Nine up-and-coming European talents at Angers Workshops

by Fabien Lemercier

19/08/2011 - Film directors Athina Rachel Tsangari, Delphine Gleize and Raphaël Nadjari and screenwriter Vincent Poymiro will lead the master-classes at the 7th Angers Workshops, which will run from August 23-31. Initiated and headed by Jeanne Moreau and the organisers of the Premiers Plans Festival, the Angers-based residency will this year welcome nine young filmmakers from five European countries (Belgium, France, Poland, Romania, United Kingdom), who will receive advice in the preparation of their debut narrative features.

Among those selected are Poland’s Rafael Kapelinski with Oranges From Paradise, which traces the bus journey to Budapest in December 1981 of a group of Polish people going to do their Christmas shopping; and Romanian filmmaker Paul Negoescu with 365 New Year’s Eves (HiFilm), in which Kostin looks for his ex-girlfriend at the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Also in the selection is UK helmer Harry Wootliff , who is preparing Eating The Elephant (produced by The Bureau), a black comedy about the impact of a bereavement on a 17-year-old boy and his mother.

Two French/Belgian projects have also been chosen: Rachel Lang’s Workshop en Carrelage (ChevalDeuxTrois Productions), which centres on a young girl who comes back from a stay in England and is reunited in France with those she left behind a year earlier; and Guillaume Senez’s Keeper, which tells the story of two 14-year-old teenagers faced with a pregnancy.

Finally, four French filmmakers round out the list of 2011 residents: directorial duo Paul Calori and Kostia Testud with Le Silence des Machines (production: Arcapix), which looks at the resistance of women workers in a luxury shoe factory to the announcement of a redundancy scheme; Jean Denizot with La Belle Vie (Mezzanine Films), which traces the life of two young brothers who live cut off in the mountains with their father on the run; and Marianne Tardieu with 125 Écrans Plasma (La Vie est Belle Films Associés), which centres on 28-year-old Chérif, a security officer in an electrical goods store in the outer suburbs of Paris, who is caught between two worlds.

(Translated from French)