BTC alumni in pre-production of omnibus film

by Vladan Petkovic

12/02/2013 - Participants of Berlinale Talent Campus (BTC) 2012 alumni have begun preparing eight short films, which will form an omnibus with the working title Remember Me Berlin.  The project is now in pre-production and will be shot later this year.

Producers Jelena Stupljanin (Cirkus Columbia [trailer, film focus]), Demet Gül (Almanya - Welcome To Germany [trailer]), and Mauro Mueller (Copenhagen) are working on projects from Mexico, Germany, Turkey, US, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Italy, and Lebanon. Besides the producers, there will be more than 30 BTC alumni working on the feature including directors, scriptwriters, cinematographers, editors and other professionals.

"Most of the alumni I met in 2012 are a dispersed and displaced crowd, almost all of them living in a different city from where they were born. As we shared our experiences and stories, we saw that we can make a great film about it,” explained Stupljanin.

The project has received a warm reception and support from the BTC, Sarajevo City of Film and Guadalajara Film Festival. During the Berlinale 2013, producers will meet other funding bodies and production companies for possibilities of cooperation through co-productions. One of the short films, Ariel Shaban’s Sarajevo-set The Tourist, has been accepted to the Short Film Station, a program within the 2013 BTC.

The three producers are looking for collaborators who are “willing to embark on the quest of searching for mutual understanding and connection, overcoming prejudices, and collaborating in the spirit of creating something that bridges continents and cultures,” said Mueller.

 “Bringing these stories to the screen, will raise questions some of us have ourselves and dig into various cultures in an attempt to understand opposite perspectives,” added Gül.

The eight short films will be shot in Berlin (by directors York Fabian-Raabe, Elie Lamah, and Roberto Cuzzillo, who will also shoot in Sicily), Sarajevo (Ariel Shaban), New York (Mauro Mueller), Beirut (Adriano Valerio), Istanbul (Suha Araj), and Guadalajara (Frank Beltran).

With the theme of searching for identity in today’s world, Remember Me Berlin tells the story of people from different walks of life who are connected by the city of Berlin. The film is to be released in early 2014.