03/06/2022 - The Rhinish Co-Production Meeting will unspool from 28-30 June in Strasbourg and will showcase French- and German-language projects, encompassing both fiction and documentaries

Director Ali Soozandeh, whose project Mehtap has been selected (© Critics' Week)

A meeting point intended to facilitate cross-border cooperation between Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg, the Alentours Forum – Rhinish Co-Production Meeting (see the interview with Aurélie Réveillaud and Charlotte Monnier) has unveiled the list of the 25 selected projects that will be pitched at its 2022 edition (28-30 June, Strasbourg).

Standing out particularly among the 25 French- and German-language projects (11 of which are documentaries and 14 are fiction titles) chosen for this iteration are Mehtap by Germany’s Ali Soozandeh (whose animated feature debut, Tehran Taboo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ali Soozandeh
film profile], was unveiled in the Cannes Critics’ Week in 2017), Un homme s’est échappé by France’s Régis Sauder (a fiction project for the documentarian behind En nous, J’ai aimé vivre là [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Retour à Forbach [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Nous, princesses de Clèves) and Die Kinder von La Hille by Switzerland’s Stefan Jäger (whose latest outing, Monte Verità [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefan Jäger
film profile], was screened last summer on the Piazza Grande at Locarno). Also of note among those showing off their projects, among others, are Germany’s Norbert Lechner (who took part in the Generation section of the 2016 Berlinale with Fortune Favors the Brave [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), his fellow countryman Stefan Butzmühlen, who is teaming up with Spaniard Cristina Diz Muñoz (a duo who proved popular in the Berlinale Forum in 2012 with Sleepless Knights) and France’s Philippe Pollet-Villard (winner of the Oscar for Best Short Film in 2008 with The Mozart of Pickpockets) with a project adapting his own novel L’Enfant mouche.

Organised by the Eurométropole de Strasbourg, the Grand Est region and the MFG (Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg), within the wider scope of the Interreg CinEuro project, and in collaboration with the Creative Europe Desks of the border countries and Arte Geie, the Alentours Forum can boast many recent notches on its belt, including co-productions such as Gutland [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Govinda Van Maele
film profile] by Govinda Von Maele, Chris the Swiss [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anja Kofmel
film profile] by Anja Kofmel, the animation Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Matthias Bruhn and Ralf Kukula, and the documentary Black Mambas [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Lena Karbe.

Those interested in registering and taking part in the 2022 Alentours Forum should click here.

The projects selected are as follows:

1974, la vraie vie en RDA - Nicolas Jallot (France/Germany) (documentary)
Production: Day for Night Productions, AnnaCiar UG

Avocado Kings – Marieke Schroeder (Germany) (documentary)
Production: Thali Media

Blue Sphere (France) (docu-fiction series)
Director: Jérôme Bernard
Screenplay: Emilie Querbalec
Production: Les Valseurs, Duck Factory

Das Geheime Stockwerk – Norbert Lechner (Germany/Austria) (fiction)
Screenplay: Katrin Milhahn, Antonia Rothe-Liermann
Production: Kevin Lee Filmgesellschaft, STAR Film Österreich

Der Schwarze Wald – Boris Kunz (Germany) (fiction series)
Showrunner: Marie Haas
Production: Montavia Filmproduktion

Der Sommer der großen Lüge – Marie-Catherine Theiler, Olivier Meidinger (Switzerland/France) (fiction)
Production: TILT Production, Les Films de l’Etranger

Die Eroberung des Kunstbusiness – Sarah Rathgeb, Carolin Wloka (Switzerland/Austria) (documentary)
Production: First Hand Films, BSX-Schmölzer

Die Gäste – Stefan Butzmühlen, Cristina Diz Muñoz (Germany/Spain) (fiction)
Production: Match Factory Productions, Frida Films

Die Kinder von La Hille – Stefan Jäger (Switzerland) (fiction)
Production: tellfilm

Juliette et les salamandres – Catherine Maximoff (France) (animation)
Production: Les Contes Modernes

Jukli (Germany) (fiction)
Screenplay: Corinna C Poetter
Production: eitelsonnenschein

Kriegstöchter des 20. Jahrhunderts – Olga Lucovnicova, Lilia Schneider (Germany) (documentary)
Production: Ciné-Litté Productions

L’Enfant mouche – Philippe Pollet-Villard (France) (fiction)
Production: Delante Productions

La Vraie (Switzerland) (fiction)
Screenplay: Julien Bouissoux
Production: Langfilm

Le Ballon - Lionel Bordeaux (France) (documentary)
Production: Windy Productions

Le Bus pour l’Amérique – Derya Durmaz (France/Turkey) (animation)
Production: Promenons-nous dans les bois

Le Choc Escher – Johan Chiaramonte (France) (documentary series)
Screenplay: Rafik Djoumi
Production: Melocoton

Le Goût du Bonheur – Laurent Sorcelle (France) (documentary)
Production: Daisy Day Films

Les Vies d’Andres – Baptiste Janon, Rémi Pons (Belgium/Switzerland/France) (docu-fiction)
Production: Hélicotronc, Dokmobile

Mehtap – Ali Soozandeh (Germany) (animation)
Production: ArtHood Films

Paper Revolution – Lauren Brown (Germany/Italy) (documentary series)
Production: Latteyer Film Productions Verleih, 9 Muse SRL

Out of the Picture – Anne Smolar (Belgium/France) (documentary)
Production: Thank You & Good Night productions, Films de Force Majeure

Soup! – Jérémy Strohm (France) (fiction series)
Screenplay: Djibril Abbas, Florent Dorin
Production: Centurions Films

Un homme s’est échappé – Régis Sauder (France) (fiction)
Screenplay: Virginie Legeay, Régis Sauder
Production: Shellac

Women’s Land (France) (fiction series)
Screenplay: Juliette Gilot
Production: Astharté & Cie

(Translated from French)