12/06/2024 - Ten international and six national projects have been presented to a team of mentors at the workshop on the Croatian coast

The inaugural workshop of TorinoFilmLab’s 2024 FeatureLab programme took place from 4-9 June in the Grand Adriatic Hotel in Opatija, on the Croatian coast. The event was organised jointly by TorinoFilmLab and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. The creative teams of ten selected projects from all over the world (listed below) met their trainers (also listed), established professionals in various fields of the film industry, in order to glean help and advice for their forthcoming films.

“We are thrilled about our collaboration with the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, which successfully hosted our latest FeatureLab workshop. This partnership allows us to extend our commitment to supporting and training emerging film talents on an international level. The workshop was a meeting of creative minds, where participants had the opportunity to learn, experiment and grow thanks to the experience and guidance of industry professionals. The beautiful setting of Opatija in Croatia provided an inspiring environment, fostering a climate of collaboration. This experience demonstrates the power of international cooperation in the world of cinema. Together, we can build bridges between different cultures, promoting diversity and inclusivity, and creating a fertile ground for the birth of new, high-artistic-value film projects. Together, we can support and inspire the next generation of filmmakers,” stated TorinoFilmLab managing director Mercedes Fernandez.

The only event open to the public was the TorinoFilmLab Industry Day that took place on Friday 7 June, in the afternoon, after a morning session (closed to the public) where six selected Croatian projects (see the list below) were presented to the mentors in accordance with the projects’ needs. “This meeting was useful and important for my project, and at the same time, it was encouraging as I continue with the development process and begin filming the initial material,” said one of the Croatian participants, filmmaker Bruno Pavić, about his one-hour consultation session with one of the mentors, Chiara Laudani.

The public session consisted of an opening speech by TorinoFilmLab’s head of studies, Violeta Bava, and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre’s deputy director, Maja Vukić; a short presentation of TorinoFilmLab’s programmes and activities by Greta Fornari; and two master classes held by production trainer Marta Andreu and directing trainer Rodrigo Moreno. Fornari presented the well-known labs such as ScriptLab and ScriptLab Story Editing, FeatureLab and SeriesLab, along with the newer or lesser-known ones like ComedyLab, GreenFilmLab and BoostItLab, complete with the dates when the calls will be open, as well as the TFL funds – one for co-production and another for audience design.

Marta Andreu’s master class, titled “Three Forms of Freedom and One Inevitable Repetition”, was fairly formal in structure but philosophical in its content, which is in line with the style of filmmaking she is supporting through the Walden hub that she created in 2017, and generally with the type of (documentary) films that she produces. During the master class, Andreu used not only examples from the filmmaking world, such as Sergei Dvortsevoy’s short documentary Paradise (1995) and Yrsa Roca Fannberg’s feature-length doc The Last Autumn [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2019), but also those from literature and the visual arts in support of the subject of her talk. The three freedoms she singled out are the freedom of accident, the freedom of not knowing and the freedom of a second response (given that filmmaking itself is already a response to reality), while the inevitable paradoxical repetition is finding one’s voice, but losing one’s freedom, by completing the film.

On the contrary, Rodrigo Moreno’s master class was less formal in structure and more practical in nature, since it played out more like a conversation between the Argentinian director and Violeta Bava, starting with the director’s beginnings amidst New Argentine Cinema and leading up to the creative process behind the making of The Delinquents [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Moreno
film profile] (2023), which echoes all of his previous films, but also does so much more besides. Moreno spoke about his “hard relationship with realism”, his inability to be “a professional filmmaker”, his love of rituals, which he finds cinematic, the reason why he is almost always one of the producers of his own films, and freedom, which for him, as well as for his characters from his latest movie, is less about money and more about time.

Here is the list of international FeatureLab projects and participants:

A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra (Greece)
Director: Jacqueline Lentzou
Producer: Annabelle Aronis

Antonivka (Ukraine/Lithuania)
Director: Kateryna Gornostai
Producer: Dagne Vildziunaite

Cold Ashes Can Cause Forest Fires (India/France)
Director: Ashmita Guha Neogi
Producer: Avantika Singh Desbouvries

Hard Sub (Azerbaijan/Germany)
Director: Novruz Hikmet
Producer: Julian Gerchow

La notte brucia (Italy)
Director: Angelica Gallo
Producer: Andrea Gori

The Boy and the Fight of the Spiders (Philippines/France)
Director: Jarell Mahinay Serencio
Writer: Homer Novico
Producer: Claire Lajoumard

Sea, Star, Woman (South Korea/France)
Director: Jeunghae Yim
Producer: Helen Olive

Legacy (Belarus/Germany)
Director: Aliaksei Paluyan
Producer: Paulina Tonne

Versorgen (Switzerland)
Director: Nora Longatti
Producer: Chantal Scheiner

Yellow Chrysanthemum (Brazil)
Director: André Hayato Saito
Producer: Mayra Farou Ayad

Here is the list of Croatian projects and participants:

Folka
Director: Ivan Veljača
Producer: Katarina Prpić

Milch Cow
Director: Miroslav Sikavica
Producer: Miljenka Čogelja

Naked After Divorce
Director: Biljana Čakić

Svilaja
Director: Bruno Pavić

Stories from a Can
Director: Tanja Golić
Co-writer: Olinka Vištica

Tekton – Chained Dog
Director: Tin Žanić
Co-writer: Jan Klemsche

Here is the list of TorinoFilmLab FeatureLab mentors:

Head of studies: Violeta Bava
Production trainers: Marta Andreu, Benjamin Domenech
Directing trainer: Rodrigo Moreno
Sound design trainer: Vasco Pimentel
Editing trainer: Jorge Jacome
Script tutors: Chiara Laudani, Miguel Machalski, Marietta Von Hausswolff Von Baumgarten
Pitching trainer: Paul Tyler