NEXT Development for feature film projects, next to you
First session: 11-15 May 2020 Second session: 28-29 May 2020 The world is rapidly and profoundly TFL NEXT changing. New challenges have emerged on a global scale, which film and TV industries have the ability and the duty to answer. This conviction is deeply rooted in TorinoFilmLab’s DNA. It resonates in our mission: to bring together people, cultures and ideas to develop original and unique stories that can impact the future. This new branch of TorinoFilmLab has an innovative teaching approach, a fully online based experience. It aims at empowering a new generation of agile- thinking and innovative filmmakers, who are ready to immerse themselves in a truly global experience, sharing with international experts and peers, travelling across live barriers. Everyone has something unique to express. Together, we form a global community, ready to make an impact in the world. We invite you to join us in this new adventure.
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2 TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 TUTORS
Isabelle created Initiative Film in 1993, a company dedicated to film development. She works as a script consultant and gives lectures at forefront international events and many film schools. She also Isabelle Fauvel facilitates book adaptations through book scouting Story Editor • France and initiatives such as Shoot the Book!, and scouts writers and directors for several producers and labs.
Răzvan Rădulescu is a scriptwriter, novelist and film director. He studied Philology at the University of Bucharest and Opera Directing at the National Music Academy of Bucharest. He debuted in literature in Răzvan Rădulescu 1985 and has written two novels. As a scriptwriter, Scriptwriter • Romania he has collaborated with numerous directors such as Cristi Puiu, Radu Muntean and Cristian Mungiu, among others. Between 2014 and 2020, he has taught Dramaturgy for Film at the Karlsruhe Academy of Arts and Design.
Eilon Ratzkovsky has produced feature films and TV series over the past 25 years, as chief producer and CEO of July August Productions. Besides tutoring for TorinoFilmLab and Biennale College Cinema, he is the Eilon Ratzkovsky Head of QUIDDITY, a content company specializing Producer • Israel in developing high quality TV dramas for European networks.
TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 3 GROUP A – ISABELLE FAUVEL
All the Songs We Never Sang Chris Rudz Natsumi arrives from Tokyo to a small provincial island Writer/Director • Poland where her aunt Reiko, an Ama-San Japanese traditional [email protected] pearl diver, lives. Reiko has been in conflict with the T +81 8078003078 girl’s mother for years and has never seen Natsumi. The girl has to find a way to reunite the family to find an underwater treasure left by her ancestor and save herself from the big trouble she is in. Japanese ‘80s pop songs from the aunt’s youth will be an unexpected ally to bring the family together again.
PROJECT STATUS Amy Aoyama The project is a co-production between Japan and Producer • Japan Poland. It is at an early development stage with a first [email protected] draft of the script. T +81 7077940214 We are looking for more opportunities to expose the project to markets and are seeking collaborators to finance and distribute the film.
Not Your Shadow Elena Brodach Sasha cannot give her husband the child he Writer/Director • Russia/Israel dreams of. Ignoring his religious beliefs, Sasha asks [email protected] her childfree sister, Nina, to be their surrogate. T +7 9166781445 After much hesitation, Nina agrees and settles in with Sasha and Matteo. Their new life together serves to exacerbate their relationships, revealing jealousy, envy, and childish resentments. It also leads up to an event that forever alters their lives, allowing each of them to discover their own unique source of fulfillment. Lika Dlugach PROJECT STATUS Scriptwriter • Russia/Israel
The project is a co-production between Russia, Italy [email protected] and France. It is at a development stage with a first T +972 502412315 draft of the script. We are looking for co-producers and distributors in Italy and France.
4 TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 Red Bear Payam Razi Sadeq, an illegal Iranian immigrant with an unspoken Writer/Director • Czech Republic past, has built a new life and identity in visa-free [email protected] Svalbard. After 12 years on the island, he now earns T +42 0602365098 his modest living selling kebab from a food truck as he eagerly awaits the arrival of his child with his Filipina partner. An unexpected visit by his son Babak, from a long-forgotten failed marriage, and his disappearance in the frozen land, brings Sadeq’s secrets to the surface, as his fragile immigrant life once again is pushed to the edge.
PROJECT STATUS Red Bear is currently at a script development stage. We are looking for a Norwegian co-producer in order to begin the application process for the script development fund at the Norwegian Film Institute.
The Golden Hour Heidi Greensmith When war breaks out, nurse Elsie and her best friend Writer/Director • United Kingdom mechanic Mairi, get on their motorcycles and roar off [email protected] to the front line to do their part. T +44 1749850644 Their unbelievable bravery and selfless heroics quickly makes them the two most photographed women of World War I.
PROJECT STATUS The Golden Hour is part of the Creative Europe – MEDIA Development Slate Funding 2019. It is currently at a script development stage, and it has also been selected for the September session of Sources 2. We are looking for co-producers from Belgium and the United Kingdom as well as international sales agents and distributors.
TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 5 GROUP B – RĂZVAN RĂDULESCU
Our Bones Ricardo Branco Cícero, a street prostitute, was stabbed in a Writer/Director • Portugal homophobic crime and his body was left unclaimed [email protected] at the morgue to be incinerated. T +351 914369083 Heleno and Estrela, two strangers with nothing in common except the love for Cícero, must come together to save the body and take it home, through 3.000 kilometers of Brazil’s dry lands of Sertão. Used to hide parts of themselves in order to survive, during this journey they will unravel, letting their secrets show and thereby uncover their true selves in the most hopeless place. Eliane Ferreira Producer • Brazil
PROJECT STATUS [email protected] The project is at a development stage. T +55 11981216564
Salam Abedalsalam Alhajj A Bedouin man is haunted by a dream: an image of Writer/Director • Jordan himself dying over and over. He lives with his only [email protected] daughter, who has a special talent for drawing shapes T +962 797557442 on sand and rocks, and she is also obsessed by observing stars. The tribe believe that the daughter is possessed by a Jinn, so the man decides to take his child and escape through the desert. There, he gets bitten by a snake, leaving his child alone. The daughter drags her father until she reaches a Sufi tribe in the middle of the desert. Mays Alreem Producer • Iraq
PROJECT STATUS [email protected] The project is currently at a development stage. T +962 798088015 We are seeking funding and co-producers. We would also like to meet sales agents to discuss the possibilities of potential markets for this unique film.
6 TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 Those Nights in the Woods Martin Alan After finding a strange animal carcass in the middle Tranquillini of a clearing, Richard, a forest ranger, decides Writer/Director • Italy to install some camera traps in the woods. What emerges from the footage is a disconcerting truth: [email protected] T +39 3401606566 Richard sees himself wandering in the night forest, killing animals and a couple of tourists who were camping in the area. How will Richard understand what is going on to him during the night without arousing suspicions to the police?
PROJECT STATUS The film is at an early script development stage. We have an attached Italian production company and we are in contact with other interested film companies. We are looking for co-producers.
Tourne Chéri Charlotte Rabate 1966. Due to a coup d’état, a wealthy family escapes Writer/Director • overnight from Aleppo, Syria to Beirut, Lebanon and France/United States lose all of their fortune. [email protected] In Beirut, chubby 12-year-old Samir meets his first T +1 9178227497 love Christine. They start to investigate his father, suspecting that he is a spy, when he is actually having an affair. They communicate with walkie- talkies, unaware that they are being observed by the Lebanese authorities. Indeed, the real spy is Christine’s father, putting both their families in danger.
PROJECT STATUS The film is at an advanced script development stage. I have producers attached and I am looking for co-producers and financing.
TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 7 GROUP C – EILON RATZKOVSKY
Annulus Jiyuan Ler Annulus depicts the trials and tribulations of a Writer/Director • Singapore Singaporean family following the attempted suicide [email protected] of their eldest son, who suffers from psychotic T +65 96611920 depression. The narrative shifts between key family members as they try to mend their fractured relationships and at the same time deal with existential crises of their own. The film is set against an upcoming, one-in-a-lifetime “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse, a cosmic event that amplifies the characters’ perplexities about their lives.
PROJECT STATUS The film is at the script development stage.
Family Trip Magda Jaroszewicz Anna, Tomek and their daughter Nina are on vacations Writer/Director • Poland/Germany on a small volcanic island in Greece. It is the end of [email protected] the holiday season and the villages are deserted. On T +48 501646272 the surface, the family seems harmonious, but there is something fractured, yet unspoken between the parents. They are changing the island into a gigantic playground to save their relationship. Family Trip is a story about breaking the roles, and the rules that society and personal indolence are enforcing so one can survive in the modern world.
PROJECT STATUS I am currently looking for an alternative way to shape the co-production between Poland, Germany and other European countries. By the end of the year, I plan to complete the script to apply for development and/or production funds in Poland and Germany.
8 TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 On the Way Back to Istanbul Demet Derelioğlu Ozge is a middle-aged married woman who has a Aran 5-year-old daughter. On a hot summer day, while Writer/Director • they are on the way back to Istanbul from her parents’ Switzerland/Turkey summerhouse, they are attacked by two violent men [email protected] on a highway. T +41 797209618 Ozge cannot handle the situation well and has an asthma attack. From the moment that her husband gets down from the car with a gun, which she was not aware of before, her life is turned upside down.
PROJECT STATUS The project is in development and was selected for the FOCAL Script coaching programme 2020. Turkish and Czech co-producers are already attached. We are looking for European co-producers, international distributors, sales agents and financing opportunities.
The Strangers Axel Öhman Despite a disdain for tourism, disillusioned 35-year- Writer/Director • Sweden old historian Anton Waller works as a tour guide in [email protected] Old Town, the historical district of Stockholm. T +33 642829325 After a Chinese tourist drowns herself in the harbour, the neighbourhood begins to unravel with strange occurrences. Anton, together with a free spirited hotel receptionist named Estrid, finds out about an apocalyptic cult congregating in town to pay tribute to its charismatic leader, a public intellectual preaching the end of humanity.
PROJECT STATUS The project is in development. We are finalising the treatment and beginning the writing of the screenplay. We are looking for Nordic co-producers as well as a Swedish distributor.
TFL NEXT – FILM DEVELOPMENT • 11-29 MAY 2020 9 www.torinofilmlab.it