camera on each other. An intimate journey of a growing friendship between two directors, whom seeking redemption and beauty through the art of filmmaking when all the odds are against them.
Director’s profile:
Elsadig Abdelgayoum is a Sudanese photographer and filmmaker. He studied Multimedia and participated in a few filmmaking and photography workshops in Khartoum and other cities in the continent. Elsadig employs filmmaking, photography not only as tools to tell stories, but to research and develop further understandings and new prespectives towards his own reality. In 2012 Abuzar Osman graduated from the telecommunication engineering. His passion of classic photography started during his childhood before fleeing Darfur region. Aubzar has joined filmmaking workshops and directed two graduation projects. Between December 2018 until the end of March Abuzar joined a journalistic network Ayin (Witness).
Producer’s profile:
Transforming from a Development professional to a storyteller, Alyaa is searching for controversy, hope and beauty behind closed doors. She has creative credits as a producer, director, cinematographer, editor and visual artist in about ten shorts that were screened in international film festivals. Alyaa has two higher degrees in filmmaking from the UK; PGD London Film School 2012 and MA with distinction in Cinematography and Post Production from the University of Greenwich 2014. A graduate of EAVE producers workshop 2021, Alyaa is currently leading two feature documentaries that are supported by regional and international documentary funds and film institutions.
Sisters of the Union
Directed by: Dan Popa
Produced by: Line Sander Egede (Tak Films, Canada)
Country of production: Canada
Runtime: 90'
Expected release: January 2027
Production stage: Post-Production
Budget: $296,637 (89% in place)
1st feature: No
Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents / Distributors, Buyers, Gap Financing
Synopsis:
Sisters of the Union is a fantastical autobiographical documentary about my family’s life during Communism in Romania. The story is told through the voices and challenging shifts of five women that each come to symbolize various eras from the rise to the decline of the Union.
Director’s Profile:
Dan Popa is a Canadian filmmaker of Romanian origin. Popa graduated in film production from Concordia University. In his work, we find new explorations, as much in the narrative form as in the aesthetic treatment of the image. Always in search of crafting a contemporary cinema voice, his filmmaking process draws inspiration from various visual languages.
He directed several short films which won awards in Canada and at several international film festivals. His most recent immersive Installation project Partitions for Aquamarine is in dialogue with Symphony in Aquamarine (2018), his first feature film. These two works offer a poetic exploration of human nature in the face of its world in transition.
Producer’s Profile:
Line Sander Egede, originally from Copenhagen and based in Montreal since 2015, began producing films in Denmark in 2010. She founded TAK Films in 2018, producing works such as Vacarme (2020) by Neegan Trudel and Gabor (2021) by Joannie Lafrenière, focusing on auteur-driven fiction and documentaries with strong social and artistic ambition. From 2021 to 2024, she was a partner at production company Art et Essai and, among other projects, produced Ariane Louis-Seize’s Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023), which premiered in Venice and Toronto and was sold to over 70 territories.
Land of Evanescence
Directed by: Trang Thi Xuan Nguyen
Produced by: Wilfredo Manalang (Fusee, Philippines), Charlotte Lelong (Trance Films, France)
Country of production: Vietnam, Philippines, France
Runtime: 75'
Expected release: November 2026
Production stage: Post-Production
Budget: €257,253 (48% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents/Distributors, Buyers, Impact Producer, Gap Financing, Strategic Ideas, Post Services.
Synopsis:
Land of Evanescence is a creative documentary where the director, a child of the post-war era, makes the link between her recurring nightmares and a trauma inherited from the Vietnam War.
Director’s Profile:
Nguyen Thi Xuan Trang is an acclaimed filmmaker with nearly 20 years of experience in international cinema. After early work in commercials, she transitioned to independent film in 2014 via the Kyoto Filmmaker Lab. Her career gained global momentum at the Bucheon Fantastic Film School and Locarno’s Open Doors Lab, where she won the 1st Prize FAI Producer Grant.
A pivotal figure in Southeast Asian cinema, Trang is known for high-profile collaborations with Trương Minh Quý. She was Line Producer for Hair, Paper, Water… (2025), the Golden Leopard winner at Locarno. Her production Viet and Nam (2024) competed in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, following the success of The Tree House (2019). In 2022, she debuted as a director with After Taste, which premiered at Fantasia. Her work reflects a deep commitment to independent storytelling and global co-production.
Producer’s Profile:
Wilfredo Manalang is the founder of FUSEE and a prominent producer in the Asian film industry. His diverse co-production portfolio includes Plan 75 (2022), which won a Cannes Camera d’Or Special Mention, and Don’t Cry, Butterfly (2024), the Venice Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner. Other notable works include Elsewhere at Night (2025), winner of Best Screenplay at Torino, and Through Your Eyes (2025), selected for the Berlinale Short Competition.
Locally, he produced Blue Room (2022) and Topakk (2023), which premiered at Locarno. An alum of EAVE Ties That Bind and APOSTLAB, Manalang previously served as Managing Director for International Production at ABS-CBN and Executive Director of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (2016–2019). He also represented the nation as a board member of the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines.
Night Town
Category: Proof of Concept
Directed by: Imogen Murphy
Produced by: Tailored Films
Country of production: Ireland
Genre: Drama, Gothic Horror
Language: English
In Dublin’s late 19th century red light district, a teenage girl on the run is drawn into a sinister vortex of love, revenge – and murder.
Cult Hero
Category: Buyers Showcase
Directed by: Jesse T. Cook
Produced by: Jesse T. Cook, Liv Collins, Craig Shouldice
Country of production: Canada
Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
Language: English
Manager-summoning control freak Kallie Jones teams up with washed-up cult buster Dale Domazar to rescue her husband from the clutches of a cannibalistic death cult.
Breaking and Entering
Category: SANFIC Industria Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Tomás Gonzalez Matos
Produced by: Camila Rodó Carvallo, Pira Films
Country of production: Chile
Original title: Allanamiento
Genre: Feature film
Language: Español
Runtime: 80min
Completed in: 2022
The Deputy Commissioner of the Investigative Police MATOS requests help from Commissioner NOVOA to enter the Prosecutor’s Office and get rid of some recordings that accuse them of drug trafficking, torture and corruption.
Silent Ghosts
Category: HAF Goes to Cannes
Directed by: YANG Heng
Produced by: YAN Ni, No Chopsticks Pictures Limited
Country of production: Hong Kong
Original title: 失語鎮
Genre: Feature film
Language: Putonghua, Hunan Dialect
Runtime: 142min
Completed in: 2022
A story set in an enigmatic town featuring a woman in the morning mist, a tourist, a strange old man, a reckless young man and two policemen burdened with troubles.
Lesvia, the herstory of Eressos
Category: Thessaloniki Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Tzeli Hadjidimitriou
Produced by: Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, Anemos Dimiourgias, with the support of the Region of North Aegean, developed with the support of Onassis Culture
Country of production: Greece
Original title: Λesvia, the herstory of Eressos
Genre: Documentary
Language: Greek, English, Italian, French
Runtime: 80min
Completed in: 2023
Birthplace of the Archaic Greek poet Sappho, Eressos, decorates its squares with statues of her, a lesbian. This affirmation has marked the island of Lesbos as a meeting point for the international lesbian community. What does this place actually mean to them and how do the locals perceive them?
Demons
Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Natalka Vorozhbyt
Produced by: Dmytro Minzianov (Kristi Film) Denis Ivanov (Arthouse Traffic)
Country of production: Ukraine
Original title: Демони
Genre: Feature film
Language: Ukrainian
Runtime: 105min
Completed in: May 2023
Slavik, a homeless man from Russia, finds himself in Gogol’s places near Sorochyntsi. In order to survive the winter, he becomes friends with Ninka, an older woman. However, he underestimates the scale of her personality and the peculiarities of the region that overwhelm the uninvited guest.
Lollipop
Directed by: Lisa Marie Russo
Produced by: Kate Ogborn (Fly Film), Vicki Rock (Enter Yes)
Country of production: UK - Ireland
Original title: Lollipop
Language: English
Runtime: 85min
Completed in: 2024
Lollipop (the sweet sounding name of a mastectomy scar) explores the creator’s surreal odyssey of tackling breast cancer. Twice. Her avatar, Eva, slips into youthful memories of seaside attractions and sunshine, which morph into something dark and corporeal as she juggles family life and illness.