ABOUT LIFE OF PLANETS / Из жизни планет
Director: Katarina Suvorova
Country: Kazakhstan
Producer: Anna Vilgelmi
Director of photography: Dos Nurbulatov, Azamat Dulatov
Film length: 60 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: December 2017
Synopsis
Perched upon a mountain above a lake, the Tien-Shan Astronomical Observatory is dying of old age and lack of care, like a woman craving for courtesy. A long time ago, during its golden age, it was one of the largest research centres in the Soviet Union. Two years ago an old professor gathered a group of enthusiastic astronomers, former members of an astronomer’s club from Almaty, and they decided to save the remains of the station in order to keep doing research work in the observatory. They travel towards unknown frontiers with their eyes looking up to the sky open for something new.
Producer
Rhizome Production
2 rue Général Brûlard, 69003 Lyon, France.
production.rhizome@gmail.com | + 0033 (0)4 78 09 55 58 | www.rhizome-production.fr
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CENTRAL BUS STATION / Central Bus Station
Director: Tomáš Elšík
Country: Czech Republic
Producer: Jitka Kotrlová
Director of photography: Ondřej Belica
Film length: 85 min
Stage of development: post-production
Estimated date of premiere: February 2018
Synopsis
Yonathan is a guide at one of the most pitiful places in the world – the Central Bus Station. The station has become the centre of a ghetto consisting of refugees from around the world. In the endless maze of corridors, Yonathan reveals his foster home and the culturally diverse inhabitants who have become his new family. The everyday rush and echoes of foreign languages create a contemporary Babel where Yonathan guides those who needs him. The visually experimental documentary shows the station as a character full of stories and people. Despite the diversity, the station is very consistent in its nature.
Producer
Frame films
Nad bílými vršky 959, 272 04 Kladno, Czech Republic
jitka.kotrlova@email.cz | +420 774 131 613 | www.framefilms.cz
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CRYING WILL GET YOU NOWHERE / Sírással nem megyünk semmire
Director: Réka Szabó
Country: Hungary
Producer: Réka Szabó, Sára László, Marcell Gerő
Director of photography: Claudia Kovács
Film length: 85 min
Stage of development: post-production
Estimated date of premiere: November 2017
Synopsis
An extraordinary rehearsal process in which a contemporary dance performance is born from the dialogue of a Holocaust survivor (90), an outstanding dancer (32) and a choreographer/director (47). Women with entirely different historical experiences, at different stages of the spectrum of life, develop coalescent human relationships before our very eyes.
Producer
Campfilm
Károly krt 3/C Budapest 1075, Hungary
office@campfilm.eu | +36209922655 | www.campfilm.eu
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D IS FOR DIVISION / Muris
Director: Davis Simanis
Country: Latvia, Czech Republic
Producer: Guntis Trekteris, Radim Procházka
Director of photography: Aigars Sērmukšs
Film length: 75 min
Stage of development: post-production
Estimated date of premiere: October 2017
Synopsis
A Latvian woman named Hermine Purina is shown in an archival photograph: she became the first victim of the Soviet invasion of Latvia in 1940 whilst trying to save her son, Voldemärs, with her body. It becomes an inspiration for contemplating film’s boundaries – both geographical and metaphorical. Russians and Latvians sense the import of historical realities in a completely different way. One side associates it with liberation; for the other side, it means the loss of freedom. The well-known Latvian author Davis Simanis produces an explosive testament about tension on the EU’s eastern borders.
Producer
Ego Media
Baznicas iela 8-3, Riga, Latvia
guntis@egomedia.lv | +371 29219373 | www.egomedia.lv
Produkce Radim Procházka
Rehorova 54, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic
radim@radimprochazka.com | +420603862161 | www.radimprochazka.com/en/
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DYING FOR BEGINNERS / Umírání pro začátečníky
Director: Bára Kopecká, Marek Bouda
Country: Czech Republic
Producer: Bára Kopecká, Veronika Kührová
Director of photography: Marek Bouda
Film length: 60 min
Stage of development: finished
Estimated date of premiere: September 2017
Synopsis
Most people don’t think about death or don’t want to think about it, until something makes them to do so. Usually that "something" is a fatal disease being so immensely close that there’s no escape from it. But there are certain people who think about death from a very young age. They’re seen as strange sufferers of melancholia or are diagnosed with depression.
Producer
Bára Kopecká, s.r.o. – Bára Kopecká
Bára Kopecká, s.r.o., Újezd 452/44, 118 00, Praha - Malá Strana, Czech Republic
mail@barakopecka.com | www.barakopecka.com
Analog Vision s.r.o. – Veronika Kührová
Kaprova 42/14, 11000 Praha 1, Czech Republic
veronika@analog.vision, michal@analog.vision | +420724148114, +420602838388 | www.analog.vision
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EARTHLY PARADISE / Ráj na zemi
Director: Jaro Vojtek
Country: Slovakia
Producer: Mátyás Prikler, Zora Jaurová
Director of photography: Jaro Vojtek
Film length: 90 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: March 2018
Synopsis
A documentary film by Jaro Vojtek about his friend Andrej Ban, a journalist and war photographer who covers painful conflicts around the world. Jaro often has been a silent witness the reporter’s personal struggles, troubled relationships, psychological problems and fight against depression. Their journeys together to conflict zones and refugee situations, in contrast with their everyday intimate conversations, is the underlying foundation for the concept of the film. Earthly Paradise is a topography of individual and global struggles – continual therapy without an end.
Producer
MPhilms Ltd.
Horná 5, 831 52 Bratislava, Slovakia
mphilms@mphilms.sk | www.mphilms.sk
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KIRUNA 2.0 / Kiruna 2.0
Director: Greta Stocklassa
Country: Czech Republic
Producer: Veronika Kührová, Michal Kráčmer
Director of photography: Stanislav Adam
Film length: 80 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: July 2018
Synopsis
The northernmost city of Sweden will be moved three kilometres to the east. Although similar situations have already occurred in history, this case is unique. The city has made difficult situation into a sensation. Media from around the world have started writing about the little city of 15,000 inhabitants above the Arctic Circle, set to become the most modern city in the world.
Producer
Analog Vision s.r.o.
Kaprova 42/14, 11000 Praha 1, Czech Republic
veronika@analog.vision, michal@analog.vision | +420724148114, +420602838388 | www.analog.vision
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MERRY CHRISTMAS, YIWU / Merry Christmas, Yiwu
Director: Mladen Kovačević
Country: Serbia
Producer: Iva Plemić Divjak
Director of photography: Marko Milovanović
Film length: 90 min, 52 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: July 2018
Synopsis
Some 60% of all the world’s Christmas decorations are made in the Chinese city of Yiwu, a place of surreal craftsmanship, where no-one celebrates Christmas. An ultimate globalization story, Merry Christmas, Yiwu is a poetic, observational documentary with an alluring visual aesthetic worthy of a Christmas fairy-tale for grown-ups. Steering away from a stereotypical representation of China, the intimate moments from the lives of the workers of Yiwu complement the surprising story about an unlikely place where Christmas is made.
Producer
Horopter Film Production
Vardarska 12, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
info@horopter.rs, ivaplemic@gmail.com | +381638302301 | www.horopter.rs
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(N)OSTALGIA / (N)Ostalgia
Directors - Authors: Vicki Thornton, Pavel Yurov
Country: Ukraine, Luxembourg, Estonia
Producers: Marion Guth, Julia Sinkevych, Nadia Parfan, Marianna Kaat
Director of photography: Jean-Louis Schuller
Film length: 80 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: February 2018
Synopsis
An existential journey from past to present, (N)OSTALGIA follows a Ukrainian theatre director and British filmmaker as they travel to different mining communities seeking stories for a new play. Following a long history of migration from the Donbas, they eventually find themselves in a former Soviet mining settlement at the edge of the Artic Circle. Confronted with the new reality being performed by the tiny local community and ruin-hungry Western tourists, they are forced to examine their own cultural identities, the persistence of East/West propaganda, and their relationship with ‘the other’.
Producer
a_BAHN - Marion Guth (Luxemburg)
a_BAHN | 115A rue Emile Mark, L4620 Differdange, Luxembourg
marion@a-bahn.com | +352661163820 | www.a-bahn.com
JS FILMS – Julia Sinkevych and Nadia Parfan (Ukraine)
Baltic Film Production – Marianna Kaat (Estonia)
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OCCUPATION 1968 / Okupacia 1968
Directors: Evdokia Moskvina, Magdalena Szymkov, Stefan Komandarev, Linda Dombrovszky, Marie Elisa Scheidt
Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary
Producer: Peter Kerekes
Director of photography: tbc
Film length: 130 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: February 2018
Synopsis
Occupation as occupants see it. Five countries from the Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. Fifty years later, five directors from those countries will shoot short films about the invasion from the point of view of people who took part in it.
To get the most diverse views on this complicated topic, we chose one director from each of the former Warsaw Pact countries that participated in the occupation of Czechoslovakia – Russia, Poland, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. The result will be five 26-minute documentaries – five different view from inside the five countries. Mosaic subjective portraits will form a documentary series of five 26 minutes episodes for television, and a 130-minute documentary feature for distribution.
Producer
Peter Kerekes, s.r.o.
Vištuk 277, 900 85, Vištuk, Slovakia
kerekes@nextra.sk | +421 905 255 698 | www.kerekesfilm.com
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SPOON / Karote
Director: Laila Pakalnina
Country: Latvia, Lithuania
Producer: Laila Pakalnina, Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė
Director of photography: Gints Berzins
Film length: 66 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: July 2018
Synopsis
Men can drill very deep, down to where the oil is. Large groups of qualified men equipped with machines can extract oil and transport it far away, to a place where other qualified men can transform it into plastic. The plastic is then taken to a factory, where still more men can turn it into spoons, which will be transported even further to all sorts of eateries and, likely, will be available free of charge. This meaningful life will last for one unceremonious meal. The film examines what society invests into the creation of a plastic spoon that effortlessly can be thrown out.
Producer
Hargla Company
Valtaiku 19, Riga LV1029, Latvia
laila.pakalnina@inbox.lv | +371 29235618 | www.facebook.com/filmspoon/
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VOICES APART / Atskirti balsai
Director: David Heinemann, Elvina Nevardauskaite
Country: Lithuania, United Kingdom
Producer: Elvina Nevardauskaite
Director of photography: Elvina Nevardauskaite
Film length: 40 min
Stage of development: production
Estimated date of premiere: June 2018
Synopsis
How do we know that what we hear or see is real? Exploring the thin line between the objective world and subjective experience, four voice-hearers recall critical experiences during the development of their respective psychoses. Although they remain unnamed and unseen until the end of the film, their voices alone allow us to tell one from another, as they recount stories of trauma and the scars that mark them, that set them apart.
Producer
Broken Island Films
Southleigh Reading Road Burghfield Common, Berkshire RG7 3BL
david@brokenislandfilms.com | www.brokenislandfilms.com
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