28/08/2019 - The popular professional event will be expanded to unspool over one full day, on Monday 16 December; projects with no sales agent attached will rub shoulders with films that are already represented

The artistic director of the Les Arcs Film Festival, Frédéric Boyer

For its ninth edition, Les Arcs' Work in Progress section is freshening up its image. In a market that is less and less predictable, the main goal of the industry team is to keep homing in on new talents. That said, the WIP team headed up by Frédéric Boyer (the artistic director of the festival, who launched and curates the Work in Progress section) felt the need to also showcase more established directors - mostly those who have a history with Work in Progress. That is why at the last edition, in addition to the competitive section, several scenes from eagerly awaited films by renowned helmers (Grímur Hákonarson, Gust Van den Berghe) were screened with sales agents already attached. Forever pushing boundaries, the team wants to continue this journey by enlarging the selection of films screened and showing the very first images of films in search of their festival premieres.

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The whole event and its schedule are set to be reshaped in order to allow sales agents and other industry guests to benefit fully and in a more relaxed way from all of the industry sections of the festival. The traditional Sunday morning (and rather packed) screening will turn into a one-day event to be held on Monday. Thus, sales agents will be able to meet project representatives at the Coproduction Village on Sunday, and attend one-to-one WIP meetings on Tuesday morning.

In addition to the Eurimages Lab Project Award and the Titrafilm Award, for the first time, the 2019 Work in Progress section will also be enriched by the presence of the Alphapanda Audience Engagement Award, which aims to help develop the awarded film’s digital campaign on social media.

Last year, Les Arcs Work in Progress showcased System Crasher [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nora Fingscheidt
film profile] by Nora Fingscheidt – a Silver Bear winner at Berlin and the 2020 Oscar entry for Germany – and And Then We Danced [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Levan Akin
interview: Levan Gelbakhiani
film profile] by Levan Akin, which premiered in the 2019 Directors' Fortnight.

The 2019 screening will take place at Les Arcs on Monday 16 December. Submissions are now open until 16 October.

(Translated from French)