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PRODUCTION Slovakia

Iveta Grófová advances with She Is a Harbour

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- The director’s sophomore feature is moving into the final stages

Iveta Grófová advances with She Is a Harbour
Director Iveta Grófová

UPDATE (4 April 2016)Iveta Grófová is moving into post-production with She Is a Harbour. The director split the shoot into two stages: all of the exterior scenes were filmed in summer 2015, and the interiors and specific shots were completed from January to February 2016. Producer Katarína Krnáčová told Cineuropa that they had already dealt with the CGI, and were considering marketing strategies for distribution and were communicating with international sales agents. The novel is structured into several time layers narrated as a retrospective by the protagonist as an adult, jumping back and forth through various stages in her life. However, while adapting the book for the big screen, Grófová opted to simplify the narration by keeping the protagonist at the age of ten when the main incident in the story occurs. Post-production is expected to last until June, with the premiere set for autumn 2016. She Is a Harbour is now being produced by Slovakian outfit Hulapa film, Czech firm Endorfilm and Hungary’s Katapult Film, and is receiving support from the Czech State Fund for Cinema and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, in addition to backing from the MEDIA Programme and Eurimages.

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The next feature by Iveta Grófová, the director of the Slovakian entry for the 85th Academy Awards, Made in Ash [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iveta Grófóva
interview: Jiří Konečný
film profile
]
, is among the projects receiving Slate Funding from the MEDIA Programme; the project has been named She Is a Harbour, after the working title, Fifth Boat (see the news), was abandoned. As part of the MEDIA Programme’s support, the film’s producer, Jiří Konečný (of Endorfilm), brought the project to the Share Your Slate! industry meetings at the European Film Market during the recent Berlinale in order to discuss possibilities for collaboration (Grófová’s sophomore feature is one of three projects supported by the MEDIA Programme under the auspices of producer Konečný).

“By the end of February, a new version of the script will be ready, and we have done the location scouting, which we will still continue with. The main roles have already been cast, and we will continue filling in the supporting roles,” producer Katarína Krnáčová told Cineuropa. “Last summer, we shot a few scenes and prepared a trailer/pilot and test sequences for the purposes of promoting the film and raising funds,” she added. The following weeks will be dedicated to developing the collaboration with existing partners, securing the necessary financial means and holding rehearsals mostly with the child actors. Principal photography is expected to take place in summer in either 2015 or 2016. She Is a Harbour is an adaptation of the award-winning book The Fifth Boat by Slovakian writer Monika Kompaníková, which has already been translated into several foreign languages. The protagonist, ten-year-old Jarka, expresses her desire to be part of a functional family, which she lacks, by becoming a mother to two babies for a while. She plays mother and father with a boy, Kristian, in an abandoned garden shed. The story is based on a similar incident that happened in the Czech Republic.  

She Is a Harbour is being produced by Slovakian outfit Hulapa film, Czech firm Endorfilm and Germany's 42film, and is receiving support from the Czech State Fund for Cinema and the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, in addition to the MEDIA Programme. So far, the film’s production is partially secured, and the producers are continuing with their fundraising efforts.

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