09/05/2014 - Two Danish, two Finnish and four directors from Argentina, Zambia, France and Kyrgyzstan are heading to the Directors’ Fortnight with fresh shorts

Four 15-minute shorts developed online and at a three-day script workshop in Helsinki, and filmed in Copenhagen from 4-14 March by two Danish, two Finnish and four directors from Argentina, Zambia, France and Kyrgyzstan, constitute the complete production of the Nordic Factory, which will open the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Festival on 15 May.

The programme of the festival’s Residency, Workshop and Film Production Concept, which was instigated last year with the Taipei Film Commission and will cover a new territory in 2015, has been staged by Valeria Richter, of Denmark’s Pebble, Helene Granqvist, of Sweden’s DoDream, and Dominique Welinski, of France’s DW, while Danish producer Nynne Selin Eidnes, of First Lady Film, handled the actual production in Copenhagen.

Finnish director Selma Vilhunen, whose Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? (2012) was nominated for an Oscar, has teamed up with French director Guillaume Mainguet for The Girl and the Dogs, which follows three teenagers on their way to a party, when a strange discovery on the beach changes the nature of their friendship.

Danish director Milad Alami has collaborated with Aygul Bakanova (Kyrgyzstan) on Void, set on a night ferry between Copenhagen and Bornholm, where 50-year-old Daniel (played by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen) starts a conversation with Amir – but Daniel is not just after small talk from the handsome guy.

Listen, by Finnish director Hamy Ramezan – whose Keys of Heaven won four prizes at this year’s Tampere Short Film Festival – and Zambian director Rungano Nyoni, takes us inside a Copenhagen police station, where a woman wearing a burqa and accompanied by her young son wants to file a complaint. However, the interpreter seems unwilling to interpret.

After 15 shorts, Danish director Kræsten Kusk has joined forces with Argentinian director Natalia Garagiola for Sundays, with Danish actors Signe Egholm Olsen and Stig Hoffmeyer in the lead roles. Like she does every Sunday, a young woman is picking up her father at the nursing home, but this Sunday turns out to be different.