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Elena Tatti

Producer on the Move 2007 – Switzerland

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Co-founder of the company Box Productions based near Lausanne, Elena Tatti produced with her partner, Thierry Spicher, Jean-Stéphane Bron’s feature debut, My Brother is Getting Married (see Focus), while a project by young Swiss-French director Ursula Meier, Home, also highly promising, is currently being reworked.

Cineuropa: What did you do prior to production?
Elena Tatti: I studied economics and philosophy and I’m 38. During my studies, I worked at the Locarno Film Festival and collaborated with the Fribourg Film Festival on the selection of Mediterranean films. Before creating the company Box Productions with Thierry Spicher two years ago, we began producing films by a contemporary artist, Elodie Pong, who has been working on a documentary called Contemporary for the past two years.

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What type of films would you like to produce?
Auteur fiction films or documentaries for cinema. Films that make people think and which are open to the world and include all forms of entertainment.

Last year, Ursula Meier and Box Productions presented the film project Home at the Cannes Film Festival Atelier. Did you get positive feedback?
Ursula Meier, who made an acclaimed television film for ARTE (Des épaules solides, 2002), already enjoys a good international reputation, but this Cannes showcase allowed us to “brand” the project and open perspectives in terms of financing, distribution and international sales. On the other hand, the influence on production was not decisive, as the Belgian (Denis Delcampe, Need Productions and French co-producers (Denis Freyd, Archipel 35) were already partners in the project. By the way, Denis Freyd is a co-producer on the films by the Dardenne brothers.

Where, when and with which actors will Home be made?
For artistic – and not financial – reasons, the shoot has been “relocated” to Bulgaria. That is where we found the ideal landscape and an indispensable section of a disused motorway, which serves as the film’s set. The production will begin this summer.

What are your expectations of the Producers on the Move programme?
I previously participated in ACE (European Cinema Workshops). These international meetings are extremely invigorating, especially for enlarging one’s horizon, developing one’s network of international contacts or exchanging experiences with colleagues confronted with realities different from those in Switzerland.

What do you have in common with Swiss producers who have previously taken part in Producers on the Move, such as Xavier Ruiz, Lukas Hobi, Tiziana Soudani and Christof Neracher?
I am close to Christoph Neracher who represented Switzerland last year. Like me, he is evolving in a young production outfit (Hugofilm Zurich), which is trying to develop several projects at the same time in a structure where a number of producers work together. Box Productions also hopes in the long-term to focus all its efforts and skills in a similar structrure to strengthen the development of projects and production.

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