HFM Work-in-Progress booklet 2014

SEPT 25 - 28 UTRECHT FILMFESTIVAL.NL

WORK-INPROGRESS SESSION

2014

INTERNATIONAL SECTION OF THE NETHERLANDS FILM FESTIVAL

The Holland Film Meeting and the HFM Co-Production Platform present:

Work-in-Progress Session 2014 Friday, September 26th, 14:30 – 17:30 TivoliVredenburg / Hertz Room, Utrecht

Content Credits and acknowledgements 2 Foreword 3 Work-in-Progress projects 2014 Black Diamond by Arthur Harari (France / Belgium) 4 Cross your Heart by Petri Kotwica (Finland / Ireland) 6 Dust Cloth by Ahu Öztürk (Turkey) 8 Eisenstein in Guanajuato by Peter Greenaway (The Netherlands / Mexico / Finland / Belgium) 10 Paradise Trips by Raf Reyntjens (Belgium / The Netherlands) 12 Index 14

Credits and acknowledgements The HFM Work-in-Progress 2014 prizes are offered by:

Colophon Netherlands Film Festival Director Willemien van Aalst Head of Holland Film Meeting Signe Zeilich-Jensen Producer HFM & Coordinator Guest Department Susanne van Doorn Coordinator HFM Co-Production Platform Mercedes MartĂ­nez-Abarca Guest Department Daya de Jongh NasztĂĄzia Potapenko

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Coordinator HFM Publicity Tito Rodriguez Editing WiP Booklet Nick Cunningham Moderator Marten Rabarts Jury Host Ninelotte Dijk Design WiP Booklet Marinka Reuten Printing WiP Booklet Veenman+

Netherlands Film Festival Holland Film Meeting PO Box 1581 3500 BN Utrecht The Netherlands +31-30-2303800 hfm@filmfestival.nl hfmcopro@filmfestival.nl www.filmfestival.nl

Foreword

The HFM Co-Production Platform is proud to present the second edition of the HFM Work-in-Progress Session.

This session presents five projects, previously pitched at the HFM Co-Pro Platform, and now in post-production. Its goal is to give an extra boost to these productions, to attract the attention of international sales companies, distributors, film festivals and to find partners for future co-productions.

The five brand-new European films in progress will have a chance to win three prizes: • The Filmmore HFM Work-in-Progress Prize valued at € 5.000 in facility services in combination with the HFM Coaching Prize, offered by the Netherlands Film Fund consisting of a consulting session with Marten Rabarts and a Dutch film editor.

• The Haghefilm International Post-Production Prize valued at € 5.000 in facility services offered by Haghefilm Digitaal.

We look forward to welcoming back our friends to Utrecht and wish all of you a pleasant and fruitful screening session.

Signe Zeilich-Jensen Head of Holland Film Meeting Mercedes Martínez-Abarca Coordinator HFM Co-Production Platform

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 3

Black Diamond Diamant noir Les Films Pelléas (France) Savage Films (Belgium) Frakas Productions (Belgium)

Synopsis

Pier Ulmann is a man of around 30 who lives on his own in Paris. Upon his father’s death, a tragic fate that he blames on his family of Antwerp diamond dealers, Pier returns to them with the secret intent of settling the score.

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Director’s profile

Arthur Harari is the writer and director of two medium-length films acclaimed and awarded at international film festivals: La main sur la gueule (2007) and Peine perdue (2013). Diamant Noir is his first feature film. Arthur Harari is also known as an actor in La bataille de Solférino (2013) by Justine Triet

Arthur Harari

Director Arthur Harari Screenwriters Arthur Harari, Vincent Poymiro, Agnes Feuvre Screenplay based on an idea of Arthur Harari and Olivier Seror Producers David Thion, Bart van Langendonck Photography Tom Harari Editing Laurent Sénéchal Cast Niels Schneider, August Diehl, Hans Peter Cloos

Language French, German, Flemish Genre Contemporary tragedy Shooting format Digital (1,85:1) Estimated running time 110 minutes Target audience Arthouse film-goers Distribution Film Distribution

Contact David Thion Les Films Pelléas 25 rue Michel le Comte 75003 Paris France +33-1-42743100 david.thion@pelleas.fr www.lesfilmspelleas.com

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 5

Cross your Heart Henkesi edestä Vertigo (Finland) Newgrange Pictures (Ireland)

Synopsis

Kiia has gone into premature labor. She is speeding down a dark country road with her husband Lauri when their car hits something. Lauri goes to take a look, and tells his wife he saw nothing. They rush to the hospital, and Kiia gives birth to a healthy baby boy. While in hospital, Kiia meets Hanna, a woman whose husband is the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Kiia befriends Hanna and tries to help her in her sorrow. When the truth finally dawns, will it be too late to forgive?

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Director’s profile

Petri Kotwica is an award-winning Finnish film director and screenwriter.

Kotwica’s first feature Homesick (2005) was lauded at numerous international festivals.

His second feature Black Ice (2007) premiered 2008 in Berlinale competition.

Black Ice was a box office hit in Finland, won six national film awards and has been screened at more than 50 film festivals.

Rat King (2012) had its international premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in 2012.

Petri Kotwica

Director Petri Kotwica Screenwriters Petri Kotwica, Johanna Hartikainen Producer Minna Virtanen Photography Harri R채ty Editing Isobel Stephenson Cast Laura Birn, Eero Aho, Mari Rantasila

Language Finnish Genre Drama Shooting format HD Estimated running time 100 minutes Target audience Female audience

Contact Minna Virtanen Vertigo Korkeavuorenkatu 30, 3rd floor 00130 Helsinki Finland +358-50-4904119 minna@vertigo.fi www: www.vertigo.fi

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 7

Dust Cloth Toz bezi Ret Film (Turkey)

Synopsis

Nesrin and Hatun are two Kurdish cleaning women, close friends and neighbors, living in Istanbul. Nesrin lives on the ground floor with her daughter. Her husband has recently disappeared, and life is harder for her now. She searches for him every day.

Hatun lives with her husband and her nottoo-promising son. Her biggest dream is buying a house in the neighborhood where she’s working. Besides, she has always wanted a daughter.

One day, Nesrin sees her husband in the street. He runs away from her and Nesrin understands that she is all alone. She faces up to surviving and taking care of her daughter but this is not easy for a cleaner, which is in itself a slippery and insecure job, and actually she is not good at it.

While situations gets worse for Nesrin, her relationship with her daughter also starts to fracture. She is more a mother on hold anyhow, and now Asmin keeps asking for her father. By contrast, Hatun’s relatively smooth working family life, and her superiority over Nesrin, makes her more angry.

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In the end, Nesrin makes a brave decision, to break out of this cycle. So she goes away and leaves Asmin behind, with Hatun.

Director’s profile

Ahu Öztürk studied Philosophy and Cinema. In 2004, she directed her first documentary Chest (2004). In 2010, she participated with the omnibus film Tales from Kars with her short Open Wound (2010). Open Wound has been shown in many international film festivals such as Rotterdam, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Sarajevo, Beirut. Dust Cloth is her first feature film.

As a project it received production support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and participated in co-production markets such as Meetings on the Bridge (CNC Award), CineLink (EAVE Scholarship Award) and the Holland Film Meeting (Netherlands Film Festival).

Ahu Öztürk

Director Ahu Öztürk Screenwriter Ahu Öztürk Producers Çiğdem Mater, Nesra Gürbüz Photography Meryem Yavuz Editing Ali Aga Cast Asiye Dinçsoy, Nazan Kesal, Mehmet Özgur, Asel Yalin, Yusuf Ancu, Didem Inselel, Serra Yilmaz

Language Turkish, Kurdish Genre Drama Shooting format HD Estimated running time 96 minutes Target audience Aged 40+ mostly urban middle class women.

Cinephiles and festival audience

Contact Çiğdem Mater / Nesra Gürbüz Ret Film Sofyali SK 20/7 Asmalımescıt Beyoğlu 34430 Istanbul Turkey +90-53-59690319 nesrag@gmail.com www.retfilm.com

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 9

Eisenstein in Guanajuato Submarine (The Netherlands) Fu Works (The Netherlands) Paloma Negra Films (Mexico) Edith Film (Finland) Potemkino (Belgium)

Synopsis

After making his revolutionary film Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, the venerated filmmaker, was invited to visit the US. Ultimately rejected by Hollywood and maliciously maligned by conservative Americans, Eisenstein traveled to Mexico in 1931 to consider a film privately funded by American pro-Communist sympathizers.

Eisenstein and Canedo spend 10 sensuous days – marked off days, numbered days, one by one - in the city, and Eisenstein, ever-sensitive of his own ambivalent, repressed and sublimated homosexuality, finally at the age of 33, loses his sexual virginity, and, it would seem, his emotional and spiritual virginity as well.

Traveling to see the celebrated Museum of the Dead in Guanajuato, in this beautiful town he is confronted with new ways of mythological thinking - far removed from European traditions. He is deeply shaken by what he finds.

Peter Greenaway was born in Wales and educated in London. He trained as a painter and started making films in 1966. He has curated exhibitions from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to the Louvre in Paris. He has regularly been nominated for the film festival competitions of Cannes, Venice and Berlin, published books and written for theatre and opera. His first feature film, The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), established him internationally as one of the most original and important film makers of our times, a reputation consolidated by the films The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover (1989), The Pillow Book (1995) and Nightwatching (2007).

Against this backdrop, susceptible to the tender friendships of his Mexican associates, disturbed by the beauty of the city, and increasingly conscious of the past pain suffered by Mexicans under first the Spanish, and then the Americans, he falls in love with his Guanajuato guide and minder - a young, married historian of comparative religions, Palomino Canedo.

10 Work-in-Progress Session 2014

Director’s profile

Director Peter Greenaway Screenwriter Peter Greenaway Producers Bruno Felix / Submarine, Femke Wolting / Submarine, San Fu Maltha / Fu Works, Cristina Velasco / Paloma Negra Films Photography Reinier van Brummelen Editing Elmer Leupen Cast Elmer B채ck, Luis Alberti

Language English, Spanish Genre Drama Shooting format 4K Estimated running time 110 minutes Target audience Arthouse audience, cinema lovers, Mexico lovers, drama lovers

Peter Greenaway

Contact Yaniv Wolf Submarine Arie Biemondstraat 111 1054 PD Amsterdam The Netherlands +31-20-8204940 yaniv@submarine.nl www.submarine.nl

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 11

Paradise Trips CAVIAR (Belgium) IJswater Films (The Netherlands)

Synopsis

Holiday bus driver Mario has spent his entire life shuttling old age pensioners to the sunny south with his own travel company ‘Paradise Trips’. Today, on the verge of his own retirement, Mario has to bring a motley crew of alternative partygoers to a psychedelic festival in Croatia. The journey soon turns into a fascinating trip that confronts Mario with his own prejudices and his long-lost son.

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Director’s profile

Raf Reyntjens graduated from the Brussels Film Academy RITS in 1999.

Gaining experience as an acclaimed director of commercials and music videos (f.e. “Papaoutai” featuring Stromae, viewed more than 150 million times on Youtube).

He also wrote and directed two short films: the awarded sci-fi fantasy A Message from Outer Space (2004) and the war drama Tunnelrat (2008), screened at numerous film festivals worldwide, in which he explores the world of underground warfare during WWI. Paradise Trips, a tragicomic road movie that he developed at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam, will mark his feature film debut.

Raf Reyntjens

Director Raf Reyntjens Screenwriter Raf Reyntjens Producers Frank van Passel / CAVIAR, Ivy Vanhaecke / CAVIAR Photography Rik Zang Editing Els Voorspoels Cast Gène Bervoets, Jeroen Perceval, Cédric van den Abbeele, Tania van der Sanden, Noortje Herlaar, Line Pillet Language Dutch

Genre Tragicomic road movie Shooting format HD Estimated running time 100 minutes Target audience Aged 18-60, male and female. Young people interested in alternative culture, older more mainstream audience Distribution Cinéart (Belgium / The Netherlands) Contact Ivy Vanhaecke CAVIAR Antwerp Cogels Osylei 74 2600 Berchem Belgium +32-2-4232300 ivy.vanhaecke@caviarcontent.com www.caviarcontent.com

2014 Work-in-Progress Session 13

Index Projects

Black Diamond by Arthur Harari (France / Belgium) 4 Cross your Heart by Petri Kotwica (Finland / Ireland) 6 Dust Cloth by Ahu Öztürk (Turkey) 8 Eisenstein in Guanajuato by Peter Greenaway (The Netherlands / Mexico / Finland / Belgium) 10 Paradise Trips by Raf Reyntjens (Belgium / The Netherlands)

Directors

Peter Greenaway 10 Arthur Harari 4 Petri Kotwica 6 Ahu Öztürk 8 Raf Reyntjens 12

Producers

Bruno Felix 11 Nesra Gürbüz 9 Bart van Langendonck San Fu Maltha 11 Çiğdem Mater 9 Frank van Passel 13 David Thion 5 Ivy Vanhaecke 13 Cristina Velasco 11 Minna Virtanen 7 Femke Wolting 11

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Production Companies

CAVIAR (Belgium) 12 Edith Film (Finland) 10 Les Films Pelléas (France) 4 Frakas Productions (Belgium) 4 Fu Works (The Netherlands) 10 IJswater Films (The Netherlands) 12 Newgrange Pictures (Ireland) 6 Paloma Negra Films (Mexico) 10 Potemkino (Belgium) 10 Ret Film (Turkey) 8 Savage Film (Belgium) 4 Submarine (The Netherlands) 10 Vertigo (Finland) 6 14 Work-in-Progress Session 2014

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34TH NETHERLANDS FILM FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 24 - OCTOBER 3, 2014 FILMFESTIVAL.NL