28/11/2011

It kicked off with the touching story of two friends in post-war Beirut (Beirut, I love you, directed by Italy’s Gigi Roccati and produced by Marta Donzelli for Vivo Film, who already produced Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le quattro volte [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michelangelo Frammartino
interview: Savina Neirotti
film profile]) and ended with the surreal journey to South America of a seventy-year-old Jewish man on the hunt for an ex-Nazi suspect (Mr. Kaplan, produced by Uruguay and Spain, co-produced by Germany and directed by the explosive Alvaro Brechner, author of Mal día para pescar). The first day of the TorinoFilmLab Meeting Event (November 27-28), dedicated to the presentation, through pitches, of the 11 projects selected in the FrameWork programme of the Turin workshop taking place during the 29th Turin Film Festival, was a triumph of stories, colours and faces from all over the world.

This year there are a total of thirteen representing countries in this section reserved for first or second works in phase of development that are looking for funding and co-producers. Confirming the increasingly stronger international vocation of this important powerhouse of young talent: "This year the projects are all of a very high level", states Alberto Barbera, President of the Advisory Board and of TFL’s international jury, "in the last years perhaps there was greater non-homogeneity. Having reached the fourth edition, I can say that the outcome is exciting, beyond any expectation. The TorinoFilmLab has become a reference point and a model for similar experiences, and this comes from our partners".

The first day of the Meeting Event also saw the presentation of the selection from the Pixel Lab, the workshop dedicated to the development and co-production of transmedia works: three projects from Malta, Sweden and France, plus a Special Guest from the UK (Heather Leach with Dancing with Hugo Boss), works which seamlessly interweave fiction, animation, video games, social networks, web series and iPhone application. Among these, Tomorrow Never Knows by France’s Emmanuel Dumont, about the birth of Romeo, the first domestic robot with an accessible price.

TFL’s second day, on the other hand, is dedicated to Script&Pitch. And it is to this programme, which presents 16 projects in writing phase – almost all of them European – that a novelty is linked this year: the ARTE International Relations Award of 6,000 Euros for developing one of these projects, which will be added to the Development Awards, the Production Awards (from 50 to 200 thousand Euros) and to the Audience Award (30 thousand Euros), which is awarded by the experts attending the Lab.

(Translated from Italian)