15/12/2022 - The project by French-Japanese director Koya Kamura features among the works selected for 2022, which also include titles by Jonathan Millet, Payal Kapadia, Sylvère Petit and Momoko Seto

(l-r) (top) Selected directors Koya Kamura, Payal Kapadia, Jonathan Millet and Sylvère Petit; (bottom) Momoko Seto, Mikko Myllylahtiet and Alain Ughetto

The Gan Film Foundation, which has been supporting first and second feature film projects for 35 years, has unveiled its list of works selected for 2022.

Stealing focus among them is Un hiver à Sokcho, French-Japanese director Koya Kamura’s first feature film project, which will star Roschdy Zem in the lead role and is set to be shot in February. Based on Elisa Shua’s novel of the same name (awarded America’s 2021 National Book Award), the story unfolds in Sokcho, a small seaside town in South Korea, where 23-year-old Soo-Ha leads a humdrum life. The arrival of a French man called Kerrand in the boarding school where she works stirs up questions over her own identity. As winter envelops the town, they observe one another, size each other up and form a fragile bond… The film will also include animated sequences made by Agnès Patron. Production is entrusted to Fabrice Préel Cléach on behalf of Offshore.

Likewise jostling among the selected few is Les Fantômes [+see also:
interview: Pauline Seigland
film profile] by Jonathan Millet, which revolves around a hunt conducted by a Syrian refugee between France and Germany, and whose production is steered by Pauline Seigland (read our interview) on behalf of Films Grand Huit. There’s also All We Imagine as Light by India’s Payal Kapadia (her first fiction feature after the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing [+see also:
film review
interview: Payal Kapadia
film profile], which was well-received in the 2021 Directors’ Fortnight). Unfolding in an Indian setting and exploring the sorority between three women hailing from different social backgrounds, the movie is produced by Thomas Hakim and Julien Graaf on behalf of French firms Petit Chaos and Arte France Cinéma, India’s Chalk & Cheese and Another Birth, and Holland’s Baldr.

The Gan Film Foundation is also throwing its weight behind La Baleine, the first feature film by Sylvère Petit. The provisional cast includes Sergi Lopez and Izïa Higelin, while the story takes place in the autumn of 1985. A storm awakens the Mediterranean. A village is devastated and crops are destroyed. On the beach lies a whale, deposited by the waves. The dead beast is announced as a carrier of disease. Corbac, a sickly, misanthropic wine grower, wants to save the whale skeleton from being blown up by the authorities for sanitary reasons. Day and night, his daughter Mathilde sees this biggest of creatures passing piece by piece by the church, the school and the distillery, awakening the villagers’ unconscious and sense of violence. Mathilde knows her father. He will see this thing through to the end… Production is entrusted to Serge Lalou and Sophie Cabon on behalf of Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée.

Last but not least, the Gan Foundation has awarded its special 2022 prize to Momoko Seto’s animated feature film currently in production Planètes (read our news). This movie by the Japanese filmmaker now living in France is produced by Emmanuel-Alain Raynal on behalf of Miyu Productions and by Emmanuel Chaumet for Ecce Films.

For the record, the 2022 broadcasting awards handed out by the Gan Foundation within Cannes’ Critics’ Week and the Annecy Animated Film Festival were won by The Woodcutter Story [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mykko Myllylahti
film profile] by Finland’s Mikko Myllylahti (due for release in France on 4 January 2023 via Urban Distribution) and No Dogs or Italians Allowed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alain Ughetto
film profile] by France’s Alain Ughetto (which Gebeka are set to release in France on 25 January).

(Translated from French)