FRANZ by Agnieszka Holland is shooting

In Production and Post-Production April 2024

In production

• SUKKWAN ISLAND by Vladimir de Fontenay, co-producer: EAVE graduate Jacques-Henri Bronckart is in production. Adapted by the director himself from the novel Legend of a Suicide by US author David Vann, the story revolves around a young man who heads off to a secluded and hostile island to rekindle memories of his father. Ten years beforehand, they shared an experience that profoundly altered the course of their lives. Produced by Carole Scotta and Eliott Khayat for Haut et Court, SUKKWAN ISLAND is being co-produced by Norwegian outfit Maipo Film, Belgian firm Versus Production and the UK’s Good Chaos. Also on board as co-producers are Finland’s Aurora Studios, Norway’s Fjordic Film and Filmfond Nord, Belgium’s Proximus, VOO-Be TV and RTBF, as well as France’s Proarti. Other sources of support include the Brittany region, Creative Europe – MEDIA, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Inver Tax Shelter, the Global Screen Fund and Curzon. The 25-day shoot in Norway and Scotland will wrap in June.

www.versusproduction.be

• FRANZ by Agnieszka Holland, co-producers: EAVE graduates Marcin Wierzchoslawski and David Grumbach, is currently filming in Prague, including the area of the Old Town near Franz Kafka’s birthplace. The film, written by Holland and Marek Epstein, explores Kafka’s life in a mosaic form, from his birth in late 19th century Prague to his death in Austria in 1924. Sarka Cimbalova and Agnieszka Holland are producing through Czech Marlene Film Production in co-production with Marcin Wierzchoslawski through Polish Metro Films, Uwe Schott and Jorgo Narjes through German X-FILME, David Grumbach and Alexis Hofmann through French Bac Films, as well as the Czech Television, Barrandov Studio and Czech Anglo Production. Mike Downey, Daniel Bergmann and Kevan Van Thompson are executive producers. The project has been backed by the Czech Film Fund, the Prague Audiovisual Fund, Eurimages and the Czech Region of Pilsen. The production in Prague started at the beginning of April 2024 and it will continue until the end of May 2024, with additional filming planned in Germany.

www.metrofilms.pl

• MADE IN EU by EAVE graduate Stephan Komandarev, producer: EAVE graduate Katya Trichkova is currently in production. The story follows Iva, a seamstress in a small town, who is forced to hide the fact that she’s ill in order to keep her job, but after the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in town, all the blame for the infection falls on her and she will be demonised by the community. “I don't like to give ready answers, but rather to raise questions with my films. In MADE IN EU we raise questions about the garment (textile) manufacturing that exist today in the EU in small factories far from the lights of the big cities. We also raise questions about the negative and positive sides of globalisation, and about the division between centre and periphery in Europe. We are interested in what is happening at the periphery: the story follows a seamstress who works six days a week for 12 hours and is unfairly accused as a public enemy. The story is set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it deals primarily with the much more serious pandemic of modern slavery. Everything in the script is based on real stories, because the first COVID-19 outbreaks in Bulgaria happened in such provincial sewing factories”, Stephan Komandarev said. Komandarev is producing together with Katya Trichkova through Argo Films (Bulgaria) in co-production with Eike Goreczka and Christoph Kukula through 42film (Germany) and Pavel Strnad through Negativ (Czech Republic). The film has been supported by the Bulgarian National Film Center, MDM and the Czech Film Fund. The project was developed at MFI (Greece, 2021), Cannes Film Festival’s L’Atelier (2022) and Arras Days (2023), where it won the award for best project. The postproduction will take place in Germany and the Czech Republic, and it will be completed till the end of 2024. The premiere of the film is set for 2025. The producers are currently looking for additional funding from co-production as well as presales from TV broadcasters. The film is currently being shot for 27 days from 18 March 2024 to 1 May 2024 in Dimitrovgrad, Haskovo, Rudozem and Madan (Bulgaria) and also in Leipzig (Germany).

http://www.argofilm.eu

• GLOBAL PROJECT by Ivo Marques Ferreira, producer: EAVE graduate Donato Rotunno is in production. Made up of a 6x45-minute series and a 100-minute feature, Ferreira’s new effort is “anchored in the political, economic and social reality of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the illusions and disenchantments of a far left that was glorified in 1959, with the Cuban Revolution and the revolutionary myth of Che Guevara, who shouted, ‘Power to the Imagination!’ on May 1968, and which started to decline after the fall of the Berlin Wall”. In detail, the 1970s saw European left-wing armed movements thriving: ETA in Spain, the IRA in Ireland, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Baader-Meinhof Group in Germany. Portugal would have to deal with a similar phenomenon in the 1980s with the Popular Forces 25 April (FP-25), a far-left organisation defending the achievements of the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which brought 48 years of dictatorship to an end. The organisation gradually lost touch with the people it had aimed to protect, and was dismantled by a massive police operation in 1984. The feature and series condense and fictionalise these events. In the vibrant and decadent city of Lisbon, we follow FP-25 members and the police officers chasing them. Rosa, an actress and single mother; Queiroz, her best friend; and Jaime, a disillusioned young soldier – they all belong to the FP-25. Refusing to accept the death of their ideals, they must soon abandon everything and go undercover. On the other side of the barricade, Marlow, an officer with a troubled personality, faces his first big mission against the organisation. He and Rosa were former lovers, and he becomes obsessed with finding her while fulfilling his duty. Donato Rotunno and Luis Urbano, co-producing for Portuguese outfit O Som e a Furia, about the production: “We’re going to finish filming right after the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. We’re filming for 80 days, and we’ve already started editing. We first aim to release the feature-film version in the first semester of 2025, and ideally release it in Portugal on 24 April 2025, one day before the 51st anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. In order to fulfil this schedule, we will be showing the film at the EFM in Berlin in 2025, together with our world sales agent, The Match Factory. Then, the six-episode TV series will be premiered on RTP and on RTL in the second half of 2025.

www.tarantula.lu

In post-production

• APUNTES PARA UNA FICCIÓN CONSENTIDA by Ana Serret Ituarte, producer: EAVE FFF graduate Cristina Zumarraga is in post-production. The film tells the story of Lea Grand, a Swiss woman lost in Madrid, who will have to find her own path to becoming an actress in a country she wasn’t born in. However, she will have some help from an array of different characters whom she crosses paths with: A young actress, her ex, a pianist who does not talk, a neighbour of hers and a nurse specialising in bats. Regardless, she’s looking in the wrong place. “It’s a fiction authorised by actress Isabelle Stoffel, based on her own experiences, where reality and fiction are totally indistinguishable from one another. That’s how a series of notes came about as well as a string of characters that populate her life and accompany her as she struggles to be an actress in a foreign country whose language is so different to her own”, said Ituarte. The film is a Atiende Films and Tandem Films production, its producers are Xesc Cabot, Pep Garrido, Cristina Zumárraga and Pablo E Bossi. It has secured funding from the ICAA, the Community of Madrid and Madrid City Council, and it also boasts the involvement of the Filmin platform. The film was shot in Madrid and Basel.

https://tandemfilms.es/en

• DANIELA FOREVER by Nacho Vigalondo, co-producer: EAVE graduate Benoit Roland is in post-production. According to its producers, the film is Vigalondo's most personal project to date. A dystopia about love, personal dilemmas and dreams that tells the story of how life loses all meaning for Nicolas (played by Henry Golding) with the loss of his girlfriend Daniela (Beatrice Grannò). But one day he is invited to take part in a clinical trial that will allow him to control his dreams and he agrees in the hope of recovery. Now Nicolas can dream of Daniela every night and resume their relationship, more idyllic than ever... even if only in dreams. And at the risk of getting lost in them forever. Daniela Forever (with music by the duo Hidrogenesse) is produced by Nahikari Ipiña and Nacho Vigalondo from Sayaka Producciones, in co-production with Benoit Roland from the Belgian company Wrong Men, Leire Apellaniz from Señor y Señora, Gustavo Ferrada from Mediacrest Entertainment and US company XYZ Films. The film has the participation of Filmin, Movistar Plus+ and Wallimage, as well as financing from the ICAA.

www.wrongmen.be

Page published 30 April 2024.