Projects
Projects
Fairy, Einstein and the Cherry Tree
Original title: Fairy, Einstein and the Cherry Tree
Directed by: Haruo Inoue
Produced by: Mitsuhiro Nakamura (Japan), Makoto Sugano (Japan)
Country of production: Japan, Kyoto/Hiroshima
Runtime: 50', 90'
Expected release: September, 2023
Production stage: In production
Budget: $262,000 USD (35% secured)
1st feature: No
Looking for: Sales agents, international distributors, Co-producers, strategic guidance, investors, funders
Synopsis:
Sano Toemon, 93 years of age, is a worldwide celebrated cherry blossom expert. Sano – who listens to the “voices” of his beloved cherry trees – has lived through as many experiences as the thousands of trees he cared for but never talked about these. However, he realizes that soon – like the weathered leaning cherry tree he might not be able to save – his juices of life will stop flowing, and his memories will wither away like fallen blossoms. So his grand-granddaughter visits him and, in an intimate conversation, gently rakes together the life lessons he now wants to share with the audience.
Director’s profile:
Inoue Haruo’s film The Reality Behind What We See was selected for competition at 19 international film festivals and won 10 awards including the Best Director Award and Grand Prix. He recently finished a documentary film, Vertigo, in memory of the late poet Jonas Mekas, who was considered the father of American avant-garde art cinema.
Producers’s profile:
Nakamura Mitsuhiro spent his school days in Kyoto and worked as a math teacher at a cram school before entering the TV production business. He has also worked for many years on programs introducing the history, culture, and tourist information of Kyoto and Nara, and has made it his life’s work to make use of his knowledge and connections. Co-Producer, Sugano Makoto has been working as a TV program director on art and science documentaries since 2005. In 2017, he also internationally co-produced a documentary of the first female surfer in Bangladesh. He also plays a role as a committee member of Tokyo Docs, the Japanese largest industry event for docs.
Asteroid 2518
Original title: Asteroide 2518
Directed by: Amanda Ruttlant
Produced by: Amanda Rutllant (Make More Meaning Media, Chile) Constanza Luzoro (Pataka Animation, Chile)
Country of production: Chile
Runtime: 62'
Expected release: April, 2024
Production stage: Late Production
Budget: $229,847 (31% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Co-producers, gap financing, strategic guidance, festivals.
Synopsis:
As I struggle tu understand my heritage, an autoimmune disease will push me to undertake an unexpected journey through time and space.
Director’s profile:
Amanda Rutllant is a Chilean/Brazilian Documentary Filmmaker and Master in Sociology, passionate for digital and new narrative aproches as well as found footage and home movies. She has worked for the United Nations and International Think Tanks as a consultant in narrative analysis. She started her career in documentary filmmaking in 2014 with her short film Of the 90’s and something, selected to the 10th version of the Rengo International Film Festival. She has directed and produced several short documentary films and has been AD in viral contents for social media. In 2019 she was executive director of the digital platform OpinaDocs, showcasing new chilean short documentarty film talents. She currently works in her own production company/digital marketing agency. Asteroid 2518 is her first feature film.
Producers’s profile:
Constanza Luzoro has a degree in Audiovisual Communication with a mention in Scripts for Film and Television. After working for five years at the Santiago International Film Festival, SANFIC, she worked as an assistant director in several national productions. After, she begins to dedicate herself exclusively to audiovisual production, writing and collaborating in scripts such as the short film A history of two women by Max Sotomayor, the winning documentary of InEdit 2019 Something is happening produced by Red Bull and directed by Tomás Alzamora, the children’s animation series Guitarra y Tambor (PUNKROBOT; HYPPE), and Dream in (STOON). In 2018 she teamed up with Kike Ortega to found the audiovisual content platform PATAKA, where she currently produces the 2D animation series Outlandish, winner of Corfo Series 2018, and developed the Stop Motion webseries Pajarones.
A Place of Our Own
Category: Film Bazaar Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Ektara Collective
Produced by: Ektara Collective
Country of production: India
Original title: Ek Jagah Apni
Genre: Feature film
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 90min
Completed in: 2022
Laila and Roshni, two transwomen, are looking for a house after they are evicted from the place they rented. It soon becomes evident that their search for a home is also their ongoing search for a place in this society that wants to keep them away in a section that can not be the centre.
Lapalissade
Category: Ukrainian Features Preview
Directed by: Philip Sotnychenko
Produced by: Halyna Kryvorchuk (Viatel), Valeria Sotnychenko, Sashko Chubko (Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema)
Country of production: Ukraine
Original title: La Palisiada
Genre: Feature film
Language: Ukrainian, Russian
Runtime: 110
Completed in: 2022
Synopsis:
Two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist investigate a murder of a colleague whose widow they both loved when they were young. Immersed in memories of the past, they unconsciously create a future for their children where they reap the fruits of their parents’ lost hopes.
Bury Me When I’m Dead
Category: Buyers Showcase
Directed by: Patrick Clement
Produced by: Amanda Freedman & Nicholas Santos (8890 Productions)
Country of production: USA
Genre: Drama, Horror
Language: English
After failing to keep his wife’s dying wish, a series of tragic events leads Henry to believe she’s returned to get revenge.
Absolution
Category: Proof of Concept
Directed by: Filip Kovacevic
Produced by: Filip Kovacevic, Djordje Stankovic & Vukota Antunovic (Void Pictures)
Country of production: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro
Genre: Adventure, Dystopian, Science-fiction
Language: English
In a barren wasteland far removed from the mythical city of the gods, there is one human settlement left. They are dying out under the leadership of a zealous priest who started conducting human sacrifice rituals after experiencing a religious vision.
Autumn
Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Antonio Sequeira
Produced by: Joana Domingues, Steven Flynn (Caracol Studios Kurious Studios)
Country of production: Portugal, United Kingdom
Original title: OUTONO
Language: Portuguese, English
Runtime: 120 min
Completed in: 2023
A small town Portuguese family have to confront their new life and some uncomfortable truths after their son leaves to London for university. As he returns home at the end of each trimester for the school breaks (Winter, Spring, Autumn) he discovers that he is not the only one going through changes.
Asog
Original title: Asog
Directed by: Seán DEVLIN 叶 世民
Produced by: Amanda ERNST (Beb Bingo Entertainment, Canada)
Country of production: Canada, Philippines
Runtime: 99'
Production stage: Post-production
Budget: $255.000 USD (85% in place)
1st feature: No
Looking for: Sales Agents / Distributors, Buyers, Gap Financing, Strategic Guidance, Festivals
Synopsis:
JAYA is a non-binary Filipino comedian who survived Super Typhoon Haiyan but lost their TV career when the storm destroyed the studio where they hosted their local talk show. ASOG follows Jaya on a road trip to a drag pageant and along the way they encounter Filipinos enduring the impacts of climate change, including residents of Sicogon Island whose land was stolen in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.
Director’s profile:
Seán Devlin 叶 世民 is a Filipino-Canadian filmmaker and comedian. His debut feature WHEN THE STORM FADES is available on Amazon Prime and AMC+ / Sundance TV. It earned Devlin two international jury prizes for Best Director and the Emerging Canadian Director prize presented by the DGC at VIFF. It won Best Canadian Film (Gimli Film Festival) and two Vancouver Film Critics’ Awards. While screening at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival Devlin participated in Brillante Mendoza’s directing masterclass (the first Filipino to ever win “Best Director” at Cannes). Mendoza deepened Seán’s understanding of the Filipino cinematic practice of “found story”, directly shaping his 2nd feature ASOG. His debut album AIRPORTS. ANIMALS was nominated for the 2022 JUNO award for Comedy Album of the Year’. In 2023 he made his TV stand-up debut on Just For Laughs & CBC’s NEW WAVE OF STAND-UP.
Producer’s profile:
Amanda Ernst is an emerging Canadian film producer with over a decade of experience in artist and project management. As a producer at Beb Bingo Entertainment, Amanda oversees projects from the early development stage, financing, pre-production, on set, and through to distribution. Amanda is the lead producer on her first feature length film, docufiction hybrid ASOG, which will premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. Currently Amanda serves as producer on a slate of projects including features, TV series, and an experimental Indigenous language adaptation project.
An Army of Women
Original title: An Army of Women
Directed by: Julie Lunde LILLESÆTER
Produced by: Natalya SARCH (Differ Media, Norway)
Country of production: Norway, Germany, USA
Runtime: 80', 52'
Expected release: March, 2024
Production stage: Post-production
Budget: €720.000 (95% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Sales agent, distributors, executive producer, festivals, broadcast/streaming, strategic guidance for release, impact campaign partners
Synopsis:
Two women in Austin, Texas join forces with 13 other survivors to build a movement legally challenging the system that allowed their rapists to walk free. Their groundbreaking class-action lawsuit is the first to argue that sexual assault isn’t prosecuted due to gender discrimination. This is the landmark story of women fighting to hold law enforcement accountable, with resounding relevance worldwide.
Director’s profile:
As director and cinematographer, Julie combines a strong visual eye with a commitment to social change. Her films have explored themes such as women’s rights & equality issues, migration, and the climate crisis, and her short documentaries have been broadcast on Al Jazeera English, NRK, and The Atlantic, among others. Her work has screened at festivals such as CPH:DOX, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hot Docs and BFI Flare. Julie’s cinematography on the documentary feature Thank You For The Rain (2017) has landed her multiple awards, including a WIFTV award for Best Cinematography. She is the co-founder of Differ Media, a production company focusing on impact-driven creative documentaries. In 2018, she was named Norwegian Video Journalist of the Year, and in 2020, she was listed on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.
Producer’s profile:
Natalya Sarch has worked in the U.S., The Netherlands, and Norway on projects such as Trust Me (2021), Neighbors (2017) and No Time to Lose (2017). Her Interactive project Another Dream (2019) by Tamara Shogaolu premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2020, Natalya joined forces with Julia Dahr and Julie Lunde Lillesæter at the independent production company Differ Media, based in Oslo, Norway. We tell character-driven, visually strong stories about some of the most important issues of our time. Our films have focused on issues like climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, migration and human rights. Differ’s productions have been broadcast in 60+ countries, and have been co-produced with broadcasters like Arte/ZDF, Al Jazeera, and NRK. In 2018, our feature Thank You for the Rain won Doc Society’s DocImpactHi5 award for its impact campaign.
Honeydew
Original title: Honeydew
Directed by: Marco BERGONZI, Michael PETROLINI
Produced by: Simone CATANIA, Francesca PORTALUPI (Indyca SRL, Italy)
Country of production: Italy, Sweden
Runtime: 87'
Expected release: September, 2023
Production stage: Post- production
Budget: €493.866 (83% in place)
1st feature: Yes
Looking for: Festivals, Distributors, Buyers, Gap financing
Synopsis:
Honeydew isn’t just a town it’s a state of mind. Maureen, 60s, moved to the tiny Northern California enclave in her 20s, seeking freedom in its purest form. But her simple life of writing country songs and illegally cultivating weed is disrupted due to the legalization of marijuana. Unable to adapt to government bureaucracy she has no choice but to surrender her corner of paradise to a younger generation.
Director’s profile:
Born in Parma, Italy in 1991, Marco Bergonzi obtained a degree in Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan. He returned to Parma where he completed his studies in 2018 with a multidisciplinary thesis about informal living. Through this research he came into contact with humanistic disciplines such as anthropology and sociology. As a passionate photographer/cinematographer, and storyteller, he has dedicated the last three years to documentary cinema. Honeydew is his first feature length film.
Co-Director’s profile:
Born in Turin, Italy in 1992, upon graduating from Liceo socio psico pedagogico, Michael Petrolini enrolled as a Sociology major in Milan but later took a hiatus from his studies to work and travel. Over the next five years he journeyed and worked an array of jobs in the United States, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South East Asia and Africa. In 2017 he took classes at the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern school of cinema in Bologna, where he graduated in November 2018. Honeydew is his first feature length film.
Producer’s profile:
Simone Catania is director and producer. In 2007 he cofounded Indyca in Turin, an independent movie production company oriented to international co-production. He produced films premiered at important international film festivals like Venice Film Festival, SXSW, IDFA, HotDocs and nominated at prestigious prices such as EFA and Nastri d’Argento, among the others. Currently, he is also working on an international coproduction film titled ‘Samia’ directed by Yasemin Samdereli.
Francesca Portalupi started her career in the film production with the documentary ‘Almost Married’, which premiered at IDFA in 2010. She joined Indyca in 2019 where she is executive producer of creative documentaries and feature films. Among the productions: ‘Happy Winter’ (premiered in Venezia), ‘We Are the Thousand’ (SXSW), ‘Cuban Dancer’ (Miami, San Francisco) and ‘The Store’ (BFI, Rotterdam).