19/12/2023 - François Robic wins the ArteKino International award while the Talent Village award goes to Cute by Marlene Emilie Lyngstad

The team behind the project Kingdom of the Blind (Le Royaume des aveugles) (producer Clémence Crépin Neel in the middle, director François Robic on the right), winner of the ArteKino International award (© Les Arcs Film Festival)

As part of the Industry Village of the 15th Les Arcs Film Festival, the Co-Production Village and the Talent Village delivered their awards. The ArteKino International award, given to one of the 18 projects in development selected in the Co-Production Village, went to Kingdom of the Blind (Le Royaume des aveugles), the debut feature film project from French director François Robic. The script, set in the Pyrénées, follows Magda who has been living in hiding with her uncle and his mother in a remote farmhouse for years. Her parents committed suicide when she was a child, following a series of disappearances they had been accused of in the village on the other side of the pass. The time soon comes for Magda to return to the village…

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Handed out by a jury composed of Giacomo Abbruzzese, Roxana Richters and Susan Wendt, the Talent Village award went to Cute by Norwegian director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad. The film follows a mass-produced stuffed animal with the mechanism to say "tell me a story", from creation to destruction. We witness its journey from a Chinese factory to Denmark, where it ends up with a young woman living in a BDSM relationship with her “daddy” and owner...

A Talent Village Special Mention went to the project Docile by French director Joséphine Darcy Hopkins. Co-written by the filmmaker together with Jean-Jacques Kahn, the script tells the story of Madeleine and Eugénie, two sisters aged 8 and 12, who are thrust into the care of grandparents they do not know following the passing of their mother. As they explore their new home, the sisters start to believe they have at last found a true family. However, this semblance of familial bliss is shattered when Madeleine encounters a hairless rat of an unknown species.

Finally, the Producers Network of Cannes’ Marché du Film handed out two badges for its next edition on the Croisette to two producers selected in the Co-Production Village: Iceland’s Heather Millard (Compass Films - who presented the project Shitballs by Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir) and the Netherlands’ Gijs Kerbosch (Halal - present with the project Angels by Emma Westenberg).

The awards:

Co-Production Village

ArteKino International award
Kingdom of the Blind (Le Royaume des aveugles) - François Robic (France)
Production: Moderato

Talent Village

Talent Village award
Cute - Marlene Emilie Lyngstad (Norway)
Production: Nordisk Film Production

Special Mention
Docile - Joséphine Darcy Hopkins (France)
Production: TBC Productions, Kazak Productions

(Translated from French)