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IFFR 2017 Industry / France

Arizona takes Jumpman to the CineMart

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- The Paris-based outfit is pinning its hopes on the third feature by Ivan I Tverdovsky, and has over ten movies being filmed in the first half of the year or in post-production

Arizona takes Jumpman to the CineMart
Director Ivan I Tverdovsky

Paris-based outfit Arizona – which has just unveiled Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross’ My Happy Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon G…
film profile
]
in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, a German-Georgian co-production that will also be screened in the Forum section of the 67th Berlin Film Festival (9-19 February 2017) – is currently extremely active on the international scene. The company managed by Guillaume de Seille and Rémi Roy is now about to spring into action at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it will present Ivan I Tverdovsky’s Jumpman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan I Tverdovsky
film profile
]
at the CineMart (29 January-1 February 2017). The project will be the third feature by the director, following the head-turner Corrections Class [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan I Tverdovsky
film profile
]
(distributed in France by Arizona) and the multi-award-winning Zoology [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan I Tverdovsky
film profile
]
(co-produced by the French firm, which will also distribute it in French theatres from 15 March). The new opus by the Russian filmmaker will begin principal photography some time during the first half of the year and will revolve around a young man impervious to pain who finds himself at the centre of a scam organised by high-ranking public officials. Interestingly, the project has also been accepted to take part in Berlin’s Rotterdam-Berlinale Express co-production platform.

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Arizona is also preparing to start co-producing and shooting three other European films in the first half of 2017: Ága [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milko Lazarov
film profile
]
, which Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov (who made a splash in the 2013 Venice Days with Alienation [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milko Lazarov
film profile
]
) is preparing in the Sakha Republic and will be a loose reimagining of the classic Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty (1922), Free Subject by Greece’s Stella Theodoraki and The Best We Can by Chile’s Alejandro Fernandez Almendras (Huacho [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
; To Kill a Man [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
; Much Ado About Nothing [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), which will be filmed entirely in the Czech language and whose plot revolves around a young theatre manager torn between his wife and his mistress during the last week of rehearsals for an impossible Georges Perec adaptation.

Among the titles in post-production we find six Arizona films. Standing out among them is Khibula by George Ovashvili (The Other Bank [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Corn Island [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: George Ovashvili
film profile
]
), co-produced with Georgia (Alamdary Film) and Germany (42film), sold overseas by Pluto, and which portrays the misfortunes of a president on the run in a mountainous region with a number of other men, as they are pursued by so-called "enemies".

Another movie in post-production is the political allegory Sideways by Turkey’s Tayfun Pirselimoglu (in competition at Locarno in 2010 with Hair, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at Rome in 2013 with I Am Not Him [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), which has DoP Andreas Sinanos on board (popular for his work on the most recent films by Theo Angelopoulos) and was co-produced by Arizona together with Mitra (Turkey) and Bad Crowd (Greece).

We also have In Perfect Health [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, the third fiction feature by Romania’s Anca Damian, following Crossing Dates and A Very Unsettled Summer [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(for the record, the filmmaker also helmed the animated documentaries Crulic – The Path to Beyond [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anca Damian
film profile
]
and The Magic Mountain [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
). The film, which dissects the mourning period of a reconstituted family following the mysterious death of the husband and father, an influential judge, is being co-produced by Arizona with Aparte (Romania).

Another film in post-production is Pomegranate Orchard [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Azerbaijani director Ilgar Najaf, focusing on the mysterious return of a father to the family farm (a co-production with Buta and Azerbaijanfilm Studio), the Slovakian feature debut Out by Gyorgy Kristof (a project selected for the Cinéfondation Atelier at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival), and Silent Mist by China’s Miaoyan Zhang (who turned heads at Rotterdam back in 2011 with Black Blood and in 2015 with A Corner of Heaven [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
).

Lastly, also on the impressive line-up of (extra-European) Arizona co-productions, we should note the Japanese feature debut Femme fatale by Kyoko Miyake and the South African movie Sew the Winter to My Skin [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Jahmil XT Qubeka.

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(Translated from French)

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