Projects
Projects
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
Huntress
Category: Buyers Showcase
Directed by: Annick Blanc
Produced by: Midi La Nuit
Country of production: Canada
Genre: Psychological Horror
Language: French
Nina, a young woman with an unpredictable temper, is taken in by a band of hunters at a remote cabin. In this biting and endearing male micro-society, she feels like she is finally part of the pack. This fragile balance is upset when a mysterious stranger joins the group.
Quest of the Gods
Category: Proof of Concept
Directed by: George Moïse
Produced by: Terraform Pictures
Country of production: USA
Genre: Science-fiction
Language: English
A 9 to 5 space station worker mysteriously loses his most prized possession: the phone containing his dead mother’s memories. He goes on a quest across the galaxy, digging for clues in strange worlds and meeting a bizarre cast of characters to uncover the mystery.
TWO SISTERS
Category: Tallinn Black Nights Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Lukasz Karwowski
Produced by: Nadia Korotushka, Anastasiia Lodkina, Serg Demidov + FILM.UA Group, Ukraine, ZOOM MEDIA, Poland
Country of production: Ukraine, Poland
Original title: DWIE SIOSTRY / ДВІ СЕСТРИ
Language: Polish, Ukrainian
Runtime: 110 min
Completed in: 2023
A road movie about two Sisters – Polish and Ukrainian who set off from Poland to Ukraine to get their wounded father back home. They travel by car, hitchhike, on foot through destroyed Ukraine, while avoiding getting raped by Russians.
We’ve Always Treated Women Too Well
Category: Spanish Screenings Goes to Cannes
Directed by: Clara De Bilbao
Produced by: Ficcion Producciones SL & Noodles Production
Country of production: Spain
Original title: TRATAMOS DEMASIADO BIEN A LAS MUJERES
Language: Spanish
Runtime: 108'
Completed in: 2023
Remedios Buendía prioritizes its country above everything and everyone. In the fateful fall of 1945, a resistance guerrilla group on the run has the horrendous idea of taking hostage a mail office in the Pyrenees, where Remedios overfilled with joy, tries on her wedding dress.
The Televangelist
Category: Fantastic 7
Directed by: Tom Levesque
Produced by: Kevin DeWalt, Matt Noonan
Country of production: New Zealand
Original title: The Televangelist
Genre: Black comedy, Psychological thriller
Language: English
New Zealand International Film Festival
When a Televangelist is convinced a rival is behind his dwindling social media enterprise – Hendrick Powell sets out on a journey of obsession, theatrics and blackmail to reclaim his online followers whatever the cost.
O Filho da Puta
Directed by: Otto Guerra, Tania Anaya, Erica Maradona, Savio Leite
Produced by: Otto Desenhos Animados, Anaya Produções
Country of production: Brazil
Original title: The Son of a Bitch
Language: Portuguese
Runtime: 85'
Completed in: 2024
Deep in the far reaches of Minas Gerais is the Casa Rosa, a famous local brothel run by Ismael’s mother, locally known as « The Son of a Bitch ». Fed up with his life, he flees to the big city, with his dog in tow. Along the way, he is confronted with situations that force him back to the reality he is trying to escape.