The 16th edition of the TFL Meeting Event closed on Saturday 25 November with 17 prizes handed out, to the tune of €270,000. The recipients were 13 projects which had taken part in the development programmes organised by the Italian National Film Museum’s TorinoFilmLab, chosen by juries from among 20 ScriptLab feature films in the screenplay writing phase and 10 FeatureLab works at a more advanced stage of development (read our news).

Milk Teeth, the second title by Romanian director and screenwriter Mihai Mincan and the product of FeatureLab, won a Production Award endowed with 40,000 euros (in the jury’s words: “a film tormented by the darkness surrounding an unresolved history”), alongside The Visitor by Lithuanians Vytautas Katkus and Marija Kavtaradze (produced by Marija Razgutė), which was honoured for being “A film about solitude and isolation. Narrated as if a playful cinematographic dance”. Mihai Mincan, who made his debut in 2022 within Venice’s Orizzonti section by way of To the North [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Mihai Mincan
fiche film], explained to Cineuropa that his film “is told from the viewpoint of a little girl, Maria, whose life is profoundly affected by a traumatic event: her sister’s disappearance. And it takes place in 1989, right at the end of Communism and the beginning of democracy in Romania”. Producer Radu Stancu described Milk Teeth as “a coming-of-age mystery drama with fantasy elements” and declared himself “excited about reuniting with the co-producers of his previous movie in France, Greece, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria”. Shooting is scheduled to take place in Romania between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn in 2024.

The Production Awards, meanwhile, worth €50,000 each, thanks to backing from Creative Europe, went to Renoir by Japan’s Chie Hayakawa (Plan 75 [+lire aussi :
critique
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interview : Chie Hayakawa
fiche film]), flanked by producer Eiko Mizuno-Gray (“a film whose director bravely negotiates painful family memories with a poetic outlook”, as enthused by the jury) and to The Meltdown by Chile’s Manuela Martelli (1976), flanked by producer Alejandra García. The latter told Cineuropa that “as a producer, I sometimes feel the development and funding process can be difficult and solitary. In this instance, I shared the process with colleagues at TFL and we felt like part of a community. That’s why we make films. Rather than staying on your own in your individual country, you get the opportunity to open yourself up to these wonderful people, with whom you might not otherwise have had a reason to connect. It’s enriching, and you can carry this forwards into your films. The tutors brought out our creative processes without pushing us in any particular direction, leaving us totally free”. The film will benefit from a total budget of €2,534,000.

Out of the ScriptLab projects, the winner of the prestigious Eurimages Co-Production Development Award worth €20,000 was The Missing Planet by Marouan Omara (Egypt) and Tom Rosenberg (USA), whose “complex approach to film language and layering of themes in a concrete and conceptual way means that the project naturally lends itself to international co-operation and co-production”, according to the jury.

Other triumphant projects included Portugal’s Sun in Saturn, which scooped the CNC Award and which follows trans man Sol as he returns to the city of his birth in northern Portugal with his girlfriend Sara to pay a visit to his mother Helena and to take part in the town’s annual festival. Director Ary Zara confided to Cineuropa that her film “looks to create new narratives for transgender people, where they can be humanised through love rather than death”.

The award-winners are as follows:

FeatureLab

Production Awards (worth €40,000 each)
Milk Teeth - Mihai Mincan (Romania)
Producer: Radu Stancu (deFilm)
The Visitor - Vytautas Katkus (Lithuania)
Producer: Marija Razgutė (M-Films)

Production Awards (worth €50,000 each) (funded by the EU’s Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme)
Renoir - Chie Hayakawa (Japan)
Producer: Eiko Mizuno-Gray (Loaded Film Ltd.)
The Meltdown - Manuela Martelli (Chile/Mexico/Argentina/Germany/Spain/France)
Producer: Alejandra García (Wood Producciones), Piano, Rei Cine, Pandora Filmproduktion, Elastica Film, Dulac Productions

ARRI Award (€10,000 to produce a visual concept)
The Beer Girl in Yangon - Sein Lyan Tun (Myanmar)
Producer: John Badalu (Indonesia)

Sub-ti Access Award (up to €5,000)
A White House - Francesco Romano (Italy)
Producer: Raffaella Pontarelli

Sub-ti Award (up to €2,000)
Renoir - Chie Hayakawa (Japan)

ScriptLab

Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (€20,000)
The Missing Planet - Marouan Omara (Egypt), Tom Rosenberg (USA)

CNC Award (€8,000)
Sun in Saturn - Ary Zara (Portugal)
Special Mention
All the F**king Crows in the World - Tang Yi (Hong Kong)

ArteKino International Award (€6,000)
Counting Stars with My Father - Lydia Rui (Australia)

IEFTA Award (€3,000)
Watch it Burn - Makbul Mubarak (Indonesia)

EWA Network Female Voices Award (€1,000 + 1 year’s membership)
All the F**king Crows in the World - Tang Yi (Hong Kong)

Other awards

TFL White Mirror Award (€3,000)
Amari - Domien Huyghe, Wendy Huyghe (Belgium)

Green Filming Awards (€4,000 for each project) in collaboration with Trentino Film Commission
A White House - Francesco Romano
Milk Teeth - Mihai Mincan
Lionel - Carlos Saiz (Spain)
Producer: Ana Valls

Post-Production Award (€20,000)
Tale of the Land - Loeloe Hendra (FeatureLab 2017)
Producer: Yulia Evina Bhara (Indonesia)