Projects

Projects

Goes to Cannes

The Glass House

Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes

Directed by: Taras Dron

Produced by: Igor Savychenko (Directory films) Valeria Sochyvets (Contemporary Ukrainian Сinema) Rodrigo Ruiz Tarazona (Сіnelab) Taras Dron (Nord Production)

Country of production: Ukraine, Romania

Original title: Дім за склом

Genre: Feature film

Language: Ukrainian

Runtime: 100min

Completed in: July 2022

A young girl disappears with her older boyfriend. Victoria, the mother of the missing girl, has a seemingly perfect life. It is suspected that the daughter is involved in drug trafficking. But Victoria is less frightened by the dangerous world of drugs, than losing her picture-perfect reputation.

Goes to Cannes

The Vessel’s Isle

Category: HAF Goes to Cannes

Directed by: WANG Di

Produced by: XU Ruijing

Country of production: China

Original title: 不游海水的鯨

Genre: Feature film

Language: Putonghua, Yunnan Dialect

Runtime: 171min

Completed in: 2022

Dissolved in an unknown time, lost travellers in a small town enter a short and murky dream in which they meet the unknown and seek eternity.

Goes to Cannes

PANELLINION

Category: Thessaloniki Goes to Cannes

Directed by: Spyros Mantzavinos, Kostas Antarachas

Produced by: Leonidas Konstantarakos, Alaska FIlms

Country of production: Greece

Original title: ΠΑΝΕΛΛΗΝΙΟΝ

Genre: Documentary

Language: Greek

Runtime: 80min

Completed in: 2022

Panellinion is an out-of-place-and-time chess coffeehouse in the center of Athens; a refuge for those who suffocate in modern life. Giannis, the owner, hates chess, yet has a fatherly affection for his regulars, who see consolation in it. Teared up, they recall old stories, roister, drink and sing.

Frontières

Junction Row

Category: Buyers Showcase

Directed by: Ashlea Wessel

Country of production: Canada

Genre: Horror, Science-fiction

Language: English

A veteran recovering from addiction returns to the intentional community she once called home in search of her missing friend, but finds that it has been infiltrated by an otherworldly force.

Frontières

Street Trash

Category: Proof of Concept

Directed by: Ryan Kruger

Produced by: Justin Martell [Not The Funeral Home], Matt Manjourides [Not The Funeral Home], James C. Williamson [The Department of Special Projects], Ryan Kruger

Country of production: United States, South Africa

Genre: Comedy, Horror

Language: English

A group of homeless misfits must fight for survival when they discover a plot to exterminate every homeless person in the city.

Fantastic 7

The Cage

Category: Fantastic 7

Directed by: Paul Campion

Produced by: Jared Connon

Country of production: New Zealand

Original title: The Cage

Genre: Horror

Language: English

New Zealand International Film Festival

A customer and staff held captive in a home electronics store must escape from a fanatic who intends to use them as human sacrifices to summon an evil interstellar deity.

Animation Day

With Closed Fists

Directed by: Zoltan Horvath, Jean-Jacques Kahn, Franck van Leeuwen

Produced by: Nicolas Burlet - Nadasdy Film

Country of production: Switzerland - France

Original title: A poings fermés

Language: French

Runtime: 75min

Completed in: 2024

“With Closed Fists” tells the story of Victor Young Perez. He wins the World Boxing Championship in 1931 and experiences glory, wealth, and passion. He is also a Jew, arrested by the French police in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz; he disappears during the “Death Marches”.

Cannes Docs

Punishment

Original title: Straff

Directed by: Øystein Mamen

Produced by: Ingvil Giske (Medieoperatørene, Norway)

Country of production: Norway

Runtime: 100'

Expected release: January, 2023

Production stage: Production

Budget: €631,920 (84% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents / distributors, buyers.

Synopsis:

In Halden prison in Norway 250 men are incarcerated, many with long sentences at the upper end of the penalty scale: Murder, major drug cases, violence. Once a year, a few of them participate in something unique: Living as monks for 3 weeks, in a ward of the prison made into a monastery. What happens when the men voluntarily submit themselves to stricter rules than the prison imposes on them?

Director’s profile:

Director and screenwriter Øystein Mamen is best known as an award-winning cinematographer. He was the DOP of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Beware of Children that premiered at Venice Film Festival 2019, and was the winner of both the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film and the Audience Dragon Award Best Nordic Film at Gothenburg film Festival 2020. He has also filmed Kim Hiorthøi’s The Rules of Everything and several of Margreth Olin’s documentaries, such as The Self Portrait. Mamen has also worked as a cinematographer on four of Ole Gievær’s films, including the award-winning Out of Nature. Punishment will be Mamen’s directorial debut, and he has also shot the film.

Producers’s profile:

Ingvil Giske has worked in documentaries for more than 20 years. Among her latest releases are Natasa Urban’s The Eclipse (DOX:AWARD 2022) two kids docs released in 2021 Line Hatland’s Kids Cup (IDFA, Giffoni, Zlin, New York Children’s film festival etc) and Solveig Melkeraaen’s The School by the Sea (Hot Docs, Nordic Panorama, Cleveland Int Film Festival etc). She also produced Benjamin Ree’s The Painter and the Thief from 2020 that received a special jury award for creative storytelling at Sundance, was on the shortlist for an Oscar and won more than 30 film awards. Ingvil has also produced Paul S. Refsdal’s Dugma – the Button (2016), that was awarded Best Mid-length Documentary at HotDocs 2016, and Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s Faith Can Move Mountains (2021) that won the Prix Europa Iris Award 2021.

Cannes XR

Madame Pirate: Becoming a Legend

Genre: Adventure, Biopic, Historical

Produced by: Estela VALDIVIESO CHEN, Adam Cullen YOUNG | Co-producers: Jinyao LIN, Hazel WU + Serendipity FilmsSy

Directed by: Morgan OMMER, Dan-Chi HUANG

Original title: 女海盜:成名之路

Runtime: 15min

Language: English, Mandarin

Completed in: 2021

Synopsis:

The untold story of Cheng I Sao, the greatest pirate of all times.
In a lawless world, overrun by roving ships and ruthless men, a girl propels herself from a life of forced prostitution, to command the largest and most successful pirate fleet in world history. A grandma narrates an extraordinary bedtime story to her granddaughter. It turns out, there is more to this tale than helping put her child to sleep. This story is Cheng I Sao’s incredible real life story.

Director’s statement:

The most formidable pirate of all times is not a bearded man with a parrot on his shoulder, or a monkey by his side. The greatest pirate in history is a 19th Century Chinese woman, who started from nothing and successfully led 60,000 ruthless pirates into battle. History barely remembers her, she is only known as Cheng I Sao, the wife of Cheng. Yet at the helm of her fleet (The Red Flags) she defeated the Qing Dynasty’s Imperial Navy and her allies, the Portuguese and the British. Repeatedly. We decided to tell this extraordinary story in VR, as a fairy tale, using a mix of live action footage, to transport the viewer on to the deck of a 19th Century Chinese pirate junk and Tilt Brush, a VR painting tool. Last but not least, the tale is told in the words of a poet as befits any good bedtime story. Our story is part history, part legend and mostly the fruit of a child’s imagination.

Origin: Taiwan

Devices: HTC Vive series/Oculus Rift series/Quest

Platform: VeeR, Alexandria

Goes to Cannes

The Barbaric

Category: SANFIC Industria Goes to Cannes

Directed by: Andrew Sala

Produced by: Nicolás Grosso, Sebastián Muro, Claire Lajoumard

Country of production: Argentina

Original title: La Barbarie

Genre: Feature film

Language: Español

Runtime: 90min

Completed in: 2022

Nacho flees the violence of his home in Buenos Aires and looks for a home under the protection of his father, a rancher with whom he barely has a relationship. Nacho will have to fight to understand his place as a patron.