07/06/2024 - Last month, the body granted development and production bursaries to 25 brand-new projects, including those by Ulrike Ottinger, duo Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti, and Darko Lungulov

Director Ulrike Ottinger, who is receiving €1.5 million for Die Blutgräfin

Last month, Film Fund Luxembourg announced the beneficiaries of its latest round of funding. On this occasion, the body granted its production and development support to a total of 25 projects, including nine fiction features, four animated features, four documentary features, two fiction series, one documentary series, two fiction shorts, one animated short, one VR project and one transmedia project.

In total, seven projects received development backing. These are Christophe Wagner’s fiction series Méga-Pals (€50,000, produced by Digital Voodooh), Lucía Valverde’s fiction feature Campeona (€60,000, Red Lion), Jacques Molitor’s fiction feature Lizardqueen (€70,220, Amour Fou Luxembourg), Laurent Witz’s animated feature Barababor : Le livre des contes (€80,000, Zeilt Productions), Tracy Dawson’s fiction feature A Very Small Country (€60,000, Samsa Film), Atiq Rahimi’s animated feature Les trente oiseaux (€30,000, Bidibul Productions) and Emile V Schlesser’s fiction series Plus One (€54,941, 35M Films).

Six fiction features were awarded with production bursaries. Of these, Ulrike Ottinger’s vampire tale Die Blutgräfin is the one benefiting from the grant of the largest magnitude (€1.5 million). Produced by Amour Fou Luxembourg with Austrian and German firms, it is budgeted at €7.4 million and is set to enter production in October. The picture follows the Bloody Countess and her servant in their insane quest for the red elixir of life, learning the buried history of their ancestors and coming across a book that threatens to destroy their kingdom.

The five other backed projects are Patrick-Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic’s drama Jésus-Léopard (€1.35 million, staged by Les Films Fauves with French and Belgian outfits), Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s late-1990s, Turkey-set drama Arzu (€150,000, produced by Bidibul Productions with Turkey and France), Jorge Thielen Armand’s drama-thriller Death Has No Master (€200,000, produced by Deal Productions with Venezuelan and Canadian partners), Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s What Remains (€200,000, led by Tarantula Luxembourg with Turkish, French and Bulgarian firms) and Darko Lungulov’s Vojvodina-set coming-of-age tale 1970 (€200,000, produced by Samsa Film in Luxembourg with Hungarian, Serbian and Croatian partners).

Next, two animated features received generous support from the fund - Bakhti Chérifa’s adventure Dudley and the Invasion of the Space Slugs (€3 million, spearheaded by local studio Fabrique d’Images and co-produced with Belgium and France) and Paul Bolger’s adventure-comedy Outfoxed! (€1.5 million, a Doghouse Films presentation in co-operation with Belgian and Irish partners).

The four lucky non-fiction features were Dzhovani Gospodinov’s Ora et Labora (€448,000, produced by Amour Fou Luxembourg), Claude Lahr’s Le cas Norbert Jacques (€500,000, an Iris Productions presentation), Grégory Goethals’ Luxembourg 1940 : L’énigme Hoiningen (€300,000, a Louvigny Media production) and Ina Ivanceanu’s Who Cares (€200,000, led by Amour Fou Luxembourg with Austrian and Canadian co-producers).

Meanwhile, the only documentary series benefiting from the fund’s production support (€400,000) is the fifth season of Move !, helmed by Heiko Lange and produced by Manufactura Pictures with German partners. The project is billed as a “road movie” and a “journey into the world of dance”.

Finally, the other beneficiaries in receipt of the body’s production funding are Dominique Santana’s transmedia documentary project Radio Luxembourg (€700,000, staged by Samsa Film and co-produced with Canada and Germany), Sandra Rodriguez and Alexander Whitley’s VR project Future Rites (€450,000, produced by a_BAHN with Canadian and British partners), Cyrus Neshvad’s short drama I Will Be Alright (€150,000, Cynefilms), Solveig Harper’s fantasy short The Shoe (€120,000, Skill Lab), and Cyril Bossmann’s animated short Viso (€120,000, Zeilt Productions).