REPORT: Next Step II 2025 @ Cannes Critics’ Week
- The line-up includes sophomore-feature projects by Cristèle Alves Meira, Michael Borodin, Graham Foy, Felipe Gálvez and Mikko Myllylahti
Work kicks off today in Upper Corsica for the seven international filmmakers and three composers selected for the third edition of Next Step II, a programme launched by the Cannes Film Festival's Critics’ Week to complement the original Next Step, created in 2014 to support talents moving from shorts to features (see the news on the 2025 results).
Dedicated to script rewriting and musical composition, Next Step II (whose 2025 edition runs from 8-15 October at the Casell’arte cultural hub) is organised with the support of Sacem and the CNC.
The selected filmmakers are Cristèle Alves Meira, Michael Borodin, Yannick Casanova, Graham Foy, Felipe Gálvez, Jela Hasler and Mikko Myllylahti, flanked by composer Camille Delafon, and her peers Harry Allouche and Pierre Leroux. Also attached to the process are script consultants (Delphine Agut, Marie Amachoukeli and Julie Peyr), a music consultant (music supervisor Etienne Tricard) and an international sales consultant (Agathe Valentin).
The selected projects are as follows:
Joe – Cristèle Alves Meira
French-Portuguese filmmaker Cristèle Alves Meira (who rose to fame with Alma Viva [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristèle Alves Meira
film profile] in the 2022 Critics’ Week) is preparing a film whose plot (co-written with Laurent Lunetta) centres on Maria José, a young Portuguese immigrant, who arrives in Paris determined to find her mother who rejected her because of her sexual orientation. She becomes “Joe the taxi driver”, a fixture of Pigalle’s lesbian nightlife. Her numerous lovers weave her legend as a ladies’ woman, but the heart she yearns to conquer is her mother’s.
Seven Roads – Michael Borodin
After Convenience Store [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Borodin
film profile] (Berlinale Panorama 2022), Russian director Michael Borodin is working on a film in which two young women, haunted by a ghost from the beyond, embark on a daring quest for freedom. Their journey leads them to a dried-up sea, where the only path to liberation is a deadly final battle.
Radio Radio – Graham Foy
Canadian filmmaker Graham Foy (who made a splash in the 2022 Giornate degli Autori with The Maiden) is developing a film centred on Lousy, a five-year-old boy who is visiting his grandmother’s farm with his parents and sister. He has recurring nightmares about a man in a car crash who bears a strange familial resemblance.
Impunity – Felipe Gálvez
Chilean director Felipe Gálvez (FIPRESCI Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2023 with The Settlers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felipe Gálvez
film profile]) is at work on a film set in 1998. The arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London shook the world: for the first time, a dictator could be tried outside of his own country. Caught up in a web of conspiracies, betrayals and power plays, a former Stasi spy and a Chilean diplomatic envoy discover that the true battle for history and justice is not fought in courtrooms, but in the shadows.
The Mystery of the Autumn Killer – Mikko Myllylahti
A second feature is also on the horizon for Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti (selected for the 2022 Critics’ Week with The Woodcutter Story [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mykko Myllylahti
film profile]) with a thriller about the power of love and the meaning of art. It is the story of a poet who seeks to regain a deep connection she has lost, a publisher who tries to love a volatile artist, and a detective who must solve a series of strange spontaneous combustions in order to bring his lost partner back from another dimension.
To Put Out One Fire – Jela Hasler
Two filmmakers will be fine-tuning the scripts for their debut features. Swiss director Jela Hasler is preparing a film centred on Anna, who starts her first job at Zurich’s Parks Department. She passionately fights to protect the urban trees, but her unabashed zeal soon clashes with this environment dictated by bureaucracy, politics and pragmatism. With a humorous eye, To Put Out One Fire follows the young woman’s struggle to uphold her ideals in a society marked by compromise.
Furtunatu – Yannick Casanova
Finally, French filmmaker Yannick Casanova is developing a script set in Central Corsica in the 1980s. Mika watches his young mother fade away in the silence surrounding her illness. Around him, life goes on. This is a 30-year epic, and an intergenerational fresco steeped in violence and poetry, all bound together by a single place: the family’s mountain village.
As a reminder, among the filmmakers already hosted by Next Step II, two have already shot their films: Spain’s Lucía Aleñar Iglesias with Forastera [+see also:
film review
film profile] (which had its premiere last month at Toronto) and Greece’s Konstantina Kotzamani with Titanic Ocean (to be unveiled next year). Last year’s selection included Lilla Halla, Moin Hussain, Jacqueline Lentzou and Gitanjali Rao (see the report).
(Translated from French)
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