04/04/2022 - New projects by Bruno Dumont, Joshua Oppenheimer and Ralitza Petrova are among the selection

Director Bruno Dumont, whose project The Empire is selected by Eurimages

The results of the first project evaluation session of 2022 of the Eurimages Fund have been announced. Following recommendations made by independent experts meeting online, the Executive Committee of the Fund has decided to support 23 feature films, including 7 documentaries and one animation, for a total amount of €5.516.000. Projects with female directors represented 34.4% of the eligible projects examined and of the projects supported, 52.2% are to be directed by women. These projects represent 53.3% of the total funding awarded.

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The films supported include the new work by acclaimed French filmmaker Bruno Dumont only one year after his 2021 Cannes entry France [+see also:
film review
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interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile], The Empire [+see also:
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interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile] (France/Germany/Italy/Belgium) (with €450,000); as well as the new films by American-born, Denmark-based British director Joshua Oppenheimer (whose latest effort is the 2014 Venice Grand Jury Prize winner The Look of Silence [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), The End (Denmark/Germany/Ireland) (with €480,000) (read news); Bulgaria's Ralitza Petrova (winner of the 2016 Locarno Golden Leopard for her first film Godless [+see also:
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interview: Ralitza Petrova
film profile]), Lust (Bulgaria/Denmark/Sweden) (with €182,000); Belgian-Canadian duo Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, The Falling Star [+see also:
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interview: Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon
film profile] (Belgium/France) (with €330,000); and Belgian actress-director Yolande Moreau, Even among the Ruins (France/Belgium) (with €400,000).

Other established filmmakers that have received funding for their new projects are Slovenia's Hanna A Slak with Not a Word (Germany/Slovenia/France) (€295 000) and Afghanistan's Roya Sadat with The Forgotten History (Spain/Netherlands/France) (€400,000).

Two second fiction features have also been funded: the new films by France's Vanessa Filho, Consent [+see also:
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film profile] (France/Belgium) (with €340,000), and Iran's Alireza Khatami, Things That You Kill (France/Poland/Canada) (with €105,000).

The supported first fiction features are Ebba (Norway/France/Sweden) by Sweden's Johanna Pyykkö (with €300,000), End of the World (Czech Republic/Slovakia) by Czech Republic's Ivan Zachariáš (with €276,000), Excursion [+see also:
film review
interview: Una Gunjak
film profile] (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia/Norway/Serbia) by Bosnia's Una Gunjak (with €119,000), Human/Animal [+see also:
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film profile] (Spain/Italy/Mexico) by Italy's Alessandro Pugno (with €283,000), Lotus (Latvia/Lithuania) by Latvia's Signe Birkova (with €100,000) and Paradise Is Burning [+see also:
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interview: Mika Gustafson
film profile] (working title: Sisters) (Sweden/Italy/Denmark/Finland) by Sweden's Mika Gustafson (with €370,000)

Regarding the supported documentaries, the titles are Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife [+see also:
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interview: Alexandru Solomon
film profile] (Romania/Luxembourg) by Romania's Alexandru Solomon (with €59,000), Motherland [+see also:
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film profile] (Sweden/Ukraine/Norway) by Ukrainian-Belarusian duo Alexander Mihalkovich-Hanna Badziaka (with €110,000), My Land my Strength by Paulo Carneiro (Portugal/France/Uruguay) (with €49,000), Read my Breasts (Austria/Spain) by Anja Salomonowitz (with €105,000), The Mechanics of Things (France/Germany) by Alessandra Celesia (with €110,000), The Radical Self (Germany/Switzerland) by Johann Feindt (with €123,000) and Toxicily [+see also:
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film profile] (France/Italy) by François-Xavier Destors (with €60,000).

The only animation film backed is Niko - Beyond the Northern Lights (Finland/Germany/Ireland/Denmark) by Jorgen Lerdam and Kari Juusonen (with €470 000).

Lastly, during this meeting, the Executive Committee of Eurimages also decided to grant the Fund’s patronage to the Documentary Association of Europe for the publication of a new financing guide for the documentary sector, which includes a co-production guide.