08/06/2016 - Upcoming opuses by Ian Fitzgibbon and Teona Strugar Mitevska feature among the projects selected for the funding platform, which takes place from 8-10 June

Following on from the huge success of its first two editions, the Paris Coproduction Village funding platform has today opened its doors for three days, under the umbrella of the fifth Champs-Élysées Film Festival’s (running from 7-14 June – read the article) Industry Days. More than 200 participants will come together for the third edition of the event, which has selected 12 projects in development (from the 270 applicants – read the news), four of which have either been initiated by, or involve, European partners.

Featuring amongst the selected projects is Dark Lies the Island by Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon, which is being handled by Grand Pictures. The script for the new opus by the director of Death of a Superhero (unveiled at Toronto in 2011 and winner of the Audience Award at the Les Arcs European Film Festival) adapts Kevin Barry’s short story anthology of the same name. Starting with the discovery of a half-hidden body on a small island in the middle of a lake, the plot then throws us back 24 hours and plunges us into the daily routine of the small neighbouring city, going back and forth between the different characters and their stories: an amnesic foreigner who has just arrived on the estate, a farmer grappling with a complicated love life, two homeless delinquent brothers, the omnipotent town “boss” and a menacing agoraphobe operating out of his cabin in the woods…

Also participating in the meetings is the Macedonian project God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija by Teona Strugar Mitevska, produced by Sisters and Brother Mitevski Production. Best known for her appearances in the Berlinale Panorama in 2008 and 2012 with I Am from Titov Veles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teona Strugar Mitevska
film profile] and The Woman Who Brushed off Her Tears, respectively, the director is currently in post-production with When the Day Had No Name. The screenplay of her new work focuses on a 31-year-old woman who managed to get her hands on a cross that is traditionally thrown into a body of water during a religious festival that takes place every 19 January, the recovery of which is considered blessed. But no one ever expected that the winner would be a woman, and the powers that be pressure Petrunija into renouncing her victory. But she doesn’t see it that way…

The Paris Coproduction Village will also welcome Derya Durmaz’s Turkish project The Bus to Amerika, presented by Mars Production. The script of this feature debut follows the misadventures of a young Yezidi boy who has been driven to a refugee camp in Turkey as a result of the war in Syria and who will have to face his community after accidentally committing sacrilege.

Also of note is the Israeli-German project Golden Voices by Evgeny Ruman, co-produced by Berlin-based outfit Black Forest Film. The screenplay centres on a couple famous for dubbing western films during the Soviet era, who migrated to Israel in 1990.

The Paris Coproduction Village, which has this year dedicated its focus to Colombia, will also offer professionals a chance to invest in six projects being prepared at the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinéfondation Residency. These projects include Portuguese director Nuno Baltazar’s Fronteira, the Italian project Letters from the Land of the Tarahumaras by Frederico Cecchetti and The Users by Serbian filmmaker Ivan Ikic (known for his film Barbarians [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ikic
film profile]).

(Translated from French)