27/09/2012 - The filmmaker, whose talent was first revealed in Venice in 2006, is to centre his second feature on a beekeeper fighting for the protection of the environment

"If bees disappeared from the surface of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live." This Albert Einstein quote has caught the attention of promising Hungarian film director Gyula Nemes.

After making his debut at the Critics' Week in Venice in 2006 with his first feature My One and Onlies and winning Best Documentary in Karlovy Vary in 2008 for Lost World, this December the director is to start shooting Zero, his second fiction feature to be co-produced with Germany and the Czech Republic.

Written by Tamas Beregi and Gyula Nemes, the screenplay is centred on a young man in his thirties who turns his life around by becoming a forest beekeeper after having managed an artificial honey factory. But his bees are chased away and killed by the proximity of mobile telephone relay antennas. He launches a campaign to protect the environment, in which his actions become increasingly radical and publicised. But even this struggle could become a type of component of the establishment...

Produced by the director for Playtime, Zero [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is to be co-produced by the Germans from 42 Film (Eike Goreczka), the Czechs from Endorfilm (Jiri Konecny), and the Hungarians from Katapultfilm (Ivan Angelusz). The film's supporters so far include the National Film Fund (Hungary), the Czech Motion Film Fund, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, and the MEDIA Programme. Shooting is set to span December to May in Hungary and Burkina Faso.

(Translated from French)