27/07/2009

International co-production Foxes [+see also:
film review
film profile] will compete in the International Critics’ Week (SIC) selection at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.

Slovak director Mira Fornay also wrote the script. The film portrays two young Slovak women living in Dublin. Au pair Alzbeta (Reka Derzsi) leaves her employer and rejects the help offered by her sister, Tina (Rita Banczi), and Tina's Irish fiance. Alzbeta cannot return to Slovakia because of a dark secret the two sisters share.

The title refers to the foxes which inhabit urban areas of Dublin and serves as a metaphor for out-of-place people like Alzbeta and Tina. “They're between two worlds,” Fornay says. “People who leave their homes for economic or political reasons fall between two chairs, as it were. We call them 'gap people' — people in the breaches, who are at home there and nowhere.”

The film was shot on live locations in Dublin, with actors performing in English and in Slovak. DOP Tomas Sysel's hand-held work with the Red One digital camera adds to the urgency of the story.

Foxes found a champion early on when Simon Perry offered to help secure financing from the Irish side. The film is produced by Samson Films, Cineart TV Prague and Miras, with the support of the Irish Film Board, the Slovak Ministry of Culture, Eurimages, and the Czech state film fund. I/O Post and Česká Televize (Czech Television) serve as co-producers. Executive producers are Viktor Schwarz (Wild Bees) of Cineart and David Collins (Once [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

Fornay graduated from Prague's FAMU film academy in 1997 and continued her studies at the National Film and Television School in the UK. Her short films have won awards at Cottbus, Art Film in Trencianske Teplice, and FAMU-fest in Prague.

Bonton Film will release Foxes in the Czech Republic on Sept 17. Film Europe is handling international sales.