Cannes’ L’Atelier 2012: Marco van Geffen and Mahmoud Al Massad Among 15 Selected

In the seven previous editions (with 2007 being the best crop of films with noteworthy titles such as Bertrand Bonello’s De La Guerre, Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte, Semih Kaplanoglu’s Milk, Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Journey, João Pedro Rodrigues’ To Die Like A Man and So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain), L’Atelier has been a pivotal stop for new auteurs in world cinema finding some coin. And while this doesn’t carry the same weight as Rotterdam, so far the ratio is 72 for 115. Among the 15 projects selected this year we find find the likes of Dutch helmer Marco van Geffen (pictured) who gave us last year’s Au Pair mystery Among Us (Locarno, TIFF), docu helmer Mahmoud Al Massad (Sundance’s Recycle) and a foursome of filmmakers (Pengfei Song, Mai Masri, Pablo Lamar and Adina Pintilie) who’ve workshopped their nascent projects at the well-regarded Torino Film Labs. Here’s the list below:

Odysseys – Malek Bensmaïl (Algeria)
To Kill A Man – Alejandro Almendras (Chile)
Du, Zooey and Ma – Robin Weng (China)
Underground Fragrance – Pengfei Song (China)
Des Etoiles – Dyana Gaye (France/Senegal)
The Untold Tale – Shivajee Chandrabhushan (India)
Run – Philippe Lacôte (Ivory Coast)
Blessed Benefits – Mahmoud Al Massad (Jordan)
In Your Name – Marco van Geffen (Netherlands)
3000 Nights – Mai Masri (Palestine)
The Last Land – Pablo Lamar (Paraguay)
The Dog Show – Ralston Jover (Philippines)
Tristes Monroes – Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt (France/Portugal)
Touch Me Not – Adina Pintilie (Romania)
Cannibal – Manuel Martín Cuenca (Spain)