11/04/2023 - Among the international film projects receiving production and development funding is the new feature by Ildikó Enyedi, Silent Friend

In its first round of deliberations this year, the German-French film funding commission has approved a total of €660,000 for three projects. Two of them will receive a grant towards their production budget, while the third project will be funded while still in development. All three projects, two fiction features and one documentary, are written and directed by women.

Silent Friend is the new feature-film project by Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi, who won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2017 with On Body and Soul [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ildiko Enyedi
interview: Ildiko Enyedi
interview: Réka Tenki
film profile] and whose last feature, The Story of My Wife [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ildikó Enyedi
film profile], premiered in the Cannes Competition in 2021. Her new effort is being funded with a total of €450,000. Silent Friend is a co-production between Germany, France (Galatée Films) and Hungary, with German producer Pandora Film GmbH holding a majority stake. Reminiscent of the story of On Body and Soul, the film interweaves the world of humans with nature. Particularly important to the plot is an old tree in the botanical gardens in Marburg.

British director Rubika Shah is making Mad Dog of Europe, her first documentary feature after her short doc White Riot, which is being funded with a total of €180,000. The picture is being co-produced in equal parts by German company Heimatfilm GmbH + Co KG and its French partner Le Bureau Films. In the film, Shah looks at Hollywood in the early 1930s. She focuses on writer and producer Herman J Mankiewicz, who was most famous for co-writing Citizen Kane with Orson Welles. After writing a prophetic screenplay about a painter and party founder named “Adolf Mitler”, Mankiewicz was unable to find a studio willing to produce the film.

The last project to receive funding is a fiction feature by Belgian director Vero Cratzborn, who previously participated in the FFA-supported Alliance 4 Development co-production initiative at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022 (see the news). Her drama Molécules tells the story of a young woman who selflessly cares for her sick twin sister, but whose efforts turn into a struggle for love and death. Diane’s sister Apolline suffers from an autoimmune disease, and the young woman is willing to do anything it takes to help cure her sibling. She decides to participate in a clinical trial for the approval of an experimental molecule. The secluded world of the research lab brings Diane an unknown sense of freedom, but Apolline begins to brutally resist the separation. The film is currently in development and has been funded with €30,000. It is being co-produced by Germany's Schuldenberg Films GbR and France's Tomsa Films, which holds a majority stake.

The next submission deadline for the French-German co-production film grants is 27 April, and the next meeting to decide on the recipients of said grants will be held on 3 July.