EAVE project NORD EXPRESS by Karlis Lesins is in production

Production News October 2024

BORGES AND ME by Marc Turtletaub, co-producer: EAVE graduate Leontine Petit is in production. The picture is based on the titular memoir penned by bestselling New York Times author Jay Parini. Parini’s memoir tells of the author’s 1970 trip through the Scottish Highlands with famed Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. In BORGES AND ME, Parini finds himself stuck in a Morris Minor chauffeuring the brilliant, blind Borges through Scotland. Quiet and conservative, Parini – a 23-year-old student dreaming of becoming a writer – is at a loss to make sense of the wild, irrepressible Borges, then 70. As the journey takes a surreal turn, their differences magnify until, in the tradition of a classic road movie, the two ultimately find common ground. The film is being produced by Alex Polunin from Ossian International (UK) and Michael B Clark, Turtletaub himself and Tim Foley for Big Beach (USA), and co-produced by Leontine Petit and Erik Glijnis from Lemming Film (Netherlands) as well as Dries Phlypo from A Private View (Belgium), with financing provided by Big Beach. Stephen Burt is attached as the executive producer.

EAVE project L’ILE DE LA DEMOISELLE by Micha Wald, producers: EAVE graduates Anton Iffland Stettner and Eva Kuperman, co-producer: EAVE graduate Alexandre Gavras is in production. Lying somewhere between witchcraft trial and survival story, L’ILE DE LA DEMOISELLE is an ambitious historical drama, set in the 16th century – more specifically, in 1542, the year Jacques Cartier embarked on his second mission to Canada. Pregnant by another man than her husband-to-be, the captain of the expedition, young Marguerite de la Rocque, is abandoned on a desert island off the coast of Newfoundland with the man who raped her and her female companion. She will spend two years there, somehow overcoming hunger, the bitter cold, despair and madness. The film is being staged by Anton Iffland Stettner and Eva Kuperman for Stenola Productions and co-produced by Alexandre Gavras for KG Productions. Backing comes from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, RTBF, Proximus, BeTV, Shelter Prod, the CNC, the Brittany region, Canal+, Ciné+ and Creative Europe – MEDIA. The shoot, which kicked off on 21 October, will wrap on 10 December, and will take place in both Brittany and Brussels.

EAVE project NORD EXPRESS by Karlis Lesins, producers: EAVE graduates Elina Gedina-Ducena, Gints Grube, Inese Boka-Grube is in production. The construction of the Rail Baltica railway and the Talsinki Tunnel in the Baltic region would finally unite the European Union into a single transport network. An investigation by two journalists, however, reveals how fragile and conflict-ridden this project is. Could it instead become the biggest failure in the history of the EU? Supported by Latvia State Culture Capital Foundation and the National Film Center of Latvia.

GOD WILL NOT HELP by Hana Jusic, producer: EAVE graduate group leader and National Coordinator Croatia Ankica Juric Tilic, co-producers; EAVE graduate and National Coordinator Romania Ada Solomon, EAVE group leader Didar Domehri is in post-production. In her script, Jusic sets the plot at the beginning of the 20th century, in inland Dalmatia, where a Chilean woman named Teresa comes to an isolated community of cattle herders, claiming that she is the widow of the village elder’s brother, who has died in a mining accident. Her arrival disrupts the community’s rigid structure, but also brings notions of freedom and relief. The main producer of the film is Ankica Juric Tilic for her Croatian company, Kinorama. The co-producers are Ada Solomon (for Romania’s Micro Film), Didar Domehri (for France’s Maneki Films), Yorgos Tsourgiannis (for Greece’s Horsefly), Ales Pavlin and Andrej Štritof (for Slovenia’s Perfo), and Ines Vasiljevic (for Italy’s Nightswim). The script was developed at the Cinéfondation residency and the TorinoFilmLab workshop, while the project was also rewarded by ReAct. GOD WILL NOT HELP has received financial support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the Romanian National Film Center, Italy’s Ministry of Culture, the Greek Film Centre, the CNC, the Slovenian Film Centre and Eurimages. It also received technical support from Viba Film, and has been pre-bought by Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) and Greek Radio-Television (ERT).

BETWEEN BORDERS by Erik Tikan, producer: EAVE graduate Elina Litvinova is in post-production. The documentary follows an Estonian man called Erko, who joined the Ukrainian forces early on. Erko is in charge of transporting wounded soldiers to hospitals. With most of his time spent on the front lines, his absence creates tension back home, causing difficulties and uncertainty for his wife and their young daughter. Tikan accompanies Erko both in Ukraine and in Estonia, delving into the psychological toll the war is taking on volunteers and their families. BETWEEN BORDERS is a co-production between Estonian production outfit Three Brothers (Maris Salumets, Elina Litvinova) and media organisation Levila (Daniel Vaarik).

Page published 31 October 2024.