20/08/2009

Italy, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania and France will be represented this year at the Angers Workshops, whose fifth edition kicks off on Saturday.

Initiated and led by Jeanne Moreau with the support of the organisers of the Premiers Plans Film Festival, the Angers residency will this year host eight promising young directors preparing their debut narrative features. Until August 29, they will receive advice and teaching from experienced professionals.

The selected directors include Romania’s Gabriel Achim (project: Adalbert's Dream), Holland’s Jochem De Vries (Cornea), Italy’s Fabio Mollo (Il Sud è Niente), Hungary’s Denes Nagy (Don't Look Back) and Dutch-French filmmaker Joke Liberge, who lives in Brussels and is working on the project Overnight.

Among the chosen French directors are Naël Marandin with his Belleville-set social thriller Il Nous Reste La Nuit (“We Have the Night Left”), which was a winner at Emergence 2009. Meanwhile, Blandine Lenoir, who previously appeared as an actress in films by Gaspar Noé, Solveig Anspach, Fabienne Godet and Erick Zonca and has won numerous awards for her shorts, is preparing La Cardinale.

Finally, France’s Aymeric Vergnon-d'Alançon is working on Les Anneaux de Saturne (“The Rings of Saturn”), which centres on a young man who earns his living from various types of trafficking in a mountainous valley. He wants to change his life and is asked to steal a painting from an old man’s home.

(Translated from French)