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ARRAS 2018 Industry

Seven projects to be pitched at the Arras Days

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- Projects by Klaus Härö, Wolfgang Fischer and Ika Künzel, Cagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti, Bodo Kox, Daniel Sandu, Kaspar Jancis and George Sikharulidze will be showcased

Seven projects to be pitched at the Arras Days
Director Klaus Härö, whose new project Never Alone has been selected for the Arras Days

An integral part of the 19th Arras Film Festival (2-11 November – see the news), the seventh edition of the Arras Days will unveil seven projects at the writing stage that will be pitched on Saturday 10 November in front of a jury of three industry professionals (Freddy Olsson from the Göteborg Film Festival, Edvinas Pukšta from the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and Belgian producer Dries Phlypo, of A Private View), and which will be vying for two development support grants (courtesy of the CNC and the City of Arras). Also devised as a co-production and funding platform, the Arras Days will allow those producers, distributors and sales agents who are interested in these projects to discover them first-hand.

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Standing out among the projects duking it out is Never Alone by Finland’s Klaus Härö, who was nominated for the 2016 Golden Globe for Best Foreign-language Film with The Fencer [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ivo Felt
film profile
]
, which was also his country’s candidate for the Oscar, as were three other films by the same director (Letters to Father Jacob [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
in 2009, Mother of Mine [+see also:
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film profile
]
in 2005 and Elina: As If I Wasn’t There in 2003). Härö, who has a total of six features under his belt, unveiled his latest opus, One Last Deal, at Toronto in September. The project Never Alone will be pitched by producer Ilkka Matila (of Matila Röhr Productions).

Turkey’s Cagla Zencirci and France’s Guillaume Giovanetti will be in attendance with The Princess Spring. They have three features to their credit so far: Sibel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Çağla Zencirci and Guillaum…
film profile
]
 (popular in competition at Locarno this summer), Ningen (revealed at Toronto in 2013) and Noor [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 (unveiled at Cannes in 2012 as part of the ACID programme). 

Austria’s Wolfgang Fischer and his co-screenwriter Ika Künzel will be pitching The Highway of Tears. The duo has just broken through in fine fashion with Styx [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Wolfgang Fischer
film profile
]
 (Europa Cinemas Label in the Berlinale Panorama, selected for Toronto and a LUX Prize finalist). The director also has a previous movie, 2009’s What You Don’t See [+see also:
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film profile
]
, to his name.

Having risen to prominence with his feature debut, One Step Behind the Seraphim [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniel Sandu
film profile
]
 (winner of eight Gopo Awards in 2018, including Best Romanian Film of the Year), Daniel Sandu will be at Arras to pitch his sophomore feature-length project, The Father Who Moved Mountains. The screenplay, which has already won the Arte International Prize at the Les Arcs Film Festival’s Coproduction Village, revolves around a young man who has retired from the secret service and who sets about looking for his son from a previous marriage after he is reported missing in the mountains. The project is being produced by Mobra Films.

Polish filmmaker Bodo Kox will be pitching The Little Big Prince, his new project, following the head-turners The Man with the Magic Box [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(premiered in the Flash Forward section at Busan in 2017) and The Girl from the Wardrobe [+see also:
trailer
interview: Bodo Kox
film profile
]
 (East of the West at Karlovy Vary in 2013 and winner of the Eagle for Discovery of the Year in 2014). 

Estonian producer Ivo Felt (of Allfilm) will be pitching Antipolis, which is set to be the feature-length fiction debut by his fellow countryman Kaspar Jancis (who made a name for himself with the animated film Captain Morten and the Spider Queen [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, which he co-directed with Henry Nicholson and Riho Unt).

Lastly, George Sikharulidze will come to Arras to present his debut feature-length project, Panopticon. The young Georgian filmmaker made a splash with his shorts The Fish that Drowned (Clermont-Ferrand in 2014), Red Apples (premiered at Toronto in 2016) and A New Year (unveiled at Toronto last month), and also edited Submarine by Lebanese helmer Mounia Akl (which took part in Cannes’ Cinéfondation competition in 2016). 

Interestingly, for the first time, the Arras Days will offer a carte blanche to Flanders image, including the screening of the work-in-progress versions of two feature debuts currently in post-production and helmed by two young Belgian female directors. They are Cleo [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 by Eva Cools (produced by Lunanime) and The Best of Dorien B. by Anke Blondé (staged by A Private View), and they will be shown on Sunday 11 November.

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(Translated from French)

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