ABWESEND / ABSENT running time: 14 min
script & directing Eliza Petkova
Color, 2014, drama, naturalistic mise-en-scène
Dop Constanze Schmitt
producers Tim Oliver Schultz Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
Postproduction, Soundmix & Grading: April/May 2014
One night and one day in the life of Clara (30) who is having a hard-time conciliating her every-day-life with motherhood.
SYNOPSIS Winter in a big city. Clara, a 30 years old woman, comes home with a random guy that she just met. Both are drunk – they are giggling, having fun and eventually end up at her place. But there is someone else in the apartment: Anton (9) catch them having sex. On the next morning, Anton is gone. Clara has to spend the day overwhelmeld by her guilt and fear of loss.
CineVision Workshop
This short film is the excerpt of a young single mother’s life and her longing for a “normal life” of her own. An everyday situation: her son is gone, she is afraid that something could have happened. As she continues her daily routine, one can guess that it’s not the first time he’s gone missing. Is she a bad mother? What did she do wrong? Why does she/should she feel guilty?
8-13 April 2014 Brive France
Credits Workshop Coordinators Michaela Pnacekova Mirona Nicola Design Francesca Merlo Workshop organized by NISI MASA- European Network of Young Cinema 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis 75010 Paris France europe@nisimasa.com +33 (0) 1 48 01 65 31 www.nisimasa.com
CineVision Workshop 8-13 April 2014 Brive France
ABWESEND/ ABSENT script & directing Eliza Petkova
Dop Constanze Schmitt
producers Tim Oliver Schultz, Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
length 14 minutes
color, 2014, drama, naturalistic mise-en-scène
postproduction, soundmix & grading April/May 2014
One night and one day in the life of Clara (30) who is having a hard-time conciliating her every-day-life with motherhood.
SYNOPSIS Winter in a big city. Clara, a 30 years old woman, comes home with a random guy that she just met. Both are drunk – they are giggling, having fun and eventually end up at her place. But there is someone else in the apartment: Anton (9) catch them having sex. On the next morning, Anton is gone. Clara has to spend the day overwhelmeld by her guilt and fear of loss.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
This short film is the except of a young single mother’s life and her longing for a “normal life” of her own. An everyday situation: her son is gone, she is afraid that something could have happened. As she continues her daily routine, one can guess that it’s not the first time he’s gone missing. Is she a bad mother? What did she do wrong? Why does she/should she feel guilty?
BLOWJOB IN THE RAIN producer Michal Kracmer
length 20-25 minutes
budget 3000 EUR
genre a night odyssey in style of road movie
tagline A friend in need is a friend indeed. A young Icelandic guy dreams of losing his virginity by receiving the best blowjob on the world – in a special brothel in Prague. Expect reality.
SYNOPSIS Blowjob in the rain is a short movie about 25 minutes long. A night odyssey in style of a road movie. A very handsome Icelandic guy Hjalmtyr travels for a weekend adventure to Prague with his friends. On the basis of more than excited recommendation of his friend he is determined Prague is the right place for gaining the first sexual experience and he holds direct way to the Holy Grail – a small paper with an address of a brothel, where he is supposed to experience the best fellatio in the whole world. On his odyssey he encounters German siblings – Ema and Mathias. They join him, as Mathias would like to discover renowned Prague brothels and Ema renowned hefty Norsemen. When they finally arrive to the brothel, he finds out, there are 8 professional women waiting for him. Hjalmtyr gets frightened by such dominance and rather escapes, followed by the siblings, with an awkward excuse on his lips. His obsession of the best fellatio in the whole world leads him to even more desperate situation and he starts looking for any professional woman. Finally Hjalmtyr begins to realize his defeat and starts feeling sorry for himself. At this very moment drunk Ema takes the initiative.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
DOLÇA
produced by Florie Carbonne
length 30 minutes
genre drama
Dolça tries to keep the balance during her passage from childwood to adultwood, but it’s not that easy…
SYNOPSIS In a little town in the south of France, Dolça, an eighteen-year-old girl, becomes Sams babysitter, a ten-year-old boy for whom she was a monitor in the summer camp she has worked at during the summer. With time, complicity grows between them, but their relationship changes when Dolça has an affair with Victor, Sam’s father, recently divorced. Dolça tries to keep the balance between her relationship with the father and the son, but it’s not that easy… Dolça is first of all a child’s story, from her eighteen years old, Dolça stay a child who has difficulty to grow up. She revolve with ease among children; with them everything is easier, except the confession that she is attracted by aldults. How to keep the balance between her complicity with the son and her desire for the father ?
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
The film, focusing on the Dolça’s evolution, show us this hesitation between those two universe: Dolça isn’t totally the equal of Sam neither totally the equal of Victor. Dolça is also a film about the power of the look: Victor is not a pleasant character - Dolça does not fall in love with it - but he is vector of desire; which confers on Dolça a femininity with which she didn’t know. From her first meeting with Victor, Dolça is slowly going to assert herself as young woman: she begins to make up, gets dressed differently… Anything of a big changement, but these details will show an evolution which will be noticed by the father, the son, and the spectator….
The movie take us in the universe of Dolça: a mess of feelings, desires and uncertainties. It’s very far from the hysteria which we often attribute to this period of transition, it is soft - and sometimes painful - mixes which seems to me to be the essence of the adolescence.
IN THE SIDECAR director Mircea Bobina
country of production Republic of Moldova
producer Film and TV University „Konrad Wolf“ Potsdam-Babelsberg length 30 minutes
genre drama
website www.indiegogo.com/projects/in-the-sidecar
co-producers UNATC „I.L. Carragiale“ Bucharest & Ana Antir, Chisinau budget 13.000,00 Euro (total of 130.000,00 Euro if film school equipment & post production facilities are included in calculation) sidecar’s pitch page was featured in the daazo WOSH Berlinale edition http://issuu.com/daazo/docs/berlin2014/51
1989, Chisinau. The Afghanistan veteran Vova escapes from a psychiatric hospital with the help of his comrade Andrej, who ruthlessly obtains the necessary keys.
SYNOPSIS 1989, Chisinau. Suffering from post-traumatic hallucinations, the Afghanistan war veteran Vova is kept in a psychiatric hospital. He calls his former comrade Andrej, who agrees to help him escape. During a visit to the apartment of Leonid, an old friend, Andrej ruthlessly obtains the necessary keys from his wife Marica, who works as a nurse at the hospital. When Vova wakes up from the sleep he was put to after one of his violent attacks, Andrej appears in his room. He sits in the sidecar as Vova stops at a shop to buy a teddy bear for his daughter and then rides home to finally see his family. In the hallway, Vova’s wife Rodica greets her husband with hesitation. When Vova suddenly hears his daughter’s fearful screams, he must face a man who just tried to strangle her mother.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
LEGALIZE LOVE script & directing Miro Mastropasqua
produced by Miro Images
supported by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
In the nowadays Iran, a gay guy forced by his own family to change sex manages to escape, change his life and discover the freedom of love.
SYNOPSIS
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
George, a surgeon specialized in sex reassignment, has a successful career and a peaceful life when he’s suddenly called to accomplish to an operation in Iran. The young Ali, son of an important Iranian politician should undertake the operation to become a woman. But George discovers soon this is not Ali’s will, very well Ali’s family compulsion. As George refuses to accomplish the job he gets threatened, so he decides to flee together with Ali, to save furthermore his life. With every ounce of their strength they escape and in the same time falling in love with each other. Though the escape doesn’t last very long as Ali’s father himself saves them organising at the end an Expat for both.
LES FILLES AU MOYEN-ÂGE (Girls in middle age) of Hubert VIEL
producer Valéry du Peloux
budget 150k€ (in coproduction with Cheval23)
genre comedy
SYNOPSIS The story of women’s emancipation in the middle age, from VIth to XIIIth century, played by children....
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
MANJAÇA cast Matija Ferlin, Venceslav Kapural, Roberta Milevoj, Tin Žanic, Filip Romac, Luka Popovic writer and director Tin Žanic production designer Jana Plecaš
producer Tena Gojic
director of photography Jana Plecaš
length 20 minutes
editor Jan Klemsche
sound designer Martin Semencic
genre drama
Manjaça is a film about a young man who faces responsibility and his past for the first time. His search for inner peace takes him to the woods.
SYNOPSIS Manjaça is a film about a young man who faces responsibility for the first time. He tries to change his old habits. Doing so, he moves to his grandfather’s. They don’t have any kind of a relationship. It seems he only sleeps and eats there. He is new to the whole environment. He gets to know it during runs he takes every day. He never lived so close to the woods before... In spite of his effort, his past catches up to him. The harder he tries to push it away, the stronger it comes back. The stronger it comes the further he runs away from it. It takes him to the woods. That night he doesn’t sleep at home.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
The next morning seems sunnier than the others; he sees his grandfather smile for the first time. He finaly feels at home. At least for a moment it seems that he accepted his past and lives in the present. They both seem at peace for the first time, perhaps because the young man is responsible for that.
PICNIC director & scriptwriter Jure Pavlovic
co-writer Džejna Avdic
producer Luka Venturin
sound designer Vladimir Božic
production Sekvenca
coproduction BiH FIST Produkcija, Sarajevo
countries of shooting BiH, Croatia
cast Aleksandar Seksan, Senad Alihodžic, Almir Kurt
DOP Almmir Fakic
budget 65.000 €
A story about a 15-year old son’s visit to his imprisoned father. At the beginning the son is very reserved towards his father, but slowly their conversation improves.
SYNOPSIS It’s a beautiful, sunny spring day. The Sarajevo streets are crammed. ISMIR (15), a modern looking teenager is driving in the back seat of a car. At the front sit sits the SOCIAL SERVICES WARDEN (36) is talking on a mobile phone while driving. We arrive at “Igman” minimum security prison, located on the outskirts of Sarajevo. The WARDEN and ISMIR are standing at the side, they look like peers from afar. Opposite to them is SAFET (52), Ismir’s father; and a PRISON GUARD (48), a fat, unkempt man.
Ismir starts running again and falls to Safets feet, hugging him. Safet looks like he wants to return the hug, but is unable because of the cuffs. The expression on the warden’s face softens. He looks at the Guard, who also looks softer. The Guard silently un-cuffs Safet. The father hugs his son gently. The Warden puts his hand on Ismir’s back and tells him the time is up and they have to go.
Safet takes Ismir by the hand and walks away past a group of inmates playing football. They arrive at a clean green field. Safet takes his military looking jacket off and lays it on the grass for a “picnic”. Safet challenges his son for boxing match. As Safet is limping on one leg Ismir is much faster and accidently hits his father in the nose, which starts to bleed. Ismir stays frozen. Safet starts laughing and hastily grabs him by the hand and pulls him to closer to himself. Safet suddenly remembers that their visit is nearly over; he sadly looks down towards Ismir, who’s still in his arms. He challenges Ismir on racing game, as they used to play in the old times. They start running towards the forest. The Warden and Guard notice them a little too late, and they start chasing them. A gunshot is suddenly heard. Ismir nervously freezes, looks back and sees that Safet isn’t behind him. He starts running back nervously. He comes out of the forest and sees the Guard handcuffing Safet. CINEVISION WORKSHOP
SILENT ROOMS
producer Katarina Complova
length 20 minutes
genre drama
Film depicts the close bond between Eva and Nadia whose relationship, somewhere in between friendship and romance, is thrown into crisis when Nadia finds a new boyfriend.
SYNOPSIS Silent Rooms is a 20 min. realistic drama set in present time Britain. It tells the story of two young women, Eva (21) and Nadia (22), originally from Slovakia and Poland respectively, who move to the UK on the promise of a better life. Their jobs are boring and repetitive, however they both aspire to be artists. Nadia, a fine artist, is very sociable and deals with difficult situation better. Eva, on the other hand, is introvert and fantasises about her future as a writer.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
The girls’ relationship, somewhere in between friends and lovers, goes through a crisis when Nadia finds a new boyfriend, Simon. Simon plans their future, but is way ahead of what Nadia imagines. Her close relationship with Eva causes arguments between the couple and leaves Nadia torn in between. Eva realises she has to let go of Nadia, but Nadia herself is not ready for this change. The film ends on an ambigous note; Nadia and Simon’s relationship is left unresolved and although girls stay together, it’s not obvious for how long. It is up to the viewers to pass the judgement on the characters and the story’s end, thus making them more involved. The gilrs’ relationship is portrayed in a subtle way, through everyday problems and special close moments. Everyday object such as Eva’s bed (girls’ hiding place), the mug or the sweets become important symbols of their close bond.
SILVIA RERUM director Tereza Kovárová
producer Petra Ptácková
length 90 minutes
genre social comedy
What if you decide to create your new family out of friends and don’t even start looking for real partnership or… love?
SYNOPSIS Silva rerum is a polish name for home chronicles reminding habitants of both important changes in their household and interesting tiny information including housewife’s favorite recipes or need-torepair lists. A group of young people continues living together in comrade flats in one cheap suburbia prefab in the middle of hop fields although they already finished their studies, started new jobs and should be supposed to start their own solo lives. Their need to belong somewhere and not to fight the life alone is stronger. But here comes the new stranger – French girl who doesn’t belong anywhere. At the same time friends get a new that their flats will be sold in a year. The group stands in front of the decision: will they gain enough money to buy the rented flats? Will they get stuck in one place forever or will the stranger help them to do the first step for fulfilling their plans all alone?
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
SISTERS visual story will be shot with digital technology, visual will be light, colourful, sunny
length 50 minutes
genre fairy tale
theme the difference between good and evil could be very slight and difficult to distinguish
location Bohemian Paradise (Czech Republic) and near surroundings, maximum exteriors
Inseparable bond of two enigmatic orphan sisters is endangered when both fall in love with the charming but untrustworthy Prince.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
SYNOPSIS Two sisters, Adele and Emilia, live in their little cottage in the the woods. Adele is the sweetest girl you can possibly imagine, very easygoing and generally happy. Emilia on contrary is very complicated girl who is always complaining about everything, doesn’t seem to like anyone or wanting to be liked. The difference of the sisters is not an obstacle to the fact that the girls are very fond of each other, like there is a secret keeping them together. The girls meet prince Philipp one day and they both fall in love with him. They are all meeting, sometimes separately, sometimes together and the first problems starts to appear. Each of the girls have a different strategy and prince seems to like both. Adele tells Philipp their secret which is that they are princesses, but Emilia disagrees to tell him, because she was always planning to charm the prince and take back over their kingdom, which their have lost after the betrayal of prince Philipps father, who was their fathers conferee. Philipp takes Adele to the castle to marry her and they leave Emilia in the woods, where she meets “Philipp” who is a twin brother of the prince, Henry. When he found out the truth about his fathers betrayal, he told nothing to his brother and left the kingdom, but then he met Emilia and changed his mind. Henry and Emilia follow Philipp and Adele to the castle and they all live happily ever after.
THE MUTANT script & directing Vera Marques
length around 10 minutes
Manel, a dreamy fisherman, and his son, an assiduous Goethe’s reader, find out a filming camera inside a fish. They start to argue with Joaquim, his boss, about the value of that object. This discussion, Manel in an imaginary way and Joaquim in a materialistic way, can be naively compared to a discussion about the importance of cinema, art and way of seeing life.
SYNOPSIS The idea for the creation of this story starts from the topic I wanted to talk which was how opportunities in life can be conditioned by our social status, living context and external factors. The Mutant tells the story about two characters, a father which works as a fisherman and his son. They live in a very small and fishing village, where people’s life is easily conducted by their necessity of surviving. I mean, parents who are fisherman teach their sons to be fishermen and also, the sons themselves easily think of their destiny as fisherman. This happens not only by a tradition but because of the social status they are labeled to. So, this character, Manel (the father and fisherman) on another day of fishing finds a camera inside a fish. And it works! This happening is for him something quite magical and he, a very dreamy and almost childish guy, sees it as some kind of weapon he is meant to use. What for, he doesn’t know yet. When returning to the market, his boss gets really annoyed with the situation because he ruined the fish and declares that the camera is his property, so as the fish. At this moment there’s a discussion about the importance of the camera. Manel sees it as a magical tool he needs to find how and why to use, and his boss, who only sees it as mechanical object, which can be reversed into money. The three main characters are: Manel – The father. He is 50 years old and fishes for living since very young, because the necessity to have a job told him so, their parents told him so, his village told him so, his social position told him so, although his creativity, his dreamy and poet way of seeing, his hope, always told him something different. His relation with his son is very liberal and
he always protects his childish and creative side. Son–He is 10 years old and is not a typical child for his age. He’s very intelligent and clever, reads a lot and acts also as a protector to his father. Although he is a child, he feels the need to act more rationally than a child of his age because of the education his father gives to him. Joaquim–The boss at the market. He is a very objective guy, which thinks on having things controlled, have his money and live in a basic way, with not many problems, not having to worry about anything. He is the antagonist of the story. The climax of the story is the scene where they have the arguing at the market that ends up with the Son stealing the camera from both and running away. He does this to protect his father on trying to recover the camera for him, that is now so important for him. The story ends with the father and the son going away from the village. This moment means they abandoned the place they belong, because of what the “village” conditions them. The film is all filmed with no tripod in order to, in a way, have a bit of a documentary side, which makes us conscientious of the camera use, in another way, to feel more present to the characters. I would say the film itself has a very naïve approach and language, which hides, inside itself, questions who are not so naïve. What’s the importance of cinema? Should it be an entertainment product or should be a window of a mind and a beginning of a some fight? What is its function? And the same we can ask about the life. CINEVISION WORKSHOP
THE UNICORN/ Inorog
script & directing Mara Rotarus
length 20 minutes
genre fiction – fantasy/ drama
topic freedom
The story follows Luna, a prostitute who discovers her freedom through the relationship with a shadow who sends her beautiful dreams.
SYNOPSIS Luna, the main character is a prostitute who lives in a brothel among other girls. The place, however is under the watch of a shadow, who punishes them by sending bad dreams to all the girls, apart from Luna. In her dreams, Luna discovers freedom and starts thinking of changing her life, developing a relationship with the shaddow. The conflictual situation raises when she has to choose between reality, running away with Sebastian, a client who falls in love with her and dreams, choosing to live in her immagination with the shadow. The film depicts an alternative, colourful and idealised world of women, struggling with their condition limited by the circumstances.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
How to describe your story? The film develops the conflicts between the three main characters: Luna, a prostitute who is a misfit in her world and dreams of running away, Sebastian, a client who falls in love with Luna, with an uncertain background travelling from Africa, that everyone is talking about; and the shadow, who watches upon the brothel and punishes the girls by sending them bad dreams. Through these characters it is depicted an idealised, romantic world of fantasy also in reality and in the dreams. The conflict is presented as an external one, but actually it represents Luna’s inner struggle of taking the decision of choosing between dreams and reality and gathering the currage to follow her path. In the end, the shadow gives up on Luna, realising that he cannot offer her anything and advices her to leave with Sebastian. Meanwhile, Sebastian is being caught and beaten up by the pimp and his men when finding out about
his plan to escape with the girl. Eventually, Luna escapes on her own to make her destiny herself, leaving everything behind.
THE VIOLINIST director Matija Radeljak
cinematography Iva Korencic
song “Violinist” Matej Emer, Filip Gašparovic
project short experimential fiction film
release summer 2014
supported by Croatianaudiovisual cent
duration: ~10’ format HD budget 10.000 €
Violinist is summary of all our fears and prejudices.
SYNOPSIS Violinist is a story of our hometown Zagreb, a frozen picture of a city with its people, streets,everyday rituals and unordinary love affairs. Showing us what Zagreb once was, what it is now and what it could look like in the near or distant future. Short fiction film Violinist started from a close collaboration of musicians Matey Emer and Filip Gašparovic with director and screenwriter Matija Radeljak. The title song by M.Emer and F.Gašparovic represents the life of an extraordinary musician and his affection to the music he is creating with his beloved instrument and it inspired M.Radeljak to write and direct a sort of homage to his hometown, Zagreb. Main character of our story is the Violinist,eccentric and proud citizen of Zagreb that will take us on a rollercoaster tour of Zagreb and along the way will show us what art as a lifestyle really is and in the end will teach us a thing or two about real admiration and love for our home town.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
WATERMELONS
film by Melina Koljevic and Stefan Statnic
length 30 minutes
genre drama
The trip of a young illegal immigrant from Afghanistan abruptly ends after the smugglers kick him out of the truck, leaving him in the middle of a country that he never knew existed, in the middle of a war he has never heard about, among the people who cannot imagine a worse enemy than a Muslim.
SYNOPSIS
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
Two men, Morad (25), refugee from Afghanistan, and Bratislav (60), Bosnian Serb and watermelon seller, meet each other by accident in the mid-1990s in the territory of war-captured Bosnia. Despite the language barriers and different cultural and ethnic background and despite the age difference, they essentially understand each other. In a short period of time, Morad and Bratislav find themselves in the situation to save each other’s lives. Bratislav wants to help Morad find the way to Vienna, and Morad will try to save Bratislav’s life after he steps on a landmine. Their relationship instantly establishes the world in which it becomes clear that it takes only some emphatic concern for another person to make people each other’s friends and peace a natural state of affairs. In parallel with the harmonious relationship between Morad and Bratislav, which develops on the basis of mutual understanding and natural empathy, we are introduced to an entirely opposite, parallel world in which nourishing the animosity and resistance to the unknown, unfamiliar and different provokes tragic consequences. It is the micro-world composed of three Serbian soldiers, Danilo, Rambo and Pavle, who are watching over the checkpoint in the vicinity of a Serbian village. Although they speak the same language and share common ethnic background, the three of them generate discord not only within their group but also towards anybody who may intrude from outside. They focus their fear and prejudice on Morad, a foreigner whose foreignness marks him a priori as an enemy, and who
cannot even for a second, before he is judged and persecuted, be considered and perceived just as another human being. When Morad shows up at the check-point in Bratislav’s van, trying to communicate that Bratislav is wounded by a landmine, nobody gives him a chance to speak and Pavle, who in fact is Bratislav’s grandson, shoots Morad out of fear, causing his gandson’s death at the same time. The gross misunderstanding ignited by the fear and prejudice causes Pavle, Bratislav’s grandson, to commit an act of hubris, and Morad and Bratislav himself become innocent victims of that hubris. Realizing what he has done, Pavle, through an ironical and tragic twist of his own situation becomes in a certain way another victim in this story.
WE ARE GOMES PIPA director Vasco Esteves
length 29 minutes
genre comedy/drama
theme identity/surreal
When Gomes Pipa dissolves into five different Gomes Pipas, life in his tiny apartment becomes chaotic and full of idiosyncrasies.
SYNOPSIS We Are Gomes Pipa is a 30 minutes comedy that blends a surreal environment with a quotidian drama about the search for individual identity and how it weighs on mankind. Gomes Pipa, 23 years old, has dissolved into five different Gomes Pipas. Dissolution is: a democratic process by which the various people that constitute one person conquer Independence and assume Mind and Body in the External World. Life in Gomes Pipa’s tiny apartment becomes chaotic: one bed and one bathroom are not enough for them all and each must deal with quite unexpected physical and psychological idiosyncrasies. As the 2 guys and 3 gals try to affirm their new unique identity, the clash of ideas and space are too much to bear and they start wondering whether they should or shouldn’t re-unite as only one Gomes Pipa. In the end, they manage to reach the so desired emancipation. Unfortunately, they will always be Gomes Pipa and inevitably the past will come to haunt them in an unexpected twist. We Are Gomes Pipa is a film with a special focus on the transition from adolescence to manhood. This violent rite of passage is something both youngster and adults can relate to because we all have to go through it. Nevertheless, what really makes the difference is the surreal aspect of the story because that’s where the comedy lies opposed to the drama of the simple and realist physiology of the characters and life itself.
CINEVISION WORKSHOP
CINEVISION WORKSHOP