These days, Turin is looking more polished than usual, and not only for the approach of the Eurovision Song Contest! After marvellous lakes and joyful landscapes in Annecy (France), the participants of Alpi Film Lab - our French/Italian initiative bringing together directors and producers wishing to experience a simulated international co-production - reached town for their second workshop (25-28 April).
They were accompanied by the Head of Studies Francesco Giai Via and by the tutors Giovanni Pompili and Julie Billy, experienced producers from Italy and France with a strong background in international co-productions.
While the first workshop featured - among others - team building activities in order to assemble the groups in the best way, this time the focus has been on one hand on the development of the projects from an economic and financial point of view and on the other, on the artistic writing and the progress of the screenplays; in this stage – together with the tutors – the participants are also supported by the two script consultants of Alpi Film Lab, Chiara Laudani and Anna Ciennik, experts in the story editing process.
Furthermore, on Wednesday 27th April, Turin welcomed the representatives of some of the main institutions supporting Alpi Film Lab that provided the participants with an overview of funds and opportunities for Italian/French co-productions. The three roundtables were be joined by: Sophie Loyrette (CNC - Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée) and Laura Salerno (MiC - Ministero della Cultura. Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo) that presented national and bilateral funds in support of the film industry; Gaetano Maiorino (ANICA, Associazione Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Audiovisive Digitali) and Yoann Ubermulhin (UNIFRANCE) that focused on international distribution; Grégory Faes (ARAC- Auvergne-Rhône-Aples Cinéma), Paolo Manera (Film Commission Torino Piemonte), Roberto Lo Crasto (Genova Liguria Film Commission), Charlotte Le Bos Schneegans (Région Sud) and Alessandra Miletto (Film Commission Vallée d'Aoste) that presented Italian and French regional funds in favor of the local film industry.
Alpi Film Lab is powered by TorinoFilmLab and Annecy Cinéma Italien, promoted by Museo Nazionale del Cinema and Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy and financed by Interreg Italia-Francia ALCOTRA 2014-2020 – European Regional Development Fund.
It’s time to finally have a look at the 8 teams that will work together from now on, and at least until the final presentation in November:
Italian projects (producer & director) with French producers
I FIGLI DELLA SCIMMIA
Andrea Calbucci (Lungta Film - Rome) & Tommaso Landucci
French producer: Clémence Crépin Neel (Moderato - Paris)
Dario, father of a disabled child, forges a stronger bond with his brother's son, discovering that he prefers him to his own.
I GAME YOU
Lorenzo Cioffi (Ladoc - Naples) & Laura Viezzoli
French producer: Alexandre Charlet (Les Films du Cygne - Annecy)
A woman's body, intimacy, image, name, surname, personality and identity are been stolen and raped by a hacker to lure other women. At night while she slept. This it's a true story, in the sense that it's mine.
LA CASA BIANCA
Raffaella Pontarelli (Amarena Film - Naples and Rome) & Francesco Romano
French producer: Giovanni Donfrancesco (Bocalupo Films - Paris)
In the Campania hinterland, a woman hosts an important camorra boss. Their encounter will radically change their lives undermining the woman’s certainties.
GRISUN
Francesca Duca (BabyDoc Film - Turin) & Andrea Parena
French producer: Andrea Queralt (4A4 Productions - Paris)
A failed boxer becomes the bodyguard of an old Moroccan man on a long journey to take an old jeep from Turin to the Sahara desert.
French projects (producer & director) with Italian producers
AMERICAN HEROES
Camille Genaud (Paraiso Production Diffusion - Paris) & Sophie Beaulieu
Italian producer: Ottavia Fragnito (Maremosso - Milan)
Mathieu has never known how to say no, and even less so to his half-brother Fabien, whom he hasn’t seen for years. But when Fabien arrives at the age of 50 and offers to rob the bank where he works, Mathieu is torn between fulfilling a childhood dream and the adult life he has built for himself.
CAPITAINE
Jérôme Nunes (Films de Force Majeure - Marseille) & Romuald Rodrigues Andrade
Italian producer: Manuela Buono (Slingshot Films - Trieste)
After a short-lived taste of the delights of a professional footballer’s life in Italy, young Michael is forced to return to his housing estate in France where the sirens of crime beckon.
PAR DELÀ LES MONTAGNES
Céline Loiseau (TS Productions - Paris) & Manon Ott and Grégory Cohen
Italian producer: Chiara Andrich (Ginko Film - Venice)
On the French-Italian border, near Ventimiglia, two groups of young people meet: exiles who are trying to cross the border to build a better future in the West; and people who no longer believe in a possible future in their old European countries and are trying to invent other forms of life and solidarity there.
UNDERDOG
Nelson Ghrénassia (YUKUNKUN PRODUCTIONS - Paris) & Zoel Aeschbacher
Italian producer: Salvatore Lizzio (Revok - Rome)
Hiwa, an Uber driver and anabolic drug dealer in his spare time, has his life turned upside down by a failed bet. A long weekend of adrenaline-fuelled action begins in the slums of Paris.