Projects
Projects
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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
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.