HUBERT BALS FUND PLUS
HUBERT BALS FUND PLUS
GUIDE July 2014
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Hubert Bals Fund Plus
The Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) of the International Film Festival Rotterdam supports filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America,
the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe with contributions in the stages of Script and Project Development and
Postproduction/final financing. Annually between 20 to 40 filmproductions are realised with the support of the Hubert Bals Fund.
Approximately half of these films are made in cooperation with European co-producers. The International Film Festival
Rotterdam would like to offer Dutch producers the opportunity to participate in international and artistically acclaimed
productions through the extensive network of the HBF. To be able to support HBF projects in the stage of actual production as
well, the Netherlands Film Fund (Nederlands Film Fonds) and the HBF set up the Hubert Bals Fund Plus programme.
Annually the Netherlands Film Fund makes 200.000 Euro available for HBF Plus. Applications can be granted with a maximum of
50.000 Euro towards the production of a film. Of this contribution 50% must be spent in the Netherlands. Eligible for the Hubert
Bals Fund Plus programme are those projects that have been granted financial support for Script and Project development from
the HBF at an earlier stage. The total budget of the film project cannot exceed 800.000 Euro and a Dutch producer should be
attached to the project. This Dutch producer has been responsible for at least one feature film with a cinema release in the
Netherlands. Preferably other European producers are involved as well.
This publication contains all eligible projects (p. 5 - 42) and all eligible Dutch production companies (p. 43 - 54).
Application deadlines are 1 April and 1 October.
Visit www.iffr.nl/hbfplus for updated Regulations and information on How to Apply.
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Hubert Bals Fund Plus Selections
Land and Shade
César Acevedo - Colombia
Topkapi Films, Amsterdam
Oblivion Verses
Alireza Khatami - Iran
Lemming Film, Amsterdam
Don’t Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl
Felipe Bragança - Brazil
Revolver Media, Amsterdam
Big Father, Small Father
Phan Dang Di - Vietnam
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Women of the Weeping River
Sheron Dayoc - Philippines
Waterland Film, Amsterdam
Rey
Niles Atallah - Chile
Circe Films, Amsterdam
La última tierra
Pablo Lamar - Paraguay
Fortuna Films, Amsterdam
2014
2014
2014
2013
2013
2013
2013
The Midfielder
Adrián Biniez - Uruguay/Argentina
Topkapi Films, Amsterdam
Dos disparos
Martín Rejtman - Argentina
Waterland Film, Amsterdam
Bull Down!
Gabriel Mascaro - Brazil
Viking Film, Amsterdam
Humidity
Nikola Ljuca - Serbia
Lemming Film, Amsterdam
Leones
Jazmín López - Argentina
Lemming Film/Viking Film, Amsterdam
La tercera orilla
Celina Murga - Argentina
Waterland Film, Amsterdam
In What City Does It Live?
Liew Seng Tat – Malaysia
Volya Films, Rotterdam
2012
2012
2012
2012
2011
2011
2011
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The Blue Wave
Merve Kayan and Zeynep Dadak - Turkey
Family Affair Films, Amsterdam
De jueves a domingo
Dominga Sotomayor - Chile
Circe Films, Amsterdam
Solo
Guillermo Rocamora - Uruguay
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Tanta agua
Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge – Uruguay
IDTV Film, Amsterdam
Villegas
Gonzalo Tobal - Argentina
NFI Productions, Amsterdam
40 Days of Silence
Saodat Ismailova - Uzbekistan
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Abrir puertas y ventanas
Milagros Mumenthaler - Argentina
Waterland Film, Amsterdam
2011
2010
2010
2010
2010
2009
2009
Our Grand Despair
Seyfi Teoman - Turkey
Circe Film, Amsterdam
Los últimos cristeros
Matías Meyer - Mexico
IDTV/Motel Films, Amsterdam
Agua fría de mar
Paz Fabrega - Costa Rica
Isabella Films, Amsterdam
Black and White Photos
Shu Haolun - China
IDTV/Motel Films, Amsterdam
The Light Thief
Aktan Arym Kubat - Kyrgyzstan
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Los viajes del viento
Ciro Guerra - Colombia
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Salt of This Sea
Annemarie Jacir - Palestina
Augustus Film, Haarlem
2009
2009
2008
2008
2008
2007
2007
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Jermal
Ravi L. Bharwani - Indonesia
Motel Films, Amsterdam
Gigante
Adrian Biniez - Uruguay
IDTV/Motel Films, Amsterdam
My Marlon and Brando
Huseyin Karabey - Turkey
IDTV/Motel Films, Amsterdam
Chnchik
Aram Shabhazyan – Armenia
Isabella Films, Amsterdam
Border
Harutyun Khatchatryan - Armenia
Volya Films, Rotterdam
Principles of Life
Radu Jude - Romania
Circe Films, Amsterdam
2007
2007
2006
2006
2006
2006
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Available projects
The projects listed on the following pages all received
Hubert Bals Fund support for their Script and Project
development. Budgets and shooting dates are tentative.
Beijing Time .............................................. 5
The Boyfriend ........................................... 6
By The Time It Gets Dark............................. 7
Cactus Flower .......................................... 8
The Calm .................................................. 9
Ciego .................................................... 10
Children of the Sun .................................. 11
Conurbano ............................................. 12
Dream State ........................................... 13
Elon Rabin Doesn’t Believe in Death ........... 14
Monos ................................................... 15
Nervous Translation ................................. 16
The omission........................................... 17
Oscuro Animal ........................................ 18
A Very Ordinary Citizen ............................ 20
The Seen and Unseen ............................... 22
The Sigbin Chronicles .............................. 23
Something Useful .................................... 24
Strange but true ...................................... 25
Sultriness............................................... 26
Tabija .................................................... 27
Tempestuous .......................................... 28
Territoria ................................................ 29
They Call Me … ....................................... 30
Twins .................................................... 31
The Unwelcomed Whirling Wind In Our Stomach ...... 32
Vanishing Point ....................................... 33
While Waiting for You .............................. 34
White on White ....................................... 35
White Sun .............................................. 36
The Wife of the Man Who Eats Laser Beams ...... 37
Wild Fire ................................................ 38
The Winds Know I'm Coming Back Home .... 39
Window Boy Would Also Like To Have A Submarine .. 40
Wolf and Sheep....................................... 41
The Wound ............................................. 42
DUTCH PRODUCERS ................................ 43
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Beijing Time
Original title: Beijing Shijian
Director: Zhang Yuedong
Production companies: Hu Tong Communication, Youku Inc.
Production country: China
Contact: Li Kitming, [email protected] or Jeroen
Groenewegen, [email protected]
Budget: 450.000 Euro
Synopsis
Zhang Zhaohui and Zhou Yang are close friends. Zhou Yang
has feelings for the beautiful Lin Jia, but Lin Jia is in love
with Zhang Zhaohui, who in turn is planning to move
abroad. With the help of Lin, Zhang manages to get his oneway ticket. He entrusts Lin to Zhou, and disregarding
everything else shoves his way into the plane headed for
Europe. Ten years later, Zhang returns hardly touched by
time. Lin and Zhou have not married at all, but did become
very wealthy. They live a decadent and incomprehensible life
style. The places and people that were once so familiar to
Zhang have entirely changed. Passé friendship and reignited
love, topped off with the confusion of identities: Zhang feels
as if he is living in a story. Everything seems full of
possibilities, but is also hard for him to take in. This world is
no longer the one he recognizes. His hopes shatter one after
the other, like a vulgar comedy gone mad. Absentmindedly,
continuing flying becomes his only option to preserve his
faith in life.
Director’s statement
This is a story about travel and emotions, about the relations
between time, space and people, about the questionable
values people have, about people’s inaccuracy, the
suspicious self-awareness, and about the unknown factors
that influence people’s course of life. It also tells you that all
this is not important, as long as everyone moves and dances
in merry disorder. Disregarding everything else, Zhang
Zhaohui shoves himself on the plane. But this flight doesn’t
seem to offer anything he likes. After many years he now
returns hardly changed, unsure of what a decade or so of
living abroad means to him. It shocked him to find out that
he was prepared to give up his European identity in a single
stroke. Yet the place he came from and the people there
changed entirely.
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The Boyfriend
Director: Ashim Ahluwalia
Producer: Ashim Ahluwalia
Production company: Future East Film
Production country: India
Expected Shooting date: February 2015
Contact: Ashim Ahluwalia, [email protected]
Total budget: 400.000 Euro
Synopsis
Yudi, a middle-aged gay journalist, has his privileged world
jolted when he picks up a 19-year-old Dalit (Untouchable)
boy, Milind, in a public toilet. Months later, when fierce
Hindu–Muslim riots break out in Mumbai, Yudi finds
himself worrying about the boy from Churchgate Station.
He is in love. As their affair turns more passionate and
morally hazy, Yudi must make a series of decisions that will
forever affect their lives. Joyous and heartbreaking, The
Boyfriend captures a little-known side of Mumbai: the sweat
drenched gay clubs, the explosive mix of class and caste and
the private sexual hells buried under a dangerously
conservative society.
Director's Statement
Expanding the interests of my first film, Miss Lovely, which
premiered in Un Certain Regard in 2012, The Boyfriend is a
more intimate exploration of desire and longing in India.
From Yudi’s posh South Bombay comfort to the sweaty
desperation of Milind’s slum with its hidden by-lanes, illegal
marketplaces and broken lives - this film brings together
many different worlds in an explosive mix. As Indians, we
live with this extreme contrast every day, and yet so few
films chronicle what this really means. The cinematic palette
is, as a result, acutely wide. The contrast between sexuality
and tradition, selfish-love and self-loathing, rich and poor,
men and women: this story chronicles the machinery of
desire in a way that is truly moving and yet uniquely Indian.
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By The Time It Gets Dark
Original Title: Dao Khanong
Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong Producers: Soros
Sukhum / Anocha Suwichakornpong
Production Company: Electric Eel Films Production
Country: Thailand
Expected Shooting Date: September, 2014
Contact: Soros Sukhum +66 2 6622869
[email protected], [email protected]
Total budget: 442.536 Euro
Synopsis:
‘By The Time It Gets Dark’ tells the interwoven stories of multiple
characters; a film director and her muse, a waitress who keeps
changing jobs, an actor, and an actress. Their lives are loosely
connected by almost invisible threads. The narrative sheds its skin
several times in the course of the film to reveal layer upon layer of
the complexities that make up our lives.
Director's Statement
Dao Khanong (By the Time It Gets Dark) is my attempt to deal
with the impossibility of making a historical film in the place
where there is no history. The narrative, which begins as a single
narrative, soon becomes fragmented, and ultimately devours
itself. There are no beginning or ending points. Time is both
transfixed and moving. One of my most memorable lessons when I
was learning English in primary school was the day I discovered
the present perfect progressive tense; ‘I have been’, ‘you have
been’, ‘she has been’. For the native English speakers, it’s evident
what this tense is. But as a speaker of non--‐tense language, which
Thai could be counted as one, alongside Chinese and many others,
it was for me hugely interesting. Present perfect progressive is
used for something that is ongoing, for something that happened
in the past and continues until now. I remember how good I felt to
be able to add a new tense to the three tenses that I had already
mastered; past, present, and future. Then as my English got a little
more advanced, I learnt that there was yet another tense, the past
perfect progressive tense, ‘I had been’, ‘She had been’, ‘They had
been’. As opposed to present perfect progressive, where something
continues to happen, past perfect progressive signifies something
that used to happen in the past and continued to happen for some
time, but no longer continues. It finished. Or maybe it didn’t
finish. It just doesn’t continue. Expiration. There are far too many
actions, anecdotes, incidents, or events that take place in one’s
lifetime, personally, socially, and historically. Perhaps that is why
we are bound to forget. For if we could remember everything, how
could we ever get out of bed in the morning? We would be so
weighed down by the heavy burden of history. We forget so we can
go on living. It is just as well. We forget. It is just as well. Perhaps
only in our dreams can we remember.
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Cactus Flower
Original title: Zahret Al Sabbar
Director: Hala Elkoussy
Production country: Egypt
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
It is Sein’s last week in the city. She came to Cairo from the
countryside to join University and like many others she
stayed on. Now, fifteen years later, exhausted by life in a
churning urban metropolis, she leaves for an unknown
destination. An exceptional heat wave has a hold on the city.
Demonstrations and street riots are a daily occurrence,
making movement from one place to another very difficult.
Sein spends her final week attempting to go to places and
meet with people that are meaningful to her. In a city at a
boiling point, Sein’s journey collides with the journeys of the
rest of the characters in the film.
Director’s statement
The story of Sein is that of a thirty-something woman living
outside the boundaries of accepted social norms in an all
powerful “machine” that strives to homogenize difference.
Her hopes, dreams, failures and disappointments, are
shared by many, but it is a story that is not often told in a
patriarchal society. Throughout her one week journey Sein
regurgitates and ruminates bits of her life. In an attempt to
move forward, she questions the choices that brought her to
this point (where she has to leave) and the meaningfulness
of notions like love, family and success of her survival in the
city. This complex question has informed my work this far.
Given my own background, Sein’s story is a very personal
one and I believe at this point of my artistic development I
am ready to tell it.
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The Calm
Original title: PING JING
Director: Fang SONG
Producer: Shozo ICHIYAMA
Production country: China, Japan
Expected Shooting date: December, 2014
Contact: Fang SONG, [email protected], +86 138
106 77582
Total budget: 400,000 Euro
Director's Statement
I would like to treat such a subject – how people face the
pain in a context of daily life. And I will try to make it not
too much through the language. Also I want to take the
nature as a character. The film will go through three
seasons- winter, spring and summer, for showing the
process of transition in heroine’s mental world.
Synopsis
Lin is a documentary director in her early 30s. This winter
she breaks up with her boyfriend Gui-ren towards whom she
has deep emotion. She feels that her world collapses. Since
then she tries to maintain her life with control and wants to
face the sorrow by herself.
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Ciego
English title: Blind
Director: Fernando Zuber
Producer: Nicolas Avruj, Diego Lerman
Production company: Campo Cine
Production country: Argentina
Contact: Nicolas Avruj, [email protected]
Expected Shooting date: September 2015
Synopsis
This is a story about a journey between a father and a son. The
father is blind, his son can see. They return to father’s
childhood home in the countryside where Paraguay and
Argentina seem to blend. That house and that forest are the last
of his visual memories. The son is starting his life, he is going
on puberty. His mission will be to guide his father but the
journey will lead to enduring and unforeseen discoveries for
both of them.
Director's statement
Blind, I am. I was raised by a handicapped father and his
disability both enslaved and freed me. By this evocation,
“Blind” takes on a life of its own and its digressions have
created this movie. I need to talk about the Father. I need to
smear myself with blindness, to be someone different in a
world that wasn’t designed for blind people. I need to plunge
into the roughness, the delay, the humiliation, the nudity, the
perplexity it generates. I need to feel the Other, the Different
one, as a nuance, a threat. I need to also say that beyond
anything else, mankind has the possibility of breaking free, of
giving new meaning, of swerving, that is, if we dare to be
owners of our own destiny. I need to talk about the Son. A
teenager who has been taken care of but still has to care for the
person who gave him life. A son who has always felt his father’s
arm over his shoulder as a gesture of inability, protection and
frozen distance. A son who sees but who still can’t tell what it is
he sees. I want to play with the light, the sun, the night, the
dust… Doubt, confusion, haziness and indecipherability
through images. I want to play with sounds as textures, colors,
smells, tastes - like the alphabet they represent to a blind
person. And the journey. The spiritual, physical, initial and
final journey. The journey towards the origin and the journey
towards destiny. Through this journey and this father-son
bond I seek to witness the fluctuating relationship between
protector- protégée, visionary-blind, awakening-twilight, is
covery-rediscovery, origin-destiny, me and the other person I
could have been.
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like to make a film in this background using this period epic
as an allegory to raise the question, “what do you find most
important in life?”
Children of the Sun
Director: Prasanna Vithanage
Production companies: Prasanna Vithanage Productions,
Production Country: Sri Lanka
Contact: Prasanna Vithanage, [email protected],
+94 777 288 984
Budget: 500.000 Euro
Synopsis
Stripped from nobility and forcibly married to an outcast
by the monarchy, a noble woman fights to keep her dignity
by rejecting to succumb to her destiny. In her journey for
survival in war torn land with an outcast, she comes to
realize the real nobility lies within self respect and love. She
willfully becomes an outcast.
Directors Statement
What is life? I believe it is finding love and respect.
Present day with the global capitalism, multinational
corporations bigger and more powerful than countries have
pushed indigenous people into extinction. For survival
human values, morals and priorities have changed. I would
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Conurbano
Director: Gregorio Cramer
Production companies: Utopica Cine , TS Productions
Production countries: Argentina/France
Contact: Gregorio Cramer, +54.911.4565 7103,
[email protected], Milena Poylo, TS Productions,
+ 33.1.53 10 24 00, [email protected]
Budget: 800.000 Euro
Expected Shooting date: November 2014
Synopsis
Naranjo Vera, a deserter fleeing from the authorities, falls
prisoner to a native group and is taken to an indigenous
camp. There he gets to know Clara, a Spanish captive girl,
concubine of the chieftain. They get an affair, risking their
lives. After much time and effort he manages to escape the
camp with Clara, who later on abandons him to return to
the Indians, leaving her son behind. He gets lost in the
desert, until he is picked up half dead by an army officer
who takes him to the militia, where he makes up a new name
and past. His first mission is to search for a criminal that
turns out to be himself. It looks like he is to blame for every
bad thing that has happened at the frontier in recent years.
But a mutiny solves the problem, setting the deserter free.
Vera returns with a mutilated official and presents him like
the real deserter. He is celebrated with honors.
Director’s statement
The trigger for this story was an accidental encounter with a
painting entitled: The Captive, in which a woman suggests
her defenselessness in an indigenous encampment, in tune
with the popular imagination of the era. From there, and on
the basis of some narratives left by other captives, this
fiction started to take shape. But it is also the untold story of
Naranjo Vera, a myth of a savage outlaw that intimidated
Buenos Aires in the 1860’s. The complex relationship
between descendents of Europeans and indigenous people
in the 19th century has much in common with the present
day unresolved tension between the inhabitants of our cities
and those expelled to the outskirts, what seems to be a new
border line between two parts of the same society.
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Dream State
Original title: Ngu mo
Director: Bui Thac Chuyen
Production company: BBB Art & Media
Production country: Vietnam
Contact: Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, [email protected]
Budget: 500.000 US$
Synopsis
Du - a girl afflicted with depression since the age of 12
following a bicycle accident, wounded in the area of her
genitals. Taken to the hospital she is scolded cruelly by two
older female doctors who think she has had sexual activities
too early. At the age of 28, an incident awakens her sexual
instinct, and she decides to seek sex, also seeking her own
natural instincts. She looks for someone with whom she can
have sex. A mediocre sex with the guard at her library makes
her want to go back to the depression pill. She looks for Vi,
the prostitute who is her neighbor, just to find out that Vi
has run away from her father’s death. Desperately, Du takes
off her clothes, steps into Vi’s bathtub in front of the
balcony, where Vi used to bury herself every day.
Director’s statement
Sexuality has been an obsession as well as a challenge to
directors, especially in a country such as Vietnam where
there are many taboos and obstacles to it. A desire to
discover the various aspects of sexuality by each individual,
each generation, gender, and by people in varying
circumstances is what attracts me to this story. A film with
an existentialist character. It’s time the Vietnamese look at
the true value of sex. It’s not only about pleasure, or an
procreative activity, but it’s also a redemption. The rather
unique perspective in this project created a strong
impression in me. I will only use locations I understand the
most. These are areas I am most familiar with in Ha Noi, the
city where I live. More important are the people in it. Ha Noi
is a city for people with strong instincts. The past or the
future isn’t important in this city.
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Elon Rabin Doesn’t Believe in Death
Original title: Elon Rabin não acredita na morte
Director: Ricardo Alves Jr
Producer: Thiago Macêdo Correia
Production company: Entre Filmes
Production country: Brazil
Expected Shooting date: June 2015
Contact: Thiago Macêdo Correia, [email protected],
+55 31 9377 5490
Total budget: 365.000 Euro
Synopsis
To disappear is to become invisible. It is no longer to be
material, but not necessarily become absence. Someone that
disappears without any explanation remains present, in a
way: turns itself into a deployment of possibilities, like a
ghost of itself. Elon returns to his house and his wife is not
there. He retraces the path Madalena makes daily. No clue.
A sleepless night. In the morning after, Elon goes to the
police station and files a report, runs into hospitals,
morgues. This moment is an interruption in Elon's life.
Alone, he wanders through a metropolis, searching for
news.
Director's Statement
The project came from a real character and his controversial
relationship with death. Madalena is missed in every inch of
space, in the objects, in the bodies. It’s in the visible that lays
her invisibility. She is present without being there and is
exactly this lack of materiality that prevents Elon of
accepting her disappearance. There is a constant
estrangement that not only crosses through the bodies, but
also makes itself present in the decoupage, the rhythm and
the buildup of climates and atmospheres. Each one of the
elements contributes to the film’s central search, that is to
enable the audience to identify with the sensations, doubts
and anxieties of Elon Rabin.
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Monos
English title: Monkeys
Director: Alejandro Landes and Alexis Dos Santos
Producer: Alejandro Landes
Production company: Nomo-Franja
Production country: Colombia
Contact: Alejandro Landes, [email protected]
Total budget: 700.000 Euro
Synopsis
On a mountaintop, far from everything, eight teenagers with
guns have created a world of their own. Without adult
supervision, they can do anything. Yet what looks like an
anarchic summer camp is in reality a mission: keeping alive
the only adult, a kidnapped woman under their control. But
after one of them kills a cow, order collapses and terror takes
over.
Director's Statement
At a film festival, Alejandro told me he had an idea for a film
for us to make together. He told me about teenage guerrilla
soldiers that were frequently put in charge of guarding a
kidnapped person in remote places. And how these kids
must get bored, experiencing the growing pains and angst of
adolescence, while playing with real guns, in a real war. We
talked about The Lord of The Flies, and how interesting it
would be to portray their subjective teenage experience, as I
had done in my film Glue, but within a very particular
political context. Though I had seen the story of a
kidnapping on film countless times, what most struck me
was that I had not seen it told from the point of view of kids
with guns in the ranks of a clandestine army. Here, the
kidnappers are confined themselves and, in a sense,
kidnapped as well. (Alexis Dos Santos)
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Nervous Translation
Director: Shireen Seno
Producer: John Torres
Production company: Peliculas Los Otros
Production country: Philippines
Contact: Shireen Seno, [email protected], +63 939 524 9289
Total budget: 520.000 Euro
Synopsis
Eight year-old Yael is a nice girl but nervous to a fault. She has
certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies such as cleaning the
bottom of her shoes when she gets home from school. She plays
“House” with her miniature food toys while waiting for her
Mother to come home from work at the local shoe factory. In the
evenings, Yael cuts her mother’s white hair for 25 centavos
(roughly 1 US cent) a strand. Yael’s father is never there. She only
knows him through photos of him at work in Saudi Arabia, and a
growing pile of cassette tapes which he sends every now and then
as ‘voice letters’ to his family. But their twin-cassette boombox is
broken, and Yael does not dare play the tapes inside in fear that it
might eat her Father’s words. One day Yael finds out about a pen
that can translate the thoughts and feelings of shy people like
herself. She becomes obsessed with finding this pen and realizes
she will need money to get anywhere. One stormy night, she plots
to paint her Mother’s hair white as she sleeps but finds the house
flooded by the vicious typhoon Unsang, which brings a month’s
amount of rain in just a few hours. In the aftermath of the disaster,
Yael and her mother find themselves stranded on their rooftop,
where her mother’s hair has indeed turns white.
Director's Statement
I was terribly shy growing up. I was the youngest of three girls,
growing up in a Filipino family in Japan. My mother was a teacher,
and school was everything for us. Doing well in school meant
getting into a good college in America, to get a good job, become
American citizens, and support my parents when they got old.
That’s all they talked about, instead of us actually talking to each
other about things. We’d always just go shopping, and even then,
we’d each go our own way and buy things to fill the gaps between
one another. Nervous Translation is based on my experiences
growing up a child of the Filipino diaspora—unsure of myself,
wanting to belong, and longing for a way to connect. Set in 1988,
in a ‘free’ Philippines just after the Marcos’ dictatorship, the film is
about the complexities in expressing oneself and connecting with
others, seen through the eyes of a young girl. Nervous Translation
seeks to recapture an important period in Philippine history and
draw connections to the present day through issues that are still
persist: the complexity of the family unit in light of migration, an
obsession with consumer electronics and personal technology, and
the sheer power of nature to remind us of our limits.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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The omission
Original title: La omisión
Director: Sebastián Schjaer
Producer: Melanie Schapiro
Production company: Trapecio Cine
Production country: Argentina
Expected Shooting date: July 2015
Contact: Melanie Schapiro,
[email protected], +5491157562690
Total budget: 110.000 Euro
Synopsis
In a snowy city in the south of Argentina, Paula, a 24
year old girl from Buenos Aires, starts an intense job
hunt with the sole purpose of saving money. Her
parents have died shortly before and now she is
planning to travel to Canada with her boyfriend and
her daughter. Her feeling of helplessness and isolation,
together with her difficulty of taking charge of her own
life permeates Paula's life along the movie. She must
learn to put up with adversity in a strange and hostile
environment, which will reveal the fragility of a young
woman who still hasn’t found herself and who finally
has to take charge of her life and her past.
Director's Statement
By the middle of last year I came across a picture. It was
the photo of a woman whose face was hidden behind
the hood of a jacket. The woman was standing in front
of a car stopped by the side of an isolated road. The
landscape around was completely covered with snow.
That photo kept reminding me of the pain I had
experienced in that stage of life that goes between
youth and adulthood; a period marked by the anguish
caused by the blows that some situation can inflict on
us and which reveals the fragility with which we move
in life, almost blindly. The intimate, slow and silent
tone of the movie coexists with the vital and boundless
energy of young people. The characters run around
aimlessly, crashing inevitably into things, growing up
with each blow.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Oscuro Animal
English title: Obscure Animal
Director: Felipe Guerrero
Producer: Felipe Guerrero & Gema Juárez Allen
Production companies: Mutokino, Gema Films
Production country: Colombia, Argentina
Expected Shooting date: April 2015
Contact: Gema Juárez Allen [email protected] +54 911
4163 4724
Total budget: 428.424 Euro
Director’s Statement
I intend to make a film that focuses on those who have
suffered the violent impact of war and are forced to flee,
becoming uprooted and having to find a new place in the
world. The narrative mechanism I propose intertwines three
stories about the enforced loss of a place of origin. Stories of
women forced to flee on their own and that must go through
hardships until they are finally able to find shelter. I want to
work especially with the inner strength of these characters,
who go through an intense and painful process towards
survival.
Synopsis
Oscuro animal tells the story of three women forced to flee
their homes in the midst of the Colombian armed conflict.
Each on their own, they embark on a journey from the
rainforest to Bogotá, encountering characters that will
accompany them in their search for shelter. Once in Bogotá,
they will be able to breathe again and face their new lives.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Otra madre
English title: Another mother
Original title: Otra madre
Director: Mariano Luque
Producer: Julia Rotondi - Mariano Luque
Production country: Argentina
Expected Shooting date: Second Semester 2014
Contact: Julia Rotondi, [email protected]
Total budget: 250.000 Euro
Synopsis
Mabel works at her cousin's house. She attends and takes
care of her until she recovers from a broken leg. She also
does the house chores; her aunt will pay her extra to do it.
Mabel has a six-year-old son who she can't see almost all
day. She's trying to improve her economic situation, but
meanwhile, she must leave him with her mother, and
occasionally, with her ex-husband.
Another mother it's a film that portrays the maternal act
between persons with different links. A story about
moments and circumstances that manage to reconfigure the
family roles.
Director's Statement
I have the need to rescue the instants of energy and vigor
that allows confronting of the daily problems. I would like to
make an encouraging, warm and committed film about
maternal protection. A portrait about little moments of
affection; where the motherly exists as an act of surrender
and adaptation to the present time. Women of different ages
and social classes, persons that cannot reach her desires and
aspirations, however they try to coexist with her
circumstances in the best way possible.
I like fiction cinema to evoke significant personal
experiences and try to represent them from a new
perspective, as if there was a second chance.
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A Very Ordinary Citizen
Director and Producer: Majid Barzegar
Production company: Dey Filmmaking Group
Production country: Iran
Contact: +098-2188284061, [email protected]
Budget: 170.000 Euro
Synopsis: Naser Safari is a retired old man who lives alone in a block of
apartments in Tehran. His only hobby is watching airplanes flying from
an airport near his home; he also receives occasional visits from his
neighbor, Parvin, who is an old and warm-hearted spinster. Unlike Mr.
Safari, Parvin has an active life; she helps others using her savings and is
loved by everyone. She always tries to inject hope into Mr. Safari’s life, but
he is not interested in any change in his cold and empty life. Death of Mr.
Safari’s ex-wife, who had remarried after she got divorce, makes his
daughter miss him even more. Therefore, she decides to take care of her
father for awhile at her home in Canada, but there are two problems:
firstly Mr. Safari does not even have a passport to start with and secondly
because the Canadian embassy in Tehran is closed, he has to travel all the
way to Ankara in Turkey to apply for a visa. She knows her father’s old age
and health conditions does not allow him to go through all the paperwork
on his own, so she hires a young girl-named Sara- to prepare him for the
trip. Sara is a young and beautiful girl who is always full of life. Although
at first Mr. Safari does not show any interest in this trip, Sara’s presence
makes him feel alive again. While she accompanies him to obtain a
passport, he falls in love with her -an unsuitable love in every sense. On
the other hand, Mr. Safari realizes Sara is in a relationship which makes
him lose hope. Their trip to Ankara to apply for a visa makes his love even
deeper for her, a love which breathes life into his mundane and empty life
and gives it a goal. He wants to be close to Sara any way he can, so he
begins wandering around her workplace; As he observes Sara, he finds out
Sara owes money to a man. The man gets Sara fired from the agency she
works in. Mr. Safari’s wanderings lead to him getting arrested by the
police; in confrontation with hidden aspects of life, it is as if he regains his
lost courage and decides to make a change in his ways. He thinks
providing the money Sara owes will unite him with the love of his life.
Sara has become the main goal of Mr. Safari’s life. He knows Parvin has
some money at home, so he goes to her and asks her for the money. She is
shocked and says she does not have that much money. Mr. Safari murders
Parvin and steals the money, he finds Sara, but the man who is with Sara
and to whom Sara owes the money belittles him, grabs the money and
threatens him to live Sara alone. Mr. Safari feels like a loser and decides to
return home while the Police is waiting for Parvin’s murderer to come
home.
Director’s Statement:
“A Very Ordinary Citizen” is another chapter in my filmmaking career,
and it follows my concerns for the society I inhabit. Tehran - the capital of
Iran – is a metropolis crowded with people from diverse races and
backgrounds who have once migrated here hoping for a better life. My
two previous films were screened in the Rotterdam film festival; they also
characterize the same issues in the lives of middle class Iranians and
portray the coldness, complexity and hidden violence in everyday
relations. “A Very Ordinary Citizen” also tries to depict a lonely old man`s
temptations in the face of his newly found love for a young girl. The story
works on “the freedom to express love”: An issue still unresolved among
our fellow citizens, leading to violence, destruction and isolation in our
families. The story goes on in the context of immigration as one of the
bitterest controversies in my country.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Rusty Hairpin
Director: Margaret Bong
Production company: Joonloo Studio
Production country: Borneo, East Malaysia
Expected Shooting date (Month, Year): TBC
Contact: Margaret Bong, [email protected]
Total budget: 510.400 Euro
Synopsis
Rusty Hairpin is an emotional story of a Chinese mother and
daughter from a family with a communist background, who
live through the most chaotic eras of Malaysia’s modern
history. The entire story takes place in Sarawak, the biggest
state in Malaysia, with arguably the most active communist
movements in the country that lasted for more than 50 years
before reaching the peace agreement in 1990. The story
spans over 60 years, witnessing the fate of these two women
under the major political events in the country, which
changed the course of their live.
Director's Statement
How do women see the war? How do women see the
involvement and passionate pursue of their men in communism? How do women cope with the physical, emotional
or even sexual loss of their men? And if their husbands
return again one day, how do the women adapt to the sudden change in their lives? I never have the chance to meet
my grandmother. Therefore I create a model of her based on
what I learned from my parents. It is neither about the
history facts, it is just merely my imagination how people
adapt the war emotionally.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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about human connections, how this twin siblings reach their way
to communicate beyond verbal language.
The Seen and Unseen
Original title: Sekala Niskala
Director: Kamila Andini
Producer: Gita Fara
Production company: SET Film Production
Production country: Indonesia
Contact: [email protected], +628561306143
Budget: 260.534 Euro
Synopsis
This is a story about Tantri and Tantra… a 11 years old twin
siblings living in a little village in Bali. Their mother died when
giving them birth, the only one left is their father, who is a
struggling farmer. They always do everything together until one
day Tantra is sentenced to have a brain cancer. He is paralyzed
and loses his senses one by one. He cannot walk, talk, touch, and
hear. And now he only has his eyes to see. Tantri tries to finds her
way to communicate with her brother, she wants him to
experience many things, and she tries to bring everything to the
hospital room. She tries to tell the story about the sadness of the
bird with a broken wing, about happiness of the monkeys who
find their foods. She tells the story with her movements, without
realizing it... she is dancing... The Seen and Unseen tells a story
Director’s statement
Dancing is making dialogues. That is the reason why I want to
make this movie. I learned to dance since I was a little girl and I
realize that every dance has its own fairytale. In my country,
Indonesia, dance is a media of telling about culture, origin,
thoughts and also our belief. We communicate through dancing.
In this movie, I would like to show the connection between twin
siblings that is built through dancing, both physically and
spiritually. Through these two characters, I want to find a
connection between the stammer of a mouth then bring it to the
whole body, and also find helplessness of the all senses then bring
it into the heart. His sister are certain that her brother will die
young but she is also certain that in his short time, he can know
the world through her dancing. Most of the scenes in the movie
take place in a small hospital room. However, by using the
components in their daily lives spaces, like livestock animals,
plants and the culture of its society that are shown through stories
and dances of the character, I try to take the audience to imagine a
broader world. The whole movie will present the relation between
the nature, body and emotion through dancing. This is the
children’s world; this is the world of imagination. And this is the
time when arts and illness unconsciously cure each other.
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The Sigbin Chronicles
Original title: Ang Kabilin Sa Sigbin
Director: Joanna Vasquez Arong
Producer: Bianca Balbuena
Executive Producer: Brillante Ma Mendoza
Production companies: Old Fool Films, Ltd., Centerstage
Productions, Inc.
Production country: Philippines
Contact: Joanna Vasquez Arong / Bianca Balbuena
[email protected], [email protected]
Budget: 260.000 Euro
Director’s statement
Many bemoan the centuries of Westernization of the
Filipinos at the expense of retaining our own local identity.
As I spent time living in other Asian countries, where many
proudly recount their long rich history, I too started feeling
a tinge of loss and longing. As I reminisce about my
childhood in the Philippines, however, I realized my most
vivid memories are of the local myths and legends. Some of
these myths are so ingrained in our psyche that they are a
significant part of our reality. Perhaps these precolonization symbols and customs only need to be
rediscovered after all.
Synopsis
The Sigbin is a creature, both feared and coveted in
Philippine mythology. It is known to have the ability to go
anywhere in the world and can take its owner along. The
Sigbin Chronicles explores how the Sigbin plays into the
lives of three men: a Revolutionary, a Hitman and an Artist,
in their quest for freedom. It is the myth of Leon Kilat, the
revolutionary who fought valiantly against Spain, which
trickles into the experiences of both the Hitman and the
Artist in modern-day Cebu, in their personal journey to
overcome fear and betrayal.
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Something Useful
Director’s Statement
Original title: Işe yarar bir şey
Director: Pelin Esmer
Producer: Pelin Esmer
Production company: Sinefilm
Production country: Turkey
Contact: Pelin Esmer, [email protected], +90 532
453 83 78; Dilde Mahalli, [email protected],
+90 532 6315280,
Total budget: 800.000 Euro
Synopsis
Leyla (42) is a lawyer. She takes the train from Ankara to
Izmir for her high school reunion dinner. Canan (21) is a
nursing student. She takes the same train for a job interview.
Yavuz (45) is a paralyzed man, waiting for a nurse in his
apartment in Izmir to help him die. They get together in
Yavuz’s apartment where Leyla the lawyer now is the poet,
Yavuz, “the victim” is now the admirer of Leyla, Canan the
nurse is now Yavuz’s “executioner”.
Why does a poet (Leyla) decide to accompany a paralyzed
man (Yavuz) who wants to die, and a young nurse (Canan)
who has taken on the difficult task of killing him? To help
them? Because she is fascinated by them? Because she is
fascinated by death? Because she is curious? Or is it because
she wants to do something useful? Would Leyla have done
something useful by accompanying Canan and spending
time with Yavuz? Why does the artist continually seek to do
something useful, when art exists as a powerful and magical
tool for understanding life? I’ll be searching for some
answers in continous movement of a train, in the crowds of
city of Izmir, in Yavuz’s calm apartment and at Leyla’s
reunion dinner which turns into the venue for the “last
supper”.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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take the money and escape, the possibility of freedom
emerges but the perils are many.
Strange but true
Original title: Extraño pero verdadero
Director: Michel Lipkes
Producer: Matias Meyer and Michel Lipkes
Production companies:: Axolote cine, Mandrake pictures
Production countries: Mexico, France (applied)
Expected Shooting date: 23 march - 25 April 2015
Contact: Michel Lipkes, [email protected];
+521 5529225640; Matias Meyer, [email protected]
+1514 4438442
Total budget: 406,886 Euros
Synopsis
A group of four trash collectors do their hard work in the
streets of Mexico city. The younger ones, Jonathan and Yesi,
are in love. They hide it from Maestro Limpio who lives a
frustrating life and is in charge of the truck they ride, he
craves for Yesi. The fourth member is Momia, a mute old
man who is the father figure to Maestro. One night, they
stumble upon the corpse of a man executed by criminals, he
is hiding a load of cash in his body. Maestro decides to keep
the loot and disappear the body. The lovers then decide to
Director’s statement
I want to tell a story where a couple´s love and desire for
freedom becomes some sort of an unreal strifle in the middle
of a crime story. Adding to this story the context of trash
collecting in a city that feels like the present but belongs as
well in the imagination, one that is overwhelmed in a
marginal and alienating atmosphere. The work background
where the film takes place strengthens the core of the story
because it contrasts the intimate love story. The film will be
shot with discretion in black and white thus neutralising the
intensity of the story, placing forward the essence of what is
being looked at. When we arrive to the lovers final threshold
we are committed to them, their arguments of struggle and
the freedom they experience at the very end has become
ours.
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Sultriness
Original title: Mormaço
Director: Marina Meliande
Producer: Leonardo Mecchi
Production companies: Duas Mariola Filmes &
Enquadramento Produções
Production country: Brazil
Expected Shooting date: December, 2014
Contact: Leonardo Mecchi, [email protected]
55-11-99990-0515
Total budget: 600.000 Euro
Synopsis
Rio de Janeiro, 2014, the hottest summer in history. The city
is preparing for the Olympic Games. Rents and real estate
increase, everyday we see Rio transforming into a new city.
The heat builds up creating a humid and suffocating
atmosphere. Ana, a 32 years old anthropologist, receives the
news that the building where she lives will become a luxury
hotel and she must find a new place to live. Meanwhile, she
notices purple spots on her body similar to skin fungus.
Strange things begin to happen in the city and in Ana`s
body. The heat builds up creating a humid and suffocating
atmosphere. The sultriness accumulates and gives way to
heavy rain. A film about accumulation and how the bodies
behave (and transform) in sticky weather, full of tension and
energy.
Director's Statement
Mormaço is a film about accumulations: of heat, of
consumption, of desire. A film about how bodies behave
when they sweat, when they want to touch and be touched.
Bodies that are transformed by the climate, the lethargy. It’s
a film about a woman who is in search of another body. An
erotic film. Fungi start taking over walls, making them alive,
taking over our bodies, turning people into hybrid, moldy
creatures. It’s a film about a woman whose skin grows
moldy. It’s also a fantastic film. It´s a fairy story told at a
time when Rio de Janeiro is getting ready to host the
Olympic Games and is undergoing huge social and urban
upheaval. In her body, through her skin, Ana lives out the
transformation of Rio. The film is an approximation to some
types of genre films, especially fantastic and erotic cinema,
while keeping a realistic tone in its way of recording the
unexpected.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Tabija
Director: Igor Drljaca
Producer: Adis Djapo
Production companies: SCCA/pro.ba
Production country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Expected Shooting date: Summer 2015
Contact: Adis Djapo, [email protected], +387 61 205 019
Total budget: 795.000 Euro
Synopsis
In a battered Sarajevo suburb, an orphan Faruk (17) lives
with his dying grandmother. He picks up scrap metal with
his uncle, while committing petty crimes with his friend
Almir (19). Almir's gang plans a trip to the coast, and one
spot remains in the car. To win the spot, Faruk is given five
days to take a girl's virginity, and just as it appears he has
lost, he meets Mona (14). Mona drifts aimlessly between her
home, shopping malls, and school. When her careeroriented parents Aida and Slaven decide to send her to be
schooled in Vienna, Mona discovers that they plan to
divorce. While at the mall with her girlfriends she meets
Faruk. Faruk and Mona continue to meet in secrecy, sharing
their fears and hopes. He takes her on scooter rides around
Sarajevo. Pressured to bring proof of his conquest, Faruk is
conflicted. He takes Mona to a fortress that overlooks the
city. They have sex and fall asleep. Mona wakes up, cold and
alone. She makes a slow descent into the city.
Director's Statement
Having left Sarajevo during the war, and having returned
frequently during its post-war period, I’ve become frustrated
with the apathy and hopelessness, which paralyze all
segments of Bosnia’s society. Especially worrying is that the
youth born after the war has been abandoned. The
privileged have changed the narrative and robbed them of
any hope for a normal future, promoting the same hatreds
in an effort to ignore actual problems. When a student
realizes that their education is inconsequential, dropping
out, and living off of illicit activities doesn’t seem like a poor
decision. What are the new moral codes by which they abide
by? How do they learn to love in this environment, when
their own country has no meaningful place for them. What
will Bosnia be like when they eventually take over?
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Tempestuous
Original title: Tempestad
Director: John Torres
Producers: Shireen Seno, John Torres
Production company: Los Otros Films
Production country: Philippines
Budget: 242.000 Euro
Contact: [email protected], +63 919 8885189
Synopsis
A former weather man falls ill after a mysterious creature bites him,
amidst a week of rain and flooding in their neighborhood. Villagers
have all evacuated to the rooftops. Solano and his wife, Amina, are
stuck inside. A helicopter has crashed. Two kids, a boy and a girl,
knock for shelter. The couple lets them stay in a room next to theirs.
There is a thin wall between them. Couple overhears incest between
sister and brother. Kids overhear a creature in pain. All fear for their
life. Solano is sick by the day. Amina, an aging movie villainess, hears
a knock on their window. Matinee idols on jet skis want to come in to
rescue a man on a tree right by their window. Amina decides to join
the others to rescue villagers on a jet ski. She wears her old fi lm
clothes, complete with a mask. Siblings plot to kill Solano at home.
Instead, a black creature appears and runs out. Creature roams and
hunts, is finally caught by the villagers. He is thrown into the deep
waters. Creature descends slowly and mutates into an embryo just as
it hits bottom. Mud and other debris envelope him. At home, Amina
smiles out the window and sees the surface of the spot where her
husband sank. A small whirlpool begins to form. It grows. Sensing her
husband will be back, Amina smiles.
Director’s Statement
Our country gets battered by roughly 26 typhoons from June to
October. It is August, and we are in the middle of neverending rain. It
is in this climate that I aspire to make a film about calamities and the
Filipinos’ resolve to survive them. It is very hard for anyone to predict
the sudden turns of the storms, and we have tools that are too old and
outdated. We have no way of tracking everything accurately. This,
then, is why I chose to focus on the tempestuous movement of things:
in nature (outward) and of our nature (inward). Therefore, although
much of the film deals with behavior of trees, wind, rain, and the
collapse of all things man-made, the film also tackles the torrents
within the human heart, the structures that crumble, those that
influence behavior, that lead up to minute choices we make in the dayto-day. I am very interested in the idea of charity, of good deeds, as
well as the machinations, the balancing acts of people once faced with
great adversity. So we put everyone in the midst of a raging act of
nature – a flood – where a rearranging of the landscape involves
people abandoning things so they could keep the basic necessities to
survive. I gather that in this most difficult process, in the end,
everyone goes through a form of mutation needed to better adapt the
onslaught of the next storm.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Territoria
Director: Nora Martirosyan
Producer: Pierre-Yves Cruaud, Dan Burlac, Jeff Kalousdian
Production companies): Heolfilms, 20 Years Later
Production country: Armenia
Total budget: 720.000 Euro
Contact: Pierre-Yves Cruaud, [email protected]
+33661704011; Dan Burlac [email protected]
Synopsis
A brand new airport rises up from a desolate landscape.
Alain, a man of fifty, waits in the terminal for his flight back
home to France. But the tarmac deserted, the sky empty, not
a plane in sight. A young boy, a teenage girl and a foreigner
cross paths in Nagorno-Karabakh, a geopolitical parenthesis
defined by a cease-fire. Their personal desire to go beyond
time and borders collides with the reality of this paradoxical
territory.
Director's Statement
It all started with getting to know the place, this territory
whose name varies on different maps and whose towns and
villages are derivation of Russian, Armenian or Turkish
words. This self-proclaimed republic is not recognized by
any state near or far. For the rest of the world, it is a kind of a
"non-place." A ceasefire–the transition to something
permanent–has already existed for 19 years. It seems that
here time is captured in delineated borders and does not
advance. It just "is," as if the past and future are compressed
into the present, a present that continues indefinitely.
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worldwide and plays with words. It’s an absurd, tragicomic,
romantic film that shows what many people can hear but
don’t see.
They Call Me …
Original Title: Yo Me Llamo ….
Director: Ruben Plataneo
Producer: Monica Amarilla
Production Company: Calanda Producciones, Sur Films
Production Country: Argentina, Germany
Expected Shooting Date: June 2015
Total budget: 480.000 Euro
Contact: [email protected], +54 (9) 341
3450569
Synopsis
The number of cellphones in the world is growing, as is the
number of multilingual employees providing technical
support and answering inquiries. No one knows anymore
what part of the planet the questions or answers are coming
from. They Call Me… is a black comedy about a young man
who is trying to reassert his individual identity amidst the
global hyperconnectivity and depersonalization of Call
Centers. His life and conversations become intertwined with
the lives of other young workers of a telephone corporation
located in a mysterious building, in a timeline that travels
Director's Statement
Ever since call centres have started emerging in Argentina –
in 2001-, I looked into the phenomenon behind it. Many
elements of my personal interest as well as working friends
were brought together in these novel companies,
characteristic of the current communicational level. The
complications and possibilities of an over-connected world;
lives crossed by globalised work conditions and the
cohabitation of different languages. Sensitive worlds
connected by cell phones; physical, technological changes;
the value of words and their market price. Simultaneous
stories, mad campaigns to increase productivity, peculiar
relationships among young multilingual people, trained to
“speak in a neutral way, and never say no”, present new
stories and new ways of telling them.
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44th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
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Twins
Original title: Kaluha
Director: Sherad Anthony Sanchez
Production company: Salida Productions
Production country: Philippines
Contact: Sherad Anthony Sanchez,
[email protected], +63 9 05 322 6255
Budget: 236.558 Euro
haunting and chilling tale of Silence. One of the most feared
occurrences in the region is the disappearance of Lumad
(indigenous tribes) members who are found “salvaged”
(local vernacular to describe vigilante murders) in the
remote depths of Mindanao. In an attempt to capture the
experience of the place and its people, the film collapses
reality to the mythic: turning grim realities to haunting
atmospheres, lies into folklores, legends and magic made
physical and real--disclosed in a piece about the material
and the immaterial embodied in the journey of a twin.
Synopsis
Set in the violence-plagued region of Mindanao in the
Philippines, Kaluha is an atmospheric tale of a family, living
amidst myths, tales, lies and secrets. The film journeys from
one family’s decaying abode to deep into the woods of an
infamous mountain. “They went to the mountains” is the
way the town folk explain the deaths of innocent children.
But one day when one of the twins disappears, the other sets
out to find her in the place where all this silence began.
Director’s statement
Folktales, gossip and the little-known social crisis of farflung Mindanao are explored and intertwined to create a
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Director's Statement
The Unwelcomed Whirling Wind In Our Stomach
Original title: Badi Keh Nakhasteh Dar Del Mipichad
Director: Mohammad Shirvani
Production country: Iran
Expected Shooting date: September/October 2014
Contact: Mohammad Shirvani ([email protected]),
+989121305800
Total budget: 1.000.000 dollar / 300.000 dollar
Synopsis
Siavash and Minoo are a young, in love couple who have a
rock band, “Iranian Bat Guys” that is active on social
networking websites. Siavash teaches English to children
and Minoo is Communications student. Siavash’s family
has moved to the US but he has stayed in Iran for Minoo.
One night a crowded family occupies Siavash’s home that
drives him to stuttering. Siavash not only loses his home and
job but also his relationship with Minoo is about to collapse.
With help of a speech therapist, Siavash protests and faces
his past just like a super hero.
The way an artist lives have a great influence on his/her works. My
project with a Parody postmodern approach coming from an under
pressure society like Iran has close relationship with current society
and its mixed cultural back grounds. As an Iranian, I am attracted to
the meaning of freedom from any limitation that a human has been
forced to; family, society and on a bigger scale limitation of being a
human. This film full of social references will give foreigners a
different picture of Iranian society that has been rarely seen in Iranian
films of recent years. Personally, I like films that their main character
has a goal which ,obviously has a message. But during his/ her journey
comes to a wider understanding of his/her objective. By this time the
goal itself is not as important as it used to be in the beginning of the
film for both the character and the audience. The main character of
my project protests to a nightmare kind of situation in the beginning
but ends up dealing with all the things that have not been provided to
him till today. In this film I am hoping to achieve my past intentions
of creating and absurd cinema full of jokes despites it’s all dark
situations. However, I must admit that until this moment that the
story has been showing itself through the treatment stage we got to a
fairly sick but fun nightmare which might be the result of the thinking
transformation in accordance with artist’s age. As this 40 years old
man is having moderate attitude aiming to make a film that is more
appropriate for a wider taste range of audience. The masterpiece of
any director is always his/her next project. However, I will make this
film believing this is going to be my last ever film.
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Vanishing Point
Original title: Jud Num Sye Ta
Director: Jakrawal Nilthamrong
Producer: Chatchai Chaiyont
Production company: Mit Out Sound Films co.,ltd
Production country: Thailand
Expected Shooting date: December 2013 (70% of Principle
Photography is finished)
Contact: [email protected],
[email protected], +8864-333-1037,
Total budget: 200.000 Euro
Synopsis
KONG, a young journalist, drives himself towards the danger
area of Thailand’s southernmost provinces, looking to heal the
fresh wounds from a failed relationship. He hopes the new
exciting experiences may help bringing a new meaning to his
life. At the same time, YAI, a middle-aged motel owner, is
trying to escape from the mundane burden of family life by
spying on other people’s sex lives. As both delve deep down in
search for what could heal their pains, through the path of
imagination, the two men see themselves in each other.
Director's Statement
Many times I witnessed mankind’s rigorous attempts at
beating the gravity, be they in legends, folklores and even
through scientific developments. What makes men refuse to
surrender to what we know well is the law of nature? Why do
many people spend so much of their time fighting against what
is beyond the limits of their control, just so as to prove
something? I find that meaningless, that no matter how much
time has passed, how much the world has evolved to, that this
absurdity will still go on, as long as men are still weak, and
naively believe in its greatness. While at the end this is just a
consolation for tired souls. It’s the same for me. I spent a lot of
my times and energies fighting to conquer the force that
controls us, in a similar way of trying to beat the destiny – the
karma that is a part of us, just so that I might escape the pains
and losses that I thought are burdensome, and at many times
seem like such a great suffering. For me, to beat the gravity is
no different from not accepting that men have karma attached
to them. It is our test. Are we to embrace and accept the
sufferings that await us in the middle of the life path, or are we
to beat them by facing the sufferings that we create ourselves?
Vanishing Point is a story of a man who tries to escape the pain,
the burdensome ordeal, that leads him to face the suffering test
in others’ lives, and through each chapter of pains he comes
through, they open up a new more chapter of inescapable
tribulations for him to endure.
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While Waiting for You
Original Title: Athirum Kaatrum
Director: Prasanna Vithanage
Production companies: Prasanna Vithanage Productions,
Bohemian Films
Production Country: Sri Lanka
Contact: Prasanna Vithanage, [email protected],
+94 777 288 984
Budget: 228.280 Euro
Synopsis
In the year 2006, a tenuous ‘Ceasefire Agreement’ signed four
years before by the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), collapses. A Tamil family in the
Eastern province, whose livelihood is farming, is suddenly woken
up by the sound of gunfire shattering the night. They rush out of
the house only to see the light-streaks of shell fire. One of the two
young boys in the family is recruited as combatant by militants
fighting the Government’s security forces, while the other is taken
by a group fighting alongside the Army. Both are killed in a battle.
The grieving parents have only one solace; their 14 year old
daughter (Kamalini). Since married women are not recruited by
the rebels, the father walks the length and breadth of the village
seeking a bridegroom for his daughter. The only males left,
however, are those who are crippled and
mentally challenged. As the threat of her being recruited forcibly
increases, the father, not seeing any other way of protecting her,
ironically, rapes her. When armed rebels arrive to take her away,
they find her pregnant. They are forced to leave. She is left with
her ‘life’.
Director’s statement
Nothing exposes a human being the way in which a war does. I
know from personal experience that war has a way of awakening
both the human being and the beast that exist within me. This is
because Is’ve spent half my life in a country gripped by war.
Approximately 100.000 people died in the war between the
security forces of the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who, purportedly representing the
largest minority community in the Island, the Tamils, were
struggling to establish a separate state. Close to half a million were
turned into displaced persons in their own country. Another half a
million migrated to Europe and North America. The war ended in
May 2009 with the military defeat of the LTTE. The wounds of the
war are yet to heal. A heart-rending story of an incident that took
place in the last days of the war compelled me to explore the limits
of my ability to understand humanity and indeed to see humanity
on a wider canvass of experience and being. What compels me to
share this with a larger collective of people is that I am convinced
that the two to three years of my life that I give to make a film
would bring some meaning to my own life.
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won’t have another choice but to face his own death as
redemption.
White on White
Original title: Blanco en Blanco
Director: Théo Court
Producer: Théo Court (Chile), José Latuf (Chile), José Alayón
(Spain)
Production companies: Grutafilms, Bustamante
Producciones, El Viaje
Production Country: Chile
Expected Shooting date: July/August; 2015.
Contact: [email protected], (569) 66993911
Total budget: 470.000 Euro
Synopsis
Chile, 1900, Patagonia, a still Photographer (Pedro) sick of
tuberculosis, arrives to cure himself in the wintry Tierra del
Fuego (Land of the Fire). He has been hired by a foreign
landowner Mr Portter, to take portraits of the landscape and
of the people living in those lands. As time goes by he gets
involved in the small community of which he realizes that it
won’t be easy to escape. The immaculate whites of the snow
won’t be his salvation, beneath, lies the horror he will be
exposed, the massive killing of the Onas. Given this fact he
Director's Statement:
With this film I want to talk about that invisible guilt that
we practice on a daily basis in society. Guilt that we bear and
redeem in acts naively superficial. This invisibility, which is
behind all our actions, will be revealed through Pedro. For
this we set the action in a landscape that is in permanent
transformation. The white that transforms purity into
impurity hiding the path of our acts. The beauty that covers
the horror, the Patagonia, as a virgin land. This land, will be
constantly marked by the mistake of a genocide. Men try to
delimitate the land, trying to control it, fence it, own it, but
the wind is stronger erasing all tracks.
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White Sun
Original title: Seto Surya
Director: Deepak Rauniyar
Producer: Tsering Rhitar Sherpa
Executive Producer: Joslyn Barnes
Production companyies: Aadi Productions, Kathmandu
Louverture Films, New York (Executive Producer)
Production country: Nepal
Expected Shooting date: September 2014
Contact: Deepak Rauniyar.
[email protected]
+1 347 257 3081
Total budget: 135.000 Euro
Synopsis
Pooja, a little girl, lives with her mother Durga and beloved
paternal grandfather in a remote village in the eastern hills
of Nepal. Her father Agni, whom she has never met, joined
the Maoist guerrillas and left their village to fight against the
regime years ago. The death of Pooja’s grandfather brings
Agni back to the village for the burial rites. Thrilled at the
prospect of her father’s reappearance, Pooja watches
dismayed as he returns with a disabling war wound,
struggles to cope with her mother's independence and selfassurance, and fights with the family’s closest friend through
the hard years – the village doctor Suraj, who was on the
government side during the war.
Director's Statement
In 2009, while editing a short doc, I encountered a scene
where a Maoist ex-guerrilla and a government soldier were
debating, and that immediately captured my attention. I
went to meet them, and had several personal, intimate and
long conversations, that’s where the story for White Sun
began with characters.
I believe in film both as an art form and as a medium of
expression for this. I am inspired by films such as No Man’s
Land, The Prize, and War Witch, which are not only
successful works of art, but have had an impact on the
conversations people have about areas of the world that are
in, or are recovering from, conflict. My goal with White Sun
is similar.
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The Wife of the Man Who Eats Laser Beams
Original title: A mulher do homem que come raio laser
Director/producer: Helvécio Marins Jr.
Production country: Brazil
Contact: Helvécio Marins Jr., [email protected]
Total budget: 598.988 Euro
could be the most powerful person in this world because of
her powers, but she just wants to be a normal person, she
wants to sleep, to wake up, to make love, just to live, like you
and me. It’s not a film about a circus. It is there in some way,
but much more important than the circus, are the people
and our 4 main characters that will reveal a little bit of
ourselves.
Synopsis
A film that revolves around the main character “Daisy”, an
all-knowing, all-seeing, all-feeling seer and cartomancer. She
is married to Jorge, owner of the Great Magic Circus, where
he also performs a “laser-beam eating routine”. The two,
alongside the womanizing clown Tereré and a French
ballerina named Sophie, end up becoming embroiled in a
love quadrangle that reveals the conflicts and contradictions
of the human condition.
Director’s statement
After my first feature Girimunho (Swirl), I’ll work with
professional actors again. Much more than that, I want to
talk about power, about how much power can influence us
and how much it can change our lifes in many ways. “Daisy”,
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cantonment and villagers lose control over their village,
forest and their lives. Tusu loses her baby after she is gang
raped by the soldiers stationed in the village. The women of
the village won’t give up so easily. They reclaim the hill and
the forest but will this victory last?
Wild Fire
Original title: Davanal
Director: Bikas Mishra
Producer: Nandita Dutta
Production company: DearCinema Media
Production country: India
Expected Shooting date: March 2015
Contact: Nandita Dutta
[email protected]
+91 9004220669
Total budget: 450e000 Euro
Synopsis
A multinational corporation will mine the huge Bauxite
reserve underneath the “Broken hills” on which a beautiful
hamlet “Narayanbeda” stands. Indigenous people worship
the hill as their living god and their dead are buried there.
Tusu, a young pregnant woman’s husband is arrested by the
police for protesting against the mine and taken to the
prison in the town. Gradually the village turns into a police
Director's Statement
“Wild Fire” tells the story of development and
industrialization of India from the perspective of those who
never benefit from it but are dispossessed of their homes
and their way of life. I intend to set up my camera in the
village and tell a hugely one-sided story as the world has
only been told the other side of the story so far. I see my
protagonist Tushu as mother earth pregnant with minerals.
Her exploitation is the greedy exploitation of our natural
resources. Men play only second fiddle in “Wild Fire”. It is
the story of women who wage a decisive battle against the
exploiters.
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The Winds Know I'm Coming Back Home
Original title: El viento sabe que vuelvo a casa
Director: José Luis Torres Leiva
Producer: Catalina Vergara
Production Company: Globo Rojo Producciones
Production country: Chile
Expected Shooting date: March 2015
Contact: Catalina Vergara, [email protected],
+56 9 96530493; Jose Luis Torres Leiva,
[email protected]
Total budget: 200.000 Euro
Synopsis
Summer of 1981, Juan and Maria, a young couple, run away
from their homes and take shelter in the woods of the
Maullín Island, in Chiloé. They disappeared without a trace
or without an explanation. 32 years later, Chilean filmmaker
Ignacio Agüero prepares his first film based mainly on the
tragic love story of this couple from the Maullín Island.
Director's Statement
Discovering Ignacio Agüero’s filmmaking was fundamental
in my training. I was always very interested in his outlook
and most of all in his personal perception of how to deal
with a film. In time, I have gotten to know him and it keeps
calling my attention the fact that his filmmaking is always
related to his life and his biography. Each film is a vital need
for him. To me that’s thrilling and very hard to achieve in
the filmmaking environment, where the original needs to
make a film often get mixed up and degenerate. I realized I
could structure a metacinematographic story about his
filmmaking and an apparently real story in which the
journey would be the film’s main development. This journey
would be a reflection about time, the space occupied by an
external outlook and the meaning of filmmaking as a means
to create.
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Window Boy Would Also Like To Have A Submarine
Original Title: Chico ventana también quisiera tener un
submarino
Director: Alex Piperno
Producers: Lukas Valenta Rinner, Rachel Ellis, Alex Piperno
Production companies: Nabis Filmgroup (Argentina),
Desvia (Brazil), La pobladora cine (Uruguay)
Production countries: Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil
Expected Shooting date: October 2015
Contact: Lukas Valenta Rinner, [email protected]; Alex
Piperno, [email protected]
Total budget: 650.000 Euro
Director's Statement
As a Uruguayan living in Argentina, I frequently travel back
to my country on a journey by ferry that lasts three hours. It
is a passage between two parallel possibilities of worlds;
what people know about me in Buenos Aires is unknown in
Montevideo and vice versa. This situation makes me feel
strangely free and powerful at times, by not belonging
anywhere. The ship works as an interval between these two
possible worlds: the border between two places which never
meet, but also the border between countless places that
could meet. It is a fantastic, indeterminate zone.
Synopsis
Aboard a cruiser that travels along the Southern coast of
Latin America, a pair of infiltrated spies tries to track down
a human-trafficker that seems to have disappeared.
Meanwhile, a young sailor of the ship discovers a door
mysteriously leading to an apartment located in
Montevideo.
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Wolf and Sheep
Director: Shahrbanoo Sadat
Producer: Katja Adomeit / Production company: Adomeit Film
Production country: Afghanistan/Denmark
Contact: [email protected]
Expected Shooting date: Autumn 2014
Synopsis
12 year old Basira really likes to go to school but she can't because she
is a shepherd and she has to take people's sheep up the green
mountains every day. On the other side of the mountain, in another
village, there is an outdoor school. She goes everyday to sit behind the
muddy wall and listens in secret to the lectures the old teacher gives,
before teaching everything she has learned to her sheep. very day,
however, the sheep get into and mess up the class and, because of this,
the teacher does not like her. And that’s not her only worry: she is
constantly beset with problems but doesn’t understand why, until she
finds the old teacher’s spectacles and discovers that there is something
wrong with her eyes. She realizes that she will need glasses if she is to
become like the other pupils but, just then, the teacher appears to give
her a beating. She escapes, but the students and the teacher strike out
at the sheep instead and some of them get injured. The people of her
village criticize her work and stop entrusting their sheep to her, and so
she loses her job. She tries unsuccessfully to find herself some glasses.
One day she hears there are doctors giving free consultations at a
roaming eye clinic in a neighboring village. She runs after the doctors'
bus, but it is too far away already. She retraces her steps, and finds
along the way a lot of lens-less broken spectacle frames. Then, she
finds a good pair, and puts them on. As she watches the bus vanish
into the mist, a tear falls from Basira’s eye.
Director's statement
Most people in Afghanistan do not have access to medical services.
People who live in the provinces have to go to the capital for
treatment, but going to and fro from one province to another is not
easy. They can't stray from the main road because the war is
everywhere, so they have to take the long but safe way round and walk
for up to 16 hours a day on mountain roads for a week or more,
depending on how far they have to go. This is why they only go to the
capital for very serious illnesses, and not minor ones (they believe)
like those of the eye. According to a new report from WHO more
than one-and-a-half million Afghans have a serious eye problem, and
one in three sufferers goes blind every hour. This statistic refers only
to the people who actually make it to the sole eye clinic in
Afghanistan, which is to be found in Kabul. It does not take into
account the huge numbers of people with eye problems who never
realize it. There are no statistics about them but we know there are a
lot of them. This year, the WHO decided to send out roaming free eye
clinics to some of the provinces of Afghanistan, but was unable to
eradicate the problem because of issues surrounding doctor security.
Just last August, the Taliban killed en entire eye clinic medical team of
10 people. It was not the first time they had killed doctors.
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Director's Statement
The Wound breaks the silence around taboo sexuality and
traditional culture by imagining what might happen when
three characters are forced to conceal their deepest feelings
at every cost.
The Wound
Original title: INXEBA
Director: John Trengove
Producer: Elias Ribeiro
Production companies: Urucu Media (South Africa), Cool
Take Pictures (South Africa)
Production country: South Africa
Expected Shooting date: January 2015
Contact: Elias Ribeiro,
140, 14th Street, Parkhurst, Johannesburg – 2193, South
Africa; +27 (0) 718 445 435; +27 (0) 11 447 0535;
[email protected]; www.urucumedia.com
Total budget: 703,000 Euro
Synopsis
Kwanda, an affluent teenager from the city, returns to his
father's rural village to be circumcised in a traditional ritesof-passage into manhood. His initiation turns deadly when
he disturbs a closeted relationship between two rural men
and his own suppressed desires are brought to the surface.
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DUTCH PRODUCERS
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BosBros
Frederiksplein 43
1017 XL Amsterdam
T: +31.205244030
E: [email protected]
W: www.bosbros.com
Contact: Jolande Junte
Circe Films
Da Costakade 176 HS
1053 XE Amsterdam
T: +31.206253591
E: [email protected]
W: www.circe.nl
BosBros has set the standard for high-quality film and
television productions in the Netherlands since 1989. Burny
Bos and his team have also introduced Dutch youth films
and youth television series abroad and won many awards.
The BosBros productions are timeless and therefore for each
new generation of children and their parents a great way of
entertainment. Working closely together with the best
screenwriters and directors, but at the same time on the
look-out for new talent, BosBros has a proven track record to
produce classics such as The Flying Liftboy, Miss Minoes,
Winky’s Horse, Alfie, the Little Werewolf and Wiplala.
BosBros’s challenge for the future is, besides producing
many new feature films, to conquer the European market
with animation projects.
Circe Films BV is an Amsterdam-based company producing
feature films for the national and international market.
Since 1996, the managing director, Stienette Bosklopper,
has been establishing enduring relationships with unique
and innovative filmmakers, both at home and abroad.
Circe’s personal approach has led to the creation of a
partner network that helps secure the broadest possible
audience for Circe’s directors.
CTM Pictures
Emmastraat 21/P.O. Box 1088
1211 NE Hilversum / 1200 BB Hilversum
T: +31.356474040
E: [email protected]
W: www.ctm.nl
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Based in the Netherlands, CTM Pictures is a production
company run by Denis Wigman and Sander Verdonk,
combining over 30 years of experience in producing feature
films and documentaries. The projects initiated by CTM
Pictures are characterized by originality, driven by passion
and with an eye for their international and commercial
potential. In this dynamic and fast-changing industry we are
actively seeking new ways of producing, financing and
distributing films, without foregoing time-proven practices.
It is the goal of CTM Pictures to continue producing world
cinema, genre films and thought provoking documentaries
and to do so internationally.
Eyeworks Film & TV Drama
Anthony Fokkerweg 61
1059 CP Amsterdam
T: +31.206661892 /+31.203463738
E: [email protected]
W: www.eyeworks.tv
The Amsterdam-based drama and film production company
Eyeworks Film & TV Drama, formerly known as Egmond
Film and Television, is part of the Eyeworks Group since
2006. The company, founded by Hans de Weers, has
established an impressive track record as producer of
successful feature films.
Family Affair Films
Entrepotdok 77A
1018 AD Amsterdam
T: +31.207071713
E: [email protected]
W: www.familyaffairfilms.nl
Contact: Floor Onrust
Family Affair Films is an Amsterdam-based production
company founded by Floor Onrust. We produce urgent and
contemporary television drama, short and feature films of
high artistic quality with a strong author-driven vision. We
develop project with new talent and video artists and we
continue our relationships with established filmmakers.
We coproduced multi award-winning feature film Nothing
Personal (2009) by Urszula Antoniak as well as her second
feature Code Blue (2011). The Turkish coproduction The
Blue Wave (2013) by Zeynep Dadak and Merve Kayan,
supported by Hubert Bals Fund, won three awards in Turkey
and premiered in competition in Berlinale Generation 2014.
Fiona Tan’s debut feature History’s Future (2015) will go
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into production end of summer 2014. Our feature Life
According to Nino, written by Antoniak and directed by
Simone van Dusseldorp will premier this fall (2014).
IJswater Films
Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 110-4
1079 LD Amsterdam
T:+31.204421760 / F:+31.204421725
E: [email protected] / [email protected]
W: www.ijswater.nl
Contact: Marc Bary or Eline van Hagen
Amsterdam based film- & TV production company IJswater
Films was founded in the mid-nineties by producer Marc
Bary. Together with project supervisor Eline van Hagen and
junior producer Steven Rubinstein Malamud, IJswater (‘Ice
water’) is developing quality films with new or established
director’s and writer’s talent. Within The Netherlands or
together with foreign coproducing partners several prize
winning feature films have been made, like ‘22nd of May’ by
Koen Mortier (Toronto selection), ‘Supernova’ by Tamar
van den Dop (Berlinale Selection 2014), ‘The New World’ by
Jaap van Heusden (Winner Runner Up Awards Melbourne
and Mannheim) and ‘Skin’ by Hanro Smitsman
(Nomination International Emmy Award). Also 50 shorts
have been realised (amongst Berlinale Golden Bear Winner
‘Contact’), documentaries (released in 2014; feature length
doc ‘Naval Mids’ by Walter Stokman) and TV drama (like
FIPA Award Winners ‘Anvers’ by Martijn Maria Smits and
‘Entre Nosotros’ by Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito). New
projects are ‘Into the Blue’ by Jaap van Heusden
(Dutch/Belgian/Romanian coproduction) and ‘Paradise
Trips’ the debut by Raf Reyntjens (Belgian/Dutch/Croatian
coproduction).
Kaliber Film NL
Postbus 3578
3003 AN Rotterdam
T: +31.6.43061202
E: [email protected]
W: www.kaliberfilm.nl
Contact: Mete Gümürhan, Willem Baptist
Kaliber Film is a Rotterdam based, creative and
internationally oriented, independent production company
founded in 2007. Kaliber Film develops and produces
original author driven feature films and creative
documentary, with no distinction between fiction and
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documentary form or style. Kaliber Film (co)-produced
several award-winning films such as; ‘I’m Never Afraid!’ by
Willem Baptist, ‘The Cage’ by Adrian Sitaru and ‘Men on the
Bridge’ by Aslı Özge. Most recently coproduced the 2nd
feature film of director Aslı Özge entitled ‘Lifelong’ with
Bulut Film, Razor Film and Augustus Film. Since 2011 we
are a member of the EAVE producers network.
three times a Prix Europe. KeyFilm builds on the experience
and relationship with talented writers and directors with a
personal vision, who care about their craft and their
audience. Their priority is to develop projects with the best
creative ensemble within a realistic budget and to coproduce with likeminded production companies all over the
world.
KeyFilm
Van Diemenstraat 332
1013 CR Amsterdam
T: +31.204231596
E: [email protected]
W: www.keyfilm.nl
Lemming Film
Valschermkade 36F
1059 CD Amsterdam
T: +31.206610424
E: [email protected]
W: www.lemmingfilm.com
KeyFilm is run by successful producers Hanneke Niens and
Hans de Wolf. Their experience combines over 25 years of
production on more than 30 feature films and numerous
television films, drama series, documentaries and shorts.
Their track record has resulted in box office success,
national awards and critical acclaim. Many films achieved
international recognition, travelling to the world’s top film
and television festivals including Berlin, Locarno, San
Sebastian and Toronto, winning a.o. the Crystal Bear and
Established in 1995, Lemming Film is one of the leading film
and television production companies in the Netherlands. It
has a proven track record in delivering quality film and
television productions and is specialized in fiction for
children, families and teens as well as international arthouse
productions. Lemming Film produces projects that reflect
an open-minded vision on contemporary society and
initiates and nurtures close collaborations with the most
exciting screenwriters, directors and acting talent. It is a key
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player in the international co-productions field and is coproducing projects in Asia, South America and Europe. To
actively contribute to a European production community,
Lemming Film participates in d.net.work (a structural
collaboration of 7 European production companies) and is a
part of the ACE network. The company was founded, and
continues to be run, by co-CEO's Leontine Petit (head of
Productions) and Joost de Vries (head of Business Affairs).
Since 2007 the team was expanded with producers Eva
Eisenloeffel and Derk-Jan Warrink. In 2011 Lemming Film
started a German family entertainment company called
Hamster Film. The company is headed by Petit, de Vries and
producer Dorothe Beinemeier. Hamster Film aims to
broaden the scope of children’s and family films on offer in
Germany by developing high quality features and TV drama
targeted at specific age groups and rooted in German
culture.
N279 Entertainment
Singel 272
1016 AC Amsterdam
T: +31.204229199
F: +31.204231125
E: [email protected]
W: www.n279entertainment.com
N279 Entertainment is a Dutch production company
founded by producer Els Vandevorst (formerly owner of
Isabella Films) and director Martin Koolhoven. The
company focus on feature films with artistic value and
accessibility for an international audience. These may be arthouse- oriented movies as well as movies with a broad
commercial potential and appeal. The company’s activities
comprise the development, financing and production of
films for cinema. Films (co) produced are It’s all so Quiet by
Nanouk Leopold, Nono, the Zigzagkid by Vincent Bal, A
Fold in my Blanket by Zaza Rusadze, Kid by Fien Troch and
FrancoФonia by Alexsandr Sokurov.
NFI Productions
Koningslaan 54
1075 AE Amsterdam
T: +31.207173504 / M: +31 624607869
E: [email protected]
W: www.nfi.nu
Contact: Trent
NFI PRODUCTIONS was founded in 1992 leading to many
international co-productions and awards. In 2005 producer
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Trent took over the company with the mission to foster,
develop and promote emerging talented directors and
writers. To achieve this goal, NFI works with a select group
of talent on long-term relationships. In 2012 the Scottish
producer Charlotte Scott-Wilson came on board. Together
they are scouting international co-productions with
director’s attached who have a strong signature and
cinematic style. Recently produced features include Hunting
& Sons (New York, IFFR, Sao Paulo, London) and Can Go
Through Skin (Berlin, Edinburgh, New York). Latest feature
Villegas (2012) premiered at Official Selection Cannes 2012
and was supported by HBF Plus.
Phanta Film
Gijsbrecht van Aemstelstraat 16-18
1091 TC Amsterdam
T: +31.206260255 / F: +31.206387756
E: [email protected]
W: www.phantavision.com
Contact: Petra Goedings & Maaike Benschop
in 1990. Raised among the stacks of reels and plush chairs of
her family’s downtown Amsterdam cinema, The Movies, it
was there that Petra Goedings experienced the magic of
cinema. Production and co-production credits include &ME
(2013), Isztambul (2011) by Ferenc Török, Great Kills Road
(2010) by Tjebbo Penning, Dossier K. (2010) by Jan
Verheyen, Blind (2007) by Tamar van den Dop,
investigation (2006) by Iglika Triffonova.
Pieter van Huystee Film
Noordermarkt 37-39
1015 NA Amsterdam
T: +31.204210606 / F: +31.206386255
E: [email protected]
W: www.pvhfilm.nl
In 1995 Pieter van Huystee started his own production
company. Over the past 10 years Pieter van Huystee Film
has produced many documentaries, a fiction film and a few
films for television with renowned filmmakers as Johan van
der Keuken, Heddy Honigmann and Peter Delpeut. Various
productions have been awarded prizes.
Producer Petra Goedings established Phanta Vision, an
Amsterdam based film production and Facilities Company,
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Revolver Film
Oosteinde 11
1017 WT Amsterdam
+31.208208987
E: [email protected]
W: www.revolver.nl
Contact: Raymond van der Kaaij, Dijana Olcay-Hot
Revolver is a story- and director driven production company
that develops and (co)produces crossing-border fiction and
creative documentaries. We focus on international, original
and contemporary stories, stories that reach, touch and
move an audience. We work with both upcoming as well as
established talents, from the Netherlands as well as from
abroad. Revolver is strongly committed to working closely
with our directors and writers, nurturing the original,
authentic, artistic, provocative authors voices. Upcoming
projects are ‘I dream in another language’ by Ernesto
Contreras (Sundance Global Filmmaking Award for
screenplay), ‘Du, Zooey and Ma’ (Robin Weng) with
support of Hubert Bals Plus and a slate of Dutch language
feature films. Our recent films include Supernova (Tamar
van den Dop, NL/DE/BE, 2012), Chinese spoken feature
film Club Zeus by David Verbeek (International Filmfestival
Rotterdam 2011, Return of the Tiger Award), Lotus by
Pascale Simons (Dutch Filmfestival 2011), 22 May by Koen
Mortier (competition Toronto 2010), Crips by Joost van der
Valk (Dutch Documentary Competition IDFA, Locarno
2008), Vivere by Angelina Maccarone (competition Tribeca
2006). We are alumni of EAVE, Binger Filmlab and
Jerusalem Film Lab.
Rocketta Film
Lauriergracht 116
1016 RR Amsterdam
T: +31.204897733
E: [email protected]
W: www.rocketta.nl
Contact: Erik Schut
Rocketta Film, founded in 2001, is an Amsterdam based
company that focuses on select director-driven material with
an emphasis on international coproductions. Rocketta Film
wants to produce artistic and meaningful features,
documentaries and animation.
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T: +31.651245041
E: [email protected]
W: www.talentunited.nl
SNG Film
Van Hallstraat 52
1051 HH Amsterdam
T: +31.206867837 / F: +31.206824367
E: [email protected]
W: www.sngfilm.nl
Contact: Digna Sinke
SNG Film/ Studio Nieuwe Gronden was founded in 1979 by
René Scholten, and focuses on producing feature films and
documentary projects with a personal and idiosyncratic
element. Digna Sinke -producer and director- has taken over
in 2001. The aim is still to produce interesting films with
cinematographic quality. After the tone (fiction feature by
Digna Sinke, IFFR 2014); Wavumba (documentary by
Jeroen van Velzen, Best New Documentary Director Tribeca
2012); An Angel in Doel (documentary by Tom Fassaert,
Forum Berlinale 2011); Wistful Wilderness (documentary
by Digna Sinke, best documentary FIFE Paris 2010 and
Neue Heimat Freistadt 2011)
Talent United
Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 290
1012 RT Amsterdam
Talent United is a film and television production company
based in Amsterdam for new and established film talent. We
initiate, develop and produce feature films, documentaries
and television drama for a wide audience as well for the arthouse moviegoer, both nationally and internationally.
Talent United believes that every film needs the best mix of
talents.
Topkapi Films
Rapenburgersstraat 123
1011 VL Amsterdam
T: +31.203032494
E: [email protected]
W: www.topkapifilms.nl
Topkapi Films was founded in 2011 by the experienced
Frans van Gestel and Arnold Heslenfeld and produces and
co-produces feature films – arthouse as well as commercial and television drama for both the Dutch and international
markets. Laurette Schillings joined them as a producer since
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2011. Topkapi Films’ recent (co-)productions include, The
Family Way (2012, 0.9 M adm), Schlafkrankheit (2011,
Silver Bear Berlinale), Post Tenebras Lux (2012, Carlos
Reygadas, Best Director Award at Cannes) and the
internationally acclaimed The Broken Circle Breakdown
(2012, Felix van Groeningen, EFA, nomination Oscar Best
Foreign Language Film). With the introduction of the Dutch
Cash Rebate Topkapi Films will anticipate new coproduction opportunities.
Viking Film
Lindengracht 17
1015 KB Amsterdam
T: +31 20 625 47 88
E: [email protected]
W: www.vikingfilm.nl
Contact: Marleen Slot
Viking Film is the Amsterdam based film production
company founded in 2011 by Marleen Slot. International in
scope, Viking Film wants to make high-quality films for both
Dutch and international audiences with a special focus on
arthouse, children films and animation films. Viking Film
wants to be cross-border and intends to enter into
cooperation with producers and filmmakers from Europe,
Latin America and Asia. At this moment Viking Film is
working on several films like ZURICH from director Sacha
Polak (selected for Berlinale Residency 2012) MONK from
Ties Schenk (Cinemart 2014) and BULL DOWN! by Gabriel
Mascaro, that received funding through HBF Plus. Besides
that Viking Film recently finished the feature documentary
NEW BOOBS (Sacha Polak) and the co-production LEONES
(Jazmin Lopez, selected for Venice Film Festival 2012).
Marleen worked as a producer at Lemming Film for many
years. Her productions at Lemming Film include the feature
films TONY 10 (Mischa Kamp), TAKING CHANCES (Nicole
van Kilsdonk, opening film Cinekid 2011, selection Berlinale
K+ 2012), SNACKBAR (Meral Uslu, selection Berlinale 14+,
2012), MY JOY (Sergei Loznitsa, Competition Cannes Film
Festival 2010), OXYGEN (Hans van Nuffelen, European
Film Academy Discovery Award) and VIVAN LAS
ANTIPODAS! (Victor Kossakovsky, opening film Venice
Film Festival 2012). She is part of EAVE and member of the
board of ACE. In 2013 she was selected Producer on the
Move during the Cannes Film Festival.
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Volya Films
Mauritsweg 56
3012 JX Rotterdam
T: +31.104155621 / M: +31.612507056
E: [email protected]
W: www.volyafilms.com
Contact: Denis Vaslin, Fleur Knopperts
VOLYA FILMS - established in 2004 - is a Rotterdam based
company producing author fiction films and creative
documentaries, mainly as international co-productions. Our
recent films include 40 DAYS OF SILENCE (2014,
NL/FR/GE/ UZB) directed by Saodat Ismailova; SOLO
(2013, URU/ARG/ NL/FR) by Guillermo Rocamora (Best
first film at the Miami International Film Festival); THE
WORLD BELONGS TO US (2012, BE/FR/NL) directed by
Stephan Streker (world premiere Montréal World Film
Festival and Benelux premiere at Flanders International Film
Festival 2012 Ghent, Belgium) and SNACKBAR (2011, NL)
first fiction film by documentary filmmaker Meral Uslu
selected for Berlinale Generation (a co-production with
Lemming Film). We are in post-production with MEN WHO
SAVE THE WORLD (Malaysia/FR/NL) by Seng Tat Liew and
Kurai, kurai – Tales with the Wind (NL/KIRG) the fiction
debut of documentary director Marjoleine Boonstra.
Volya Films is a member of the EAVE, Eurodoc, Binger and
EDN networks. Denis Vaslin is a member of the European
Film Academy and the Documentary Producers
Netherlands. In 2011, he created Mandra Films with Eric
Mabillon in France. He is also member of the Produire au
Sud pedagogical team of the 3 Continents Festival in
Nantes/France.
Waterland Film
Moermanskkade 111
1013 BC Amsterdam
T: +31 20 763 0663
E: [email protected]
W: www.waterlandfilm.nl
Waterland Film was founded in 1994 and specialises in producing
and co-producing feature films, short films and series. The films
Waterland produces are a combination of interesting content and
innovative cinematographic quality. The aim is to make feature
films, as well for the national as the international market, captive
and challenging with stories that matter. Recent films Waterland
Film produced are ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS (‘Golden
Leopard’ for Best Film and Best Actress at the Locarno Film
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Festival 2011) a coproduction with Argentina by Milagros
Mumenthaler, BULLHEAD (Best Film 2011 of Belgium and Oscar
Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film 2012) a coproduction
with Belgium by Michael R. Roskam and KAUWBOY by
Boudewijn Koole. KAUWBOY had its international premiere at
the Berlinale 2012 where it won the ‘Best First Feature Award’ as
well as the ‘Prix of the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk’ for best youth
film. The film won several prizes at international film festivals and
was the Dutch Submission for the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film 2013 and won the European Discovery
ward, Prix Fipresci. Waterland also produced the TV series THE
SECRETS OF BARSLET by Boris Paval Conen and the short film
NO VACANCY by Michiel van Jaarsveld. The feature film 20 LIES,
4 PARENTS AND A LITTLE EGG by Hanro Smitsman was
broadcasted on Dutch television in March 2013. In production is
the feature film THE THIRD BANK by Célina Murga, a
coproduction with Argentina and Martin Scorsese, LIFE
ACCORDING TO NINO by Simone van Dusseldorp and the series
for television THE DOWNFALL OF WILLEM AANTJES (two
episodes) by Anne van der Linden. Currently in development are
the feature films IN THE HEART by Nicole van Kilsdonk and
DISAPPEARANCE by Boudewijn Koole as well as the
coproduction with Argentina TWO GUNSHOTS by Martín
Rejtman.
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PTW Film screenings Poster #2

1230 W. 27TH AVE - Bear Tooth Theatrepub

XXI. INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

Alexandra Dionelis

oma e / resonances

Draft program

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METALLIZED BOPET TDS(15-03-2014)

Choice2K+™ - BroadcastStore.com

Strategy for Functional Material Development in FUJIFILM