As part of our coverage at the recent Venice Film Festival we made our way over to the Venice Production Bridge which was host to the 13th edition of the Venice Gap-Financing. Essentially a professional tinder match between filmmakers (and their producers) looking to close their international financing, through one-to-one meetings with international decision-makers. We had the chance to speak to Polish filmmaker Damian Kocur for updates on La Manche.
The director, screenwriter and cinematographer whose features include Bread and Salt (2022), which won the Special Jury Prize in Venice’s Orizzonti section, and Under the Volcano (2024), Poland’s Oscar submission, so far, his oeuvres explore racism, social tensions, displacement via ordinary people through a naturalistic, docu-influenced style. As we learned in our conversation, film projects at the incubation stage can evolve considerably over time in response to factors such as the political climate, funding availability, and shifting production plans. La Manche takes place at the Poland-Belarus border and features a young Warsaw resident who receives an offer to work on a foreign film set to be shot in Poland. His task is to find suitable locations and nonprofessional actors, so he embarks on a journey across the country.
Outside the update via the trade news, we kept the spoiler free conversation to what type of visuals he is looking to employ, his approach to casting, and the film’s title selection.
