18/03/2022 - Dubbed an immediate “want to see”, the project by Torfinn Iversen was given the €2,500 Pitch Award, with Uganda’s Paparazzi granted a Special Honorary Mention

Uncle Egg – Searching for Dad producer Julia Andersen and director Torfinn Iversen at m:brane 2022 (© Sebastian Claesson)

As two fully loaded days of peppy and passionate pitching sessions for 25 refreshingly diverse projects came to an end at the 16^th edition of the m:brane film financing forum in Malmö, Sweden, the annual tradition of rewarding the best pitching presentation was executed by a discerning jury. The 2022 winner of the €2,500 prize was Uncle Egg – Searching for Dad, written and directed by Torfinn Iversen, and set to be produced by Julia Andersen for Fjordic Films, Norway. Enriched by the personal experiences of Iversen himself, the story deals with a young boy in search of his as-yet-unmet biological father, a German fellow by the name of Jörg Müller – a name, it turns out, that about 25,000 German males answer to. Together with his mildly eccentric uncle, our young hero now takes off on a summer adventure of an increasingly curious kind. Cuckoo birds and their eggs play a central part, as does an artificial thumb, in this road-movie story that moves from the Arctic Circle down to the German Black Forest and beyond. “During a clear, funny, personal pitch, the creators were convincing, and the pitch created a ‘want to see’ feeling,” read the jury motivation. The project plans to shoot in 2023, and its release is set for 2024, possibly at Berlin, where Iversen’s debut feature, Oskar’s America [+see also:
trailer
interview: Torfinn Iversen
film profile], played in 2017. The prize is presented in collaboration with Creative Europe - MEDIA, and the project team partook in 15 meetings during the forum, with a few more scheduled for the coming days.

The m:brane pitch jury consisted of Swedish producers Peter Hiltunen and Margarete Jangård; Danckert Monrad-Krohn, head of the Kristiansand Children's Film Festival, Norway; and journalist Aleksandar Pašalić, Serbia. The jurors also gave a Special Honorary Mention to the Ugandan project Paparazzi, a David-and-Goliath story of two orphaned siblings on a quest to expose a cold-hearted, land-grabbing businessman. “This was a brave, heartbreaking pitch where the creators take huge risks to tell a universal story for the whole world,” read the motivation.

But the prizes didn't stop there. The forum also awarded its EAVE Marketing Workshop Scholarship to producer Maria Stevnbak Westergren, from Toolbox in Copenhagen, while the Kids Kino Industry Exchange Award went to the Norwegian film Stairway to Heaven, pitched this year at m:brane by directors Martha Antonette Solli and Rune Saeterstoel, and producer Arild Halvorsen, of Fabelaktiv AS.

As the 16^th edition of the forum came to a satisfactory end, a handsome number of 370 meetings had been held in Malmö and online. Forum head Lennart Ström, his partner in operations Annette Brejner, their team and the delegates can thus look back on an invigorating week. “The last three years have been the ‘first time’ for a lot of reasons,” remarked Ström. “2020 was a re-arrangement to cater for Zoom interaction when COVID-19 struck us four days before opening, 2021 was a full virtual forum, and now, 2022 was a hybrid version. I’m quite happy that we managed them all. We have a super team and super delegates at m:brane,” says Ström, who is already looking forward to the 17th edition. “We have a lot of good ideas on how to continue to be a major international platform for content aimed at young humans, and we’re ready, willing and able to roll for the next one. In fact, we’re starting right now, with an exquisite little rest…”

The 2023 m:brane dates are already set for 14-16 March.