Tomorrow, on 21 October, will begin the Cinemed Meetings, the three days of professional meetings organised within the 47th Cinemed - Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (read the article). The main dish on the menu is the 35th edition of the Development Grant, with 13 fiction feature projects selected and which will be presented by their filmmakers and producers to a jury including Catherine Bizern (Céci Moulin d’Andé), producers Marianne Dumoulin (JBA Production) and Dominique Welinski (DW and head of La Factory) and consultant Thomas Pibarot. Two Development Grants will be awarded (given by the CNC and the Occitanie region, and associated with technical gifts from Titra Film, Saraband, Studio Phare Cercle Rouge Productions), as well as writing residencies (at the Céci Moulin d’Andé, and at the Fabbrica culturale Casell’arte) and an invitation to the market at the Music & Cinema Festival in Marseille.

As a reminder, films that recently went through this pitching include Sleepless City [+lee también:
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entrevista: Guillermo Galoe
ficha de la película] by Guillermo Galoe, Little Trouble Girls [+lee también:
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entrevista: Urška Djukić
ficha de la película] by Urška Djukić, Aisha Can’t Fly Away [+lee también:
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entrevista: Morad Mostafa
ficha de la película] by Morad Mostafa (winner of the main grant in 2022) and A Sad and Beautilful World [+lee también:
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entrevista: Cyril Aris
ficha de la película] by Cyril Aris (winner of the main grant in 2021).

The Cinemed Meetings also include the fourth edition of the Professional Meetings Cinemed & Aflamuna (a selection of seven projects in development from the Arab world), the 11th edition of the “Du court au long” initiative (seven debut feature projects from filmmakers who have a short in competition this year in Montpellier and which will be evaluated by a jury, with three writing residencies to be won), the co-production meetings with all the individual rendez-vous for people with projects with professionals in attendance in Montpellier, a Focus on Syrian cinema (with a large conference in partnership with the CNC and the presentation of three projects in development), the projects from the Cinéstoria residences (Châtaignes Boost Camp and Promeneur-euse-s), professional meetings (notably one about Europe Creative Media and Eurimages) and the "Talents en court" initiative.

The projects competing for the Development Grants:

In My Homeland of Tomatoes - Diala Al Hindaoui (France/Syria)
Production: Qutaiba Barhamji - The Kingdom 
Salma, 12, grows up in a country where love for the president is a collective given. She worships him fervently, until the day her beloved uncle's mysterious death turns her world upside down. While the adults remain silent, Salma searches for the truth and gradually discovers the flaws in the power she once revered. Troubled by Zayd, a new refugee student from a neighbouring country at war, she embarks on a path of rebellion and revolt.

Dream Girl - Kaan Mujdeci (Turkey/Greece/Germany)
Production: Olena Yershova (Tatofilm)
Coproduction: Asteros Film, Graal, Watchmen Production
Arap, a young Roma girl, and her wounded horse Dream Girl flee threats in Urfa with Shahin and Ilyas, searching for freedom on the margins of Turkish society. Their road trip leads to betrayal, hardship, and a last desperate race—culminating in Arap and Dream Girl’s mythic escape. Arap tries to change the fates of both herself and her horse.

The Eels' Dilemma - Elena Molina (Spain)
Production: Montse Pujol-Solà (Guspira Films)
In the final stretch of her time in the foster care system, Dolors (19) is on the verge of emancipation. But the arrival of her younger sister Saba and the weight of a past she has tried to erase push her to take refuge in a radical group, risking the bond with her flatmates, Ghizlane and Flor—the only family she had managed to build.

The Sheikh's Disciple - Areej Mahmoud (Lebanon/UEA)
Production: Raja Zgheib (Studio Humbaba)
A human-like robot is sent to a remote village to care for an aging Imam, a widower whose children have emigrated. But when the robot becomes involved in the Imam’s religious and spiritual duties, the line between teacher and student, human and machine, starts to dissolve. And when the Imam develops signs of dementia, the robot begins to operate beyond its assigned tasks with no human supervision.

Three Myths - Amir Youssef (Egypt)
Production: Norah Elkhateeb (Cats Films)
9 months after a near-death incident, a young man wakes up from a coma and his only clue to his past is a blurred image of a woman with the street name Hatshepsut, in Akhmim, the forgotten city of Egypt.

The Pessoptimists - Abdallah Al-Khatib (Palestine)
Production: Hanna Atallah (August Film and Television Prod. Company)
Five Palestinian lives, from Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Haifa, that intersect at a single obstacle: their travel documents, which deprive them of simple rights and lead them all to an unexpected place.

We Were Once Here - Ahmed Abdelsalam (Egypt)
Production : Sawsan Yusuf (Bonanza Films)
As Egyptian man Yahia fights to hold onto his legal status in the UK, his British girlfriend offers him marriage. But his decisions are soon disrupted by a Palestinian woman whose clarity about home and identity shakes the fragile life he’s tried to build—forcing him to confront a deeper question: is he building a life, or escaping one?

Le piranha - Adriano Chiarelli (Italy/Spain)
Production: Luca Cabriolu (Ombre Rosse Film Production)
Coproduction: Subway Lab, Black Light Films
Carlo, an unemployed fisherman, struggles to buy back his father's boat, which disappeared at sea. Between lost loves, illegal trafficking, and crumbling friendships, he will discover that some storms can only be calmed through acceptance. An intimate story about the human response to economic insecurity, carried by the raw poetry of the Adriatic and the universality of workers' struggles.

Nights - Amit Vaknin (Israel)
Production: Abigaelle Haddad (Gaudeamus Productions)
Goni (28) drifts through Tel Aviv nights, seeking warmth in bodies, words, or silence. In fragile episodes, she dances, gets high, loves, loses. While death lurks and distant violence presses in, life insists on continuing. Nights is a portrait of intimacy, denial, and the quiet art of staying hopeful.

Wild Visits - Jennifer Fanjeaux (France)
Production: Margaux Rivière (Été Caniculaire)
Milos, 15, sees his father arrested for drug trafficking. He refuses to believe it and retreats into denial. When he discovers wild visits, when cries are hurled over the prison wall, he meets Mehdi, a show-off and the son of an inmate, who becomes his guide. Together, they confront absence, anger, and truth. Milos tries to rebuild himself in this fractured world where the image of his fallen father haunts him.

Pirateland - Stavros Petropoulos (Greece/France)
Production : Leonidas Konstantarakos (Alaska Film)
Coproduction: Yukunkun Productions
On a remote island in the Greek Mediterranean, a grieving innkeeper is forced to confront his own past and his community’s entire future when a dysfunctional family from Norway arrives in search of an “authentic pirate experience”.

The Rift - Mouloud Ouyahia (France/Algeria)
Production : Jules David (L'oeil Vif Productions)
Coproduction: Nana Films
Two brothers go to the edges of the desert on a quest for a stone that would bring recognition for one and wealth for the other. But the road to success might lead these men straight into a rift.

Tarfaya - Sofia Alaoui (France/Morocco)
Production: Christophe Barral (SRAB Films)
Production: Jiango Films
In southern Morocco, in a town ravaged by sand and neglect, a strange illness gradually draws the inhabitants into a sleep from which no one awakens. They all have the same dream, strange and disturbingly real. In the middle of this crisis, Meryem, a brilliant but lonely doctor, struggles to understand. Her world is turned upside down when she falls in love with Adel, a young doctor from abroad, who begins to show the first signs of the disease.