Zvyagintsev, Escalante and Lehotsky Among Rotterdam’s 27th Cinemart

Wedged between Sundance and Berlin is the extremely important Rotterdam film festival. Rotterdam functions as Europe’s first major film fest of the year, but it seconds as a premiere destination for filmmakers such as Andrei Zvyagintsev (The Return), Amat Escalante (Sangre) and Juraj Lehotsky (Blind Loves) who make the kind of films that need a “helping hand”. This list is of obvious interest because we’ll be talking about this projects-turned-into-films down the road – we only need to look at Venice/TIFF for recent examples such as Samuel Maoz‘s Lebanon and Shirin Neshat‘s Women without Men to see the quality of films that got their start here.

Below is the list of the 37 projects selected for the 27th edition of CineMart, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s film market which receives invites filmmakers and producers to chit-chat the coin business with co-producers, funds, sales agents, distributors, TV stations and other potential financiers. 

Another World” by Alexis Dos Santos, The Bureau (United Kingdom / Germany / Mexico)
Baikonur” by Veit Helmer, Veit Helmer Productions (Germany)
Brand New-U” by Simon Pummell,” Hot Property Films Ltd. (United Kingdom / The Netherlands)
Bulle de soleil” by Bruno Deville, Cab Productions / La Parti Production (Switzerland / Belgium)
By the Time It Gets Dark” by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Electric Eel Films (Thailand)
Diego Star” by Frederick Pelletier, Metafilms inc. (Canada)
The Dunes” by Wang Haolin, Ray Production Ltd. (China)
Elena” by Andrei Zvyagintsev, Non-Stop Productions (Russia)
Erased” by Patrice Toye, BVBA Prime Time / Versus Production (Belgium/ The Netherlands / France)
Feed Me With Your Words” by Martin Turk, Bela Film / Schweizer Brandung (Germany)
Fleurs du Mal” by David Dusa, Sciapode (France)
A Fold of My Blanket” by Zaza Rusadze, Isabella Films / Zazar Film / Georgian Film (Georgia / The Netherlands)
Heli” by Amat Escalante, Mantarraya Producciones (Mexico)
Island” by Jo Eun-Kyung, Generation Blue Films / Fine Cut Co. (South Korea)
Je suis mort mais j’ai des amis” by Guillaume Maladrin & Stephane Maladrin, La Parti Production (Belgium / Canada / France)
Land” by Jan-Willem van Ewijk, Augustus Film (The Netherlands)
Layla Fourie” by Pia Marais, Pandora Filmproduktion GmbH / DV8 Films (Germany / South Africa / The Netherlands)
Leather” by Alexey Balabanov, CTB Company (Russia / Switzerland / Norway / Poland / Germany)
Leones” by Jazmin Lopez, Rizoma Films (Argentina / France)
A Life Half Lived” by Denie Pentecost, Benchmark Films (Australia)
Malmi Murderaz” by Susanna Helke, For Real Productions Oy / Savage Film (Finland / Belgium)
Manpower” by Noam Kaplan, Gum Films (Israel)
Miracle” by Juraj Lehotsky, Artileria / Negativ s.r.o. (Slovakia / Czech Republic)
Mirage” by Szabolcs Hajdu , Katapult Film Kft. / Filmpartners Kft. (Hungary / Sweden)
My Sister Came by Today” by Yan Ting Yuen, Seriousfilm / Kasander Film (The Netherlands / China / Canada / France / Germany / Belgium)
Ola’s Universe” by Coco Schrijber, Talent United BV (The Netherlands)
Postcards From the Zoo” by Edwin, Babibutafilm (Indonesia)
Refresh, Refresh” by James Ponsoldt, Forensic Films / Filmscience (USA)
The Resurrection of a Bastard” by Guido van Driel, IdtV Film B.V. (The Netherlands / Belgium)
El Rumano” by Florin Serban, Strada Film (Romania)
Shell” by Scott Graham, Brocken Spectre (United Kingdom)
Todos Nosotros” by Paz Fabrega, Temporal Films / Les Films du requin (Costa Rica / France)
Wonder When You’ll Miss Me” by Francesco Fei, Acaba Produzioni (Italy)