EUROPEAN SHORT FILM 2017
European Film Academy e.V. Kurfürstendamm 225 10719 Berlin GERMANY tel. +(49)30 887 167-0 fax +(49)30 887 167-77
Welcome to the 30th European Film Awards CONTENTS
www.europeanfilmacademy.org Director: Marion Döring Amtsgericht Charlottenburg 14236 Nz
Welcome .............................................. 1 Films COPA-LOCA ......................................... EN LA BOCA ......................................... FIGHT ON A SWEDISH BEACH!! ........... INFORMATION SKIES .......................... LOVE .................................................... THE ARTIFICIAL HUMORS ................... THE CIRCLE ......................................... THE DISINHERITED ............................. THE PARTY .......................................... TIMECODE ........................................... UGLY .................................................... WANNABE ........................................... WRITTEN/UNWRITTEN ....................... YOU WILL BE FINE ............................... YOUNG MEN AT THEIR WINDOW .........
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
The EFA Short Film Programme ........ 17
EFA Productions gGmbH Kurfürstendamm 225 10719 Berlin GERMANY tel. +(49)30 887 167-0 fax +(49)30 887 167-77 www.efa-productions.com Managing Directors: Marion Döring, Jürgen Biesinger Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HRB 99369
IMPRINT: EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY e.V. // Editor: Pascal Edelmann // Graphic design: Andrés Castoldi // Unless otherwise indicated, all pictures appear courtesy of the respective production/distribution companies ★
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We are happy to present the short films nominated for the 30th European Film Awards: A lot of them depart from a critical examination of life’s realities, from unemployment and the aspirations of youth to a general sense of belonging. They take us to a Swedish beach, a deserted Greek summer resort, a Romanian hospital and a French window. Each of the nominated films opens a window into a different world and shows the creative diversity of European cinema. It is with great pleasure that we present this year’s nominated short films. The EFA Short Film programme has long been an established item on the annual international short film agenda. It is organised in co-operation with fifteen partner festivals. At each of them, an independent international jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination for the award European Short Film. During the past fifteen years, the interest in the short film programme and this collection of short films has constantly been increasing. The nominated films go through a series of 40 screenings across Europe and beyond. We are proud to draw attention to these films and their creators and I invite you to leaf through this booklet and meet the nominees – creative people from all over Europe. The EFA short film programme wouldn’t be possible without our friends in the world of short films and I wish to thank all our partner festivals for yet another fantastic year. I would also like to thank our friends at the Uppsala Short Film Festival for the EFA Short Film Weekend – a great gathering of the nominated directors in Sweden for a first screening of the nominated shorts and a weekend of meeting and mingling. Thank you & tack så mycket! The members of the European Film Academy elect the overall winner who is announced at the 30th European Film Awards Ceremony in Berlin.
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Agnieszka Holland Chairwoman EFA Board
WELCOME
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Sarajevo Short Film Nominee
Greece, 14 min
COPA-LOCA
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Written, Directed & Produced by: Christos Massalas Director of Photography: Konstantinos Koukoulios Editor: Christos Massalas Costume Design: Marli Aliferi Hair & Make up Artist: Ioanna Lygizou ORIGINAL SCORE: Σtella Sound Design: Dimitris Kanellopoulos, George Ramantanis Main Cast: Elsa Lekakou, Jenny Hiloudaki, Pavlos Iordanopoulos, Talat Iqbal
World Sales: Heretic Outreach Christina Liapi 18, Promitheos Street 15234 Athens GREECE Tel. +30 210 600 52 60 ioanna@heretic.gr
Copa-Loca is an abandoned Greek summer resort. Paulina is the girl at the heart of Copa-Loca. Everyone cares for her and she cares about everyone – in every possible way. Christos Massalas How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? COPA-LOCA was made spontaneously. We didn’t have any funding to begin with, but we went ahead and made it, regardless. From conception to final cut it took a few months. So we had to be inventive, find ways and solutions to make it happen without resources. Later on and after the film was finished and selected in Cannes we were able to receive support from the Greek Film Centre, which has helped a lot. But initially, the only guarantee that we had was the talent and the passion of the people involved. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? First of all, I have to say that my personal story has been defined by the European objective of free movement. I was born in Greece. I spent some years as a child in Dublin; later on, I moved to London to study cinema and stayed there for a decade. I wrote one of my first Greek-language scripts looking out from a
window into Hardangerfjord, in an Artists’ Residence in Norway. And then in Novi Beograd. And I brought all this with me in Athens, where I now live and work. So this is the world I know of, a world of movement. And that is how my mind has learned to operate, always thinking in terms of cultural associations and co-existence. This is the essence, I think, of the European cinema community. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? It would be a long night. And probably there would have to be multiple screening rooms. And you could go from one to the other, in a kaleidoscopic structure. From TOUTE LA MÉMOIRE DU MONDE by Alain Resnais to AT LAND by Maya Deren; there would be a room for Almodóvar with a corridor leading to the world of Lina Wertmüller. There would be F FOR FAKE by Orson Welles and THE THIRD GENERATION by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. What is your next project? I’m now developing my first feature-length project. It’s called BROADWAY and it takes place in Athens, in an abandoned entertainment arcade. It’s the story of a group of street performers, hustling their way through life. It’s a continuation of the ideas that I started exploring with Copa-Loca.
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Switzerland, Argentina, 26 min
EN LA BOCA Written, Directed & Produced by: Matteo Gariglio Director of Photography: Andi Widmer Editor: Thais Odermatt ORIGINAL SCORE: Dominik Blumer, Thomi Christ, Roman Lerch Sound Design: Manu Gerber Animation: Mathias Wesselmann
Krakow Short Film Nominee Production & Press: Matteo Gariglio Films Matteo Gariglio Maihofstrasse 101 6006 Luzern SWITZERLAND tel: +41 78 832 14 77 info@matteogariglio.com
World Sales: Magnetfilm Georg Gruber Torstr. 154 10115 Berlin GERMANY tel: +49 30 246 281 56 georg.gruber@magnetfilm.de
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
In Buenos Aires, the Molina family lives and works in the shadows of the legendary Boca Juniors stadium. Selling fake tickets to the soccer games, they constantly get in conflict with the corrupt police. As her family sinks deeper into this underworld, the mother tries in vain to keep them all from falling apart. Matteo Gariglio How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? EN LA BOCA grew spontaneously and started without funding. With the incidents that occurred after the initial shooting, I started to look for funds to be able to return. Luckily I was able to find some financing. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have been possible to realize this project without the sacrifices by many team members. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? I studied documentary directing in a master course in three different European cities with 25 filmmakers
from all over the world. That is where I learned about the importance of diversity in personality, background and culture. Combining different approaches in filmmaking can create new, outstanding works. A well-connected European cinema community will stimulate this. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? I would screen the movies of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel - two of my favorite filmmakers. And some work by Béla Tarr and Wim Wenders. What is your next project? I’m still involved a lot with this project. Aside from the film, I’m planning to create a cross media story, telling the events over the span of three years. I’m also currently developing my first feature-length documentary.
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Valladolid Short Film Nominee
Sweden, 15 min
FIGHT ON A SWEDISH BEACH!! Production & Press: Plattform Produktion Axel Danielson Vallgatan 9D 41116 Göteborg SWEDEN tel: + 46 31 71 16 660 axel@plattformproduktion.se
World Sales: KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg e.V. Friedensallee 7 22765 Hamburg GERMANY tel: +49 40 39 10 63 19 sales@shortfilm.com
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Written & Directed by: Simon Vahlne Produced by: Axel Danielson, Ellen Hallin Director of Photography: Maximilien Van Aertryck Editors: Simon Vahlne, Axel Danielson Production Design & Costume Design: Fianna Robijn ORIGINAL SCORE: Eddie Nilsson Sound Design: Lars Wignell, Gustaf Berger Main Cast: Stefan Holmberg, Lotti Sjödin, Hugo Nylén, William Davidsson, Helena Jansson, Krister Thunberg, Ulla Zachrisson, Daddy Musesa
EPIC BEACH FIGHT!! This is what happens when you yell “Sieg Heil” and call someone’s wife a whore. He had it coming. Simon Vahlne How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? Funding the film gave me a lot of energy. It was very much about me re-telling the childhood memory that the film is based on – when some drunk teenagers started yelling ”Sieg Heil” on a beach I visited with my family. We ended up with a good budget, which was important because I knew we had to film a lot of very large sceneries, with a lot of actors improvising, to capture the urgency of the situation. All in all, the film took one year and nine months to make, from initial idea to our premiere in Cannes.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a ”European cinema community”? I find it is easy to fall into convention when making films. Before you know it, you’ve created sentimental images based on memories of films you’ve seen before. So I would like my European colleagues to keep an eye on me so that I don’t do this. In return I’ll do the same for them. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. What is your next project? A film called ENTREPRENEUR. It’s about an upper middle class family that, among other things, is at war with the Swedish tax authorities.
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The Netherlands, South Korea, 24 min
Rotterdam Short Film Nominee
INFORMATION SKIES WRITTEN, DIRECTED & EDITED BY: Metahaven (Daniel van der Velden, Vinca Kruk) PRODUCED BY: Metahaven Director of Photography: Remko Schnorr
Costume Design: Yulia Yefimtchuk ORIGINAL SCORE: James Whipple (M.E.S.H.) Main Cast: Georgina Dávid, Artur Chruszcz ANIMATION: Metahaven with Janna Ullrich
Production: Metahaven Tolhuisweg 1 1031 CL Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS office@metahaven.net
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
INFORMATION SKIES is a post-truth essay in which live action and animation shape a new cinematic aesthetic. The film follows a young couple who believe to be living a perilous and heroic life. When the haunting of traumatic loss exposes their fantasy as fake, they immerse themselves further into their self-built world. How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? From working on the initial storyboard and animations, and from conception to editing, it took about four months in total. Financing was not complete until about a month before filming, but eventually it went well. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? A group that can develop its own ideas about image, story, texture, etc., and work with them.
If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? Sergei Parajanov’s THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, Andrei Tarkovsky’s NOSTALGIA, Ingmar Bergman’s FANNY & ALEXANDER and Hito Steyerl’s How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File What is your next project? The successor to INFORMATION SKIES, a short film called HOMETOWN. We have written and shot it this year in Beirut and are currently shooting the second part in Kyiv. Simultaneously we have a new, longer film, POSSESSED, in post-production. Both will be released in early 2018.
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Uppsala Short Film Nominee
LOVE
Production: Boddah Gábor Osváth Veres Pálné utca 33. 1053 Budapest HUNGARY tel: +36 667 76 13 gabor@boddah.hu
Passion Paris Marc Bodin-Joyeux 61 rue de Chabrol 75010 Paris FRANCE tel: +33 1 42 73 63 10 marcb@passionpictures.com
World Sales: Autour De Minuit Pauline Guinot 21, rue Henry Monnier 75009 Paris France tel: +33 1 42 81 17 28 pauline@autourdeminuit.com blog.autourdeminuit.com
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Written & Directed by: Réka Bucsi Produced by: Marc Bodin-Joyeux, Gábor Osváth ORIGINAL SCORE: David Kamp Sound Design: Péter Benjámin Lukács Animation: Réka Bucsi, Cyrille Chauvin, Nicole Stafford, Thibaud Petitpas
Hungary, France, 14 min
LOVE is a short film describing affection in three chapters, through an impact on a distant solar system. Abstract haiku-like situations reveal the change in atmosphere on one planet, caused by the change of gravity and light. This pulsing planet makes the inhabitants become one with each other in various ways. Réka Bucsi How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? LOVE took fairly long to finance, as it’s a co-production between France and Hungary, and both countries have a rather long waiting period when it comes to film funds. It seems to me that these things are never easy or fast, but in the end it turned out to be great. I could have everyone working with me who I wished for, and we had a great production period. All together it took around one year to make the movie. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? For me personally it’s a very important community. It does not only inspire me, but I also established
an international group of people that I grew to love to work with, which is gold when it comes to filmmaking. It’s not easy to be independent in the film industry, and a community like this is very helpful to go to if one doesn’t always find everything they need within their own home country. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? That is a hard one. I would love to curate themed nights, so maybe first I’d do a sci-fi marathon with UNDER THE SKIN, STALKER, 2001: A SPACE ODDYSSEY, THE FLY and E.T. running all day, with some animated shorts between the feature films. What is your next project? I actually just wrapped up a new project, which is a quite unique musical collaboration. Its called SOLAR WALK, and it’s a 50-minute movie accompanied live by the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. For the beginning of next year I’m brewing some new shorter projects with some lovely animation ladies.
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Portugal, 29 min
Berlin Short Film Nominee
THE ARTIFICIAL HUMORS Os Humores Artificiais Written, Directed & Produced by: Gabriel Abrantes Director of Photography: Jorge Quintela Editor: Margarida Lucas Production Design: Dayse Barreto, Tatiane Takahashi, Diogo Hayashi ORIGINAL SCORE: Aamourocean (Ulysse Klotz) Sound Design: Carlos Abreu, Marcel Costa Main Cast: Margarida Lucas, Amanda Rodarte, Gilda Nomacce, Ivo Müller
Production: Herma Films Gabriel Abrantes Rua da Prata nº 250, 4º Esq 1100-423 Lisbon PORTUGAL tel: +351 916 69 63 46 hermafilms@gmail.com
World Sales & Press: Portugal Film - Portuguese Film Agency Filipa Henriques Casa do Cinema - Rua da Rosa nº 277, 2º - Sala 1.4 1200-385 Lisbon PORTUGAL tel: +351 226 00 61 52 portugalfilm@indielisboa.com portugalfilm.org
Gabriel Abrantes How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? It took about a year and a half from financing to premiere - from June 2015 to February 2017. The actual shoot and pre-production took one month, in Brazil. The financing was unconventional, in the sense that it was financed through three art institutions: the Bienal de São Paulo, Museu Serralves in Porto, Colección Inelcom in Madrid. It was a long process, but we are really thankful to these institutions for having supported this film. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? It is a broad territory, with many people. The small
corner of it that I have come to know is where I have found some of my best friends and collaborators, people dedicated to defending art, intellectual exploration, and political commitment, a dedication that is not as evident in other cinema communities where the market is a monolith. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? I would screen Lubitsch’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE, Sturges’ SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS, and Pixar’s RATATOUILLE - three Hollywood imposter farces about war, poverty and discrimination - all hilariously transcendent. What is your next project? I’m editing my first feature, DIAMANTINO, which I wrote and directed with Daniel Schmidt, and am preparing to shoot my first animation, about a little known sculpture that decides to run away from the Louvre, joins a political rally, and ends up getting broken by police batons.
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
The Artificial Humors is a film about humor, anthropology and artificial intelligence. It focuses on how humor is central to human relationships across, used as a form of social control, and one of the most complex forms of communication. The film was shot in Mato Grosso (Canarana and the Yawalapiti and Kamayura villages inside the Xingu Indigenous Park) and São Paulo. Blending a certain Hollywood aesthetic with documentary approaches, the film tells the story of an indigenous girl who falls in love with a robot that is a rising stand up comedian in Brazil. Gabriel Abrantes’ films address historical, political and social matters while discussing postcolonial, gender and identity issues. His works create layers of unlikely readings, altering traditional narratives and touch upon the absurd, folklore, humor and politics.
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Drama Short Film Nominee
THE CIRCLE HEVÊRK
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY: Rûken Tekeş director of photography: Deniz Eyüboğlu EDITOR: Özcan Vardar production design & costume design: Rûken Tekeş SOUND DESIGN: Umut Şenyol MAIN CAST: Delila Kaya, Emircan Kaya, Şehmuz Demirtaş, Müfit Aytekin
Turkey, 14 min Production: Rûken Tekeş Zergerdan no 6 Emirgan 34467 Istanbul TURKEY tel: +90 542 716 7503 rtekes@saryafilms.com
In Mesopotamia, there are children of different ethnicities, religions and languages. Zelal, 7 year-old petite girl, is an ethnic Kurd as well as religiously an Ezidi (Yazidi). An ordinary school day turns into a life changing event for Zelal and her introvert admirer, Zeki, after their Turkish teacher introduces the letter of the week ‘O’… Rûken Tekeş How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? Though throughout my career in human rights, I supported cinema in various ways, yet until THE CIRCLE I had no experience in filmmaking. I wrote THE CIRCLE and other personal stories as a way of healing while I was recovering from a fatal accident. And I decided to shoot THE CIRCLE if and when I would get out healthy from bed. From the time of the scriptwriting to the first print of the film it took me one year. I couldn’t get any financial support, clearly no one wanted to invest their money for a non-experienced person and a political film. So I became my own producer, with an extremely limited personal budget. Thanks to my crew and friends, I was not left alone on this journey. THE CIRCLE is a film by a number of people who strongly believed that this film should be made, regardless of all obstacles.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? I can answer that only as a geographical notion. I believe that ’European cinema community’ could have a stronger moral and social responsibility to provide more support to other communities that are not materially as prosperous as they are. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? Some amazing independent films evanesced in fighting with the ‘cinema cartels’ for economic and/ or political reasons. I would make a diverse selection from those films and devote the night to them. What is your next project? I just started the post-production of my documentary film AETHER and am also in development process of my first feature THE GUARDIAN. AETHER is about the spirit of Hasankeyf, a 12thousand-year-old ancient city which will be flooded very soon by a hydro-electric dam. THE GUARDIAN is about the Greek minority in Turkey.
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Spain, 19 min
THE DISINHERITED Los Desheredados Written & Directed by: Laura Ferrés Produced by: Valérie Delpierre Director of Photography: Agnès Piqué Corbera Sound Design: Alejandro Castillo Main Cast: Pere Ferrés, Marian Alvarez
Vila do Conde Short Film Nominee Production: Inicia Films Valérie Delpierre Paseo Sant Joan 146 entresuelo 1 08037 Barcelona SPAIN tel : +34 93 008 06 18 info@iniciafilms.com
World Sales & Press: Marvin&wayne Josep Prim Pelai 9, 2-2B 08001 Barcelona SPAIN tel: +34 93 486 33 13 fest@marvinwayne.com
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
THE DISINHERITED is a portrait of the director’s father facing the end of his family business. Pere Ferrés is 53 years old and owns a small bus company. Lack of money forces him to drive clients who destroy his vehicle to bachelor parties, but he is not prepared to lose his dignity. Laura Ferrés How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? One year and a half to finish. The main difficulty I faced was that my father only told me that he had to close his business three months before. So I only had that time to write the script, find the team, locations and everything else by myself. Unfortunately, the postproduction took longer than expected because I had to find the money to fund the project. Budget-wise, it was really difficult at first because I shot an initial part with my savings, but later the film received funds from both the Catalan and Spanish Ministry of Culture.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? THE DISINHERITED is my first professional project after university, so I feel lucky that it can be seen at film festivals around the world. Particularly, Europe has an amazing network for that and an enriching diversity of cultures. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? Following THE DISINHERITED’s spirit, films which explore the family topic with dark humor: Lucrecia Martel’s LA CIÉNAGA and WHISKY by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. What is your next project? I am writing my first feature-length film, a project about family and the advertising world, exploring who we are, who we want to be and what others expect us to be.
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Cork Short Film Nominee
Ireland, 14 min
THE PARTY
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Directed by: Andrea Harkin Written by: Conor MacNeill Produced by: Farah Abushwesha, Emmet Fleming Director of Photography: Piers McGrail Editor: Catherine Creed Production Design: Damian Draven
Costume Design: Gwen Jeffres Hair & Make up Artist: Joseph Vera ORIGINAL SCORE: Gareth Averill Sound Design: Dario Swadre Main Cast: Anthony Boyle, Niall McNamee, Eileen O’Higgins
Production: Fleming Creative Farah Abushwesha 12 Barnston Walk, Popham Street London N1 8QP UK tel: +44 777 415 93 59 farah@rocliffe.com
Belfast 1972. Laurence invites his cousin and man-on-the-run Mickey to a party of drinking, dancing and young love. By morning reality catches up with them. Andrea Harkin How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? I was working on the film in a part-time capacity from around June 2015 until the following January 2016 with about eight weeks of full-time involvement during prep, shoot and editing. We applied to the Irish Film Board’s short film funding scheme with a script and a director’s statement and producer’s notes and we were shortlisted for an interview in June 2015. We won the commission and had a few months then to prepare, re-work the script slightly, etc. We spent about two to three weeks casting and searching for actors and a further three weeks in pre-production through end of July and August. We shot the film over four days, plus one pre-shoot morning for a remote location, in September. The editing was full-time for two weeks, then part-time for three weeks - we put the edit on hold while we wrote and shot a new scene (which was shot two months after the original shoot dates, in late November) across two short evenings. Editing was finalised by the end of November and the rest of post-production was staggered/ad-hoc days. We delivered the film at the end of January 2016.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? What comes to mind first is what it is not, rather than what it is. It is not Hollywood cinema or American independent cinema - by and large, it is not operating on a purely commercial level. It is a cinema that is largely defined by language and directorial vision and social awareness - it offers diversity in terms of language and culture - but there is a shared perspective in terms of social philosophy and shared landmass and shared history and memory. And there is a community in the arthouses and the independent distributers and the pan-European funding awards and the rich history of excellent and respected film festivals. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? THE PIANO TEACHER, THE PIANO, THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED. What is your next project? I am directing a three-part television drama for BBC One in the UK called COME HOME, starring Christopher Eccleston. And I am writing a feature film called THE RAIN DAYS and developing a new feature project (untitled) with the writer and producer of THE PARTY.
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Spain, 15 min
Ghent Short Film Nominee
TIMECODE Directed by: Juanjo Giménez Written by: Pere Altimira, Juanjo Giménez Produced by: Juanjo Giménez, Arturo Méndiz, Daniel Villanueva Director of Photography: Pere Pueyo Editor: Silvia Cervantes Production Design: Daniel G. Blanco Hair & Make up Artist: Irene Retuerta ORIGINAL SCORE: Iván Céster Sound Design: Xavi Saucedo Main Cast: Lali Ayguadé, Nicolas Ricchini
Production: Nadir Films Jaunjo Giménez Montserrat de Casanovas 141 08032 Barcelona SPAIN tel: +34 626 13 47 31 juanjo@nadirfilms.com
World Sales & Press: Marvin&wayne Josep Prim Pelai 9, 2-2B 08001 Barcelona SPAIN tel: +34 93 486 33 13 fest@marvinwayne.com
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Luna and Diego are the parking lot security guards. Diego does the night shift, and Luna works by day. Juanjo Giménez How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? Shooting took two days, a weekend. Post-production went along for eight months. Financing was not very difficult, it’s a very low budget short film. It’s almost self-financed, with some public support from the ICAA, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? Diversity and inclusion, in styles, subjects, languages and cultures, opposed to uniformity and exclusion, which is trend in dominant mainstream cinema. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? If I owned a theatre for one night, I would shoot a short film there. It’s very difficult to have a location like a movie theatre for free. The film screened will be the one written in the script. What is your next project? We are developing a science-fiction feature film.
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Bristol Short Film Nominee
Germany, 12 min
UGLY
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY: Nikita Diakur DOP, EDITOR, PRODUCTION & COSTUME DESIGNER: Nikita Diakur ORIGINAL SCORE: Enrica Sciandrone, Cédric Dekowski & Felix Reifenberg SOUND DESIGN: David Kamp & Nicolas Martigne ANIMATION: Gerhard Funk, Nicolas Trotignon, Phil Maron, Bastian J. Schiffer
Production, World Sales & Press: Nikita Diakur Josefsstr. 31 55118 Mainz GERMANY tel: +49 172 684 25 41 info@nikitadiakur.com ugly-film.com
An ugly cat struggles to coexist in a fragmented and broken world, eventually finding a soulmate in a mystical chief. Inspired by the internet story ‘Ugly the Cat’. Nikita Diakur How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? It took four years to make. If you include developing the idea, then probably a bit longer. However, this is because we couldn’t work fulltime. Financing is always difficult for short films. That is why we had to work different jobs to be able to support ourselves during production. There was a bit of funding from FFA, which was based on my graduation film, but money ran out quickly, so we ran a kickstarter campaign that succeeded on the last day. Kickstarting was especially hard, mainly because not many people knew about UGLY. That changed after kickstarter and I see it as the main benefit, even more than the raised money.
Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? It is a community of diversity. It is important to have a collective of so many different perspectives. Filmmakers transport universal ideas and inspire, and that can bring people together. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? THE GRADUATE, THE TALE OF LITTLE PUPPETBOY by Johannes Nyholm, XAVIER: RENEGADE ANGEL, GROUNDHOG DAY and probably many more. What is your next project? We are working on an UGLY KIDS follow up. Longterm we’ll try to make more interactive things.
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Germany, Austria , 30 min
WANNABE Directed by: Jannis Lenz Written by: Jannis Lenz, Andi Widmer, Matthias Writze Produced by: Lukas Zweng, Roland Fischer Director of Photography: Andi Widmer Editor: Alexander Rauscher Production Design: Winnie Küchl Costume Design: Eva Zar Hair & Make up Artist: Ines Marie Polak Sound Design: Rudolf Pototschnig, Benedikt Plaier, Jonas Haslauer Main Cast: Anna Suk, Simone Fuith, Julia Plach, Mathias Dachler, Merlin Leonhardt, Markus Schleinzer
Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Nominee
Production: Filmakademie Wien Katja Jäger Metternichgasse 12 1030 Wien AUSTRIA tel: +43 1 711 55 29 02 jaeger-ka@mdw.ac.at filmakademie.wien/de
Press & Festivals: Ocean Pictures Filmproduktion Roland Fischer Wespachweg 5 87700 Memmingen GERMANY tel: +49 179 549 40 13 info@oceanpictures-film.de oceanpictures-film.de
World Sales: sixpackfilm Gerald Weber Neubaugasse 45/13
1070 Wien AUSTRIA tel: +43 1 526 09 90 0 office@sixpackfilm.com
Jannis Lenz How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? Because WANNABE was realized as a cross media project, we were still producing online videos for Cocos YouTube Channel after the short film had already premiered. From the first idea to the release of the last clip on the web, it took us about three years to finish the project. WANNABE was my bachelor degree film at the Film Academy Vienna, so we got some assistance from our university and several small fundings, but in the end, we had to compensate for the lack of money with our enthusiasm and good friends who supported us. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? I think there are more and more ways for filmmakers to connect with each other, so what comes to my mind first are all those friends I got to know through filmmaking and travelling during the last years. And
then I think of the artistic freedom that we still have here in Europe, which for me implies a certain responsibility in how we deal with this privileged situation, as an individual but also within a community. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? I would start with BAL by Semih Kaplanoglu, followed by Cassavetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE and end with THE ACT OF KILLING by Joshua Oppenheimer. What is your next project? Currently I work on two different feature film projects. The first one is a documentary, a portrait of a young guy with Turkish roots who is a professional soldier, based here in Vienna. The second one is a fictional film which tells the story of a policeman, his wife, who is a social worker, and their 14-year-old adopted child Malik. We get to know the young family right before they receive a letter from the youth welfare, which says that Malik’s biological father wants to get in touch with his son. We follow the persons concerned through their everyday lives and how they deal with this unexpected challenge - altogether and everyone for themselves, shown from different point of views in several fragments.
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Coco is 17 and feels a desperate need to become famous even though she seems to lack the necessary talent. She is willing to do anything for recognition and avoid becoming an everyday ‚loser‘. She skips school to attend castings, music videos shoots, and to film YouTube clips but faces one humiliation after another and is quickly pushed to her limits. With her „Coco Channel“, she tries to expand her notoriety on the internet and create the successful, loved, and confident character she wishes she really could be. As a crossmedia project, connecting film with the online video scene, WANNABE tells the story of a young YouTuber, who builds herself a fictitious world on the Internet.
14
Tampere Short Film Nominee
Romania, 20 min
WRITTEN/UNWRITTEN SCRIS/NESCRIS Production & Press: 4 Proof Film Anamaria Antoci 12-14 Constantin Budișteanu 010775 Bucharest ROMANIA tel: +40 740 15 56 02 anamaria@4prooffilm.ro
World Sales: interfilm Berlin Cord Dueppe Straßburger Str. 55 10405 Berlin GERMANY tel: +49 30 25 94 29 03 cord.d@interfilm.de interfilm.de
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Directed by: Adrian Silișteanu Written by: Claudia Silișteanu Produced by: Anamaria Antoci, Adrian Silișteanu Director of Photography: Adrian Silișteanu Editor: Costi Zaharia, Mircea Olteanu Production Design: Alma Alexandra Ungureanu Costume Design: Alma Alexandra Ungureanu Hair & Make up Artist: Dana Roșeanu ORIGINAL SCORE: Sergiu Popa Sound Design: Ioan Filip Main Cast: Sorin Mihai, Elena Ursaru, Alina șerban
Outside a maternity ward, a Roma family is announced their underage daughter has just had a baby girl. Pardică (50) doesn’t seem to celebrate the moment; he is very displeased with this early pregnancy, for which he blames his wife. However, things become even tenser when a hospital employee asks them to sign some papers and discovers issues related to their IDs and their status as parents of the underage new mother. The imminent danger of state authorities separating them from their daughter determines Pardică to take action. Adrian Silișteanu How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? Despite the fact that the first time we submitted this project for financing to the Romanian Film Centre it was rejected, the second time we received about EUR 30,000 production support, which allowed us to make the film under pretty good conditions. We had five days of shooting and enough time to edit and finish all the post-production. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”?
Hope, before anything. The hope that we will be able to keep the specificity of European cinema, to still offer a certain freedom to arthouse filmmakers and, at the same time, the hope that we will be able to also keep an audience for their movies. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? THE TURION HORSE by Béla Tarr and BARRY LYNDON by Stanley Kubrick. They are enough for one night. What is your next project? Just a few weeks ago I found a very surprising location, in Eastern Romania, which really pushes me to make another short film because this place talks a lot about the way we pretend that we care about the vulnerable minority groups.
15
France , 15 min
YOU WILL BE FINE GROS CHAGRIN WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Céline Devaux PRODUCED BY: Ron Dyens DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Paul Guilhaume EDITOR: Raphaëlle Martin-Holger COSTUME DESIGN : Anna Koblyarz
HAIR & MAKE-UP ARTIST: Célia Best ORIGINAL SCORE: Flavien Berger SOUND DESIGN: Flavien Berger MAIN CAST: Victoire Du Bois, Swann Arlaud ANIMATION: Rosalie Loncin, Céline Devaux
Venice Short Film Nominee Production: Sacrebleu Productions Ron Dyens 10 bis rue Bisson 75020 Paris FRANCE tel: +33 1 42 25 30 27 distribution@sacrebleuprod.com
Céline Devaux How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? I completed most of the script for YOU WILL BE FINE in Berlin, at the Nipkow Programme, during the 2015/2016 winter and we started to ask for funding at that time. We were very lucky with the funding so it went fast. I shot for a week, and made the drawings in 5/6 months. Then we waited for the premiere in Venice in September. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? The idea that cinema is also a matter of financial public interest, the preservation of a lively arthouse scene that eventually makes supposedly „small” projects turn into world-wide successes. And, of course, the very dynamic network of co-productions
that creates not only European movies but also European generations. Public fundings should not bring us to become cultural monomaniacs and make strange national objects only understandable by our fellow countrymen. If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? Louis C.K.’s skits, Maren Ade’s TONI ERDMANN and EVERYONE ELSE, Don Hertzfeldt’s WORLD OF TOMORROW, Charlie Kaufmann’s SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, Camille Henrot’s GROSSE FATIGUE, a few episodes of Ricky Gervais’ THE OFFICE, Sydney Lumet’s DOG DAY AFTERNOON, Lars Von Trier’s THE BOSS OF IT ALL, Pilvi Takala’s REAL SNOW WHITE, Billy Wilder’s SOME LIKE IT HOT, Wes Anderson’s THE LIFE AQUATIC, Miguel Gomes’ TABU, Armando Ianucci’s IN THE LOOP. OK this is taking too long. What is your next project? A feature film mixing live action and animation like YOU WILL BE FINE.
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Give it time. You’ll get over it. Jean celebrates his birthday, gets drunk and recalls the dreadful weekend that led to his break-up with Mathilde.
16
Locarno Short Film Nominee
France 2017, 18 min
YOUNG MEN AT THEIR WINDOW Jeunes Hommes à la fenêtre Production: Ecce Films Emmanuel Chaumet 47, rue Polonceau 75018 Paris FRANCE tel : +33 1 42 58 37 14 chaumet@eccefilms.fr
World Sales & Press: Ecce Films Louise Rinaldi 47, rue Polonceau 75018 Paris FRANCE tel : +33 1 42 58 37 14 rinaldi@eccefilms.fr
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
Directed by: Loukianos Moshonas Written by: Loukianos Moshonas Produced by: Emmanuel Chaumet Director of Photography: Mauro Herce Editor: Loukianos Moshonas Production Design: Bertrand Scalabre Costume Design: Loukianos Moshonas Sound Design: Simon Apostolou Main Cast: Quentin Maussang, Charles Dugoujon
Two graphic designers at work, by mistake, start playing with an empty scanner’s possibilities. They venture into assumptions, eventually open up to each other, and let go of the strange images, until they let go of themselves. Loukianos Moshonas How long did it take to make your short? Was it difficult to get financing? The film was written in two months, after working closely with the non-actors, with long recorded conversations. The financing went fast, and it was shot in one week in the north of France. But the editing process was long, with long breaks between the sessions: the film’s rhythm, both swinging and introverted like a ping-pong game, proved to be fragile, and challenging. I learned a lot. Which thoughts come to mind concerning a “European cinema community”? A paradox, especially today. I’m also skeptical of a standardization of what we call European cinema.
If you owned a theatre for one night, which films would you screen? Mistreated, or forgotten films that aren’t screened often, and which I regard as meteorites. We’d start in America with Kent MacKenzie’s THE EXILES, then Belgium with Paul Meyer’s DEJA S’ENVOLE LA FLEUR MAIGRE (both migration stories around 1960 – a curious year). We’d take off and travel space and time with Stavros Tornes’ BALAMOS, and then we’d wash our eyes with the terrifying innocence of Stan Brakhage’s A CHILD’S GARDEN AND THE SERIOUS SEA. Finally, we’d finish ashore in the wee hours wasted or sleeping with Andy Warhol’s erratic misfits, inside THE NUDE RESTAURANT. What is your next project? I’m writing a feature film (based on my previous short, MANODOPERA), with the working title NO GOD NO MASTER. It’s a twisted, class-related melodrama of endless demolition and renovation work, between reality and fantasy, in an Athens basement flat.
Short Film Nominees on Tour
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SHORT MATTERS!
The EFA Short Film Programme The short film programme is organised in co-operation with a series of film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the short films in competition with a nomination in the European Film Awards’ short film category. In 2018, the programme includes the following festivals:
To be considered for a nomination, a short film has to screen in competition at one of these festivals. Eligible are directors born in Europe or with a European passport* whose films do not exceed a running time of 30 min. and match the genre regulations of the respective festival. When the annual cycle is complete in September, the members of the European Film Academy − more than 3,000 European film professionals − get to watch all nominated short films and it is they who elect the overall winner: the European Short Film, which will be presented at the 31st European Film Awards Ceremony on 15 December 2018 in Seville. * European, in the sense of the European Film Academy, means geographical Europe, both EU and non-EU, and shall include Israeli and Palestinian.
SHORT MATTERS! is the European Film Academy’s short film tour which brings the nominated short films to audiences across Europe – and beyond: www.europeanfilmacademy.org
EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2017
★ 21 - 28 Oct. 2017: Valladolid International Film Festival (Spain) ★ 23 - 29 Oct. 2017: Uppsala International Short Film Festival (Sweden) ★ 10 - 19 Nov. 2017: Cork Film Festival (Ireland) ★ 2 - 9 Dec. 2017: Leuven International Short Film Festival (Belgium) ★ 24 Jan. - 4 Feb. 2018: International Film Festival Rotterdam (the Netherlands) ★ 2 - 10 Feb. 2018: Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France) ★ 15 - 25 Feb. 2018: Berlin International Film Festival (Germany) ★ 7 - 11 Mar. 2018: Tampere Film Festival (Finland) ★ 27 May - 3 Jun. 2018: Krakow Film Festival (Poland) ★ 15 - 22 Jul. 2018: Curtas Vila do Conde - International Film Festival (Portugal) ★ 2 - 11 Aug. 2018: Locarno Festival (Switzerland) ★ 10 - 17 Aug. 2018: Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia & Herzegovina) ★ 29 Aug. - 8 Sep. 2018: Venice Film Festival (Italy) ★ 17 - 22 Sep. 2018: International Short Film Festival in Drama (Greece) ★ 25 - 30 Sep. 2018: Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival Bristol (UK)
adrian& andrea& céline& christos& gabriel& jannis& juanjo& laura& loukianos& matteo& n& metahave nikita& réka& rûken& simon.
2017 ILM AWARDS EUROPEAN F