“Erratics,” featuring Denis Lavant, was awarded at IFFR’s co-production market CineMart. Directed by Thomas Woodroffe it tells the story of a ghost of a filmmaker, Lucien Castelnau, who, after a long time trapped in the glaciers of Patagonia, finally breaks free.
The film – produced by Bloques Erráticos and co-produced by La Belle Affaire Productions and Un Puma – was given the Eurimages New Lab Award – Outreach, and called “multilayered” by jurors Carole Kremer, Tupac Martir and Nelleke Driessen, as it explores “ghosts of the past and their relationship with the modern era, by questioning who is the owner of those memories.”
The Eurimages New Lab Award – Innovation (worth €20,000) went to Robin Coops’ “One Charming Night” for boasting “an innovative approach by bringing in the digital community as collaborators and storytellers and offering audiences a window into worlds they may as of yet be unfamiliar with,” argued the jury. It’s described as “fictional 2D music film, completely filmed in VRChat.”
ArteKino International Award went to “Inbetween Worlds” by Diana Cam Van Nguyen, produced by Karolina Davidova and Jakub Viktorin. It follows Mai, a student caught between her Vietnamese heritage and Czech upbringing.
The Filmmore Post-Production Award was given to Erik Ricco’s “The March of the Sunflowers” – with the new Filmmore Work-in-Progress Post-Production Award (€7,500) claimed by Rati Oneli’s “Wild Dogs Don’t Bite” – and the VIPO Award went to Kamila Andini’s “Four Seasons in Java.”
Uta Beria’s “Tear Gas” won the Outward Gaze Prize (worth €10,000) and inaugural Hubert Bals Fund Empowerment Award (€10,000), with the 4DR Studios Award going to “Strata” and the 4DR Studios Award for best immersive project in Darkroom to Daniel Ernst’s “The Great Orator.”
Talking to Variety ahead of the festival, head of IFFR Pro Marten Rabarts – fresh off his first edition at helm – teased the market finally going “back in full throttle” after post-pandemic editions and projects that are “very conscious that the world is on fire.”
Other CineMart titles included “100 Thousand Turkish Liras” by Nazlı Elif Durlu, “Bye, Bye, Love” by Zaida Carmona, and Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimarães’ “Cape of Pleasures.” Ana Elena Tejera presented “Culebra Cut” and Angela Wanjiku Wamai – “The Soil.” “Eziko” by
Babalwa Baartman and Jenna Cato Bass was also introduced, as well as “Faust” by Jazmín López.
Industry guests also got to enjoy “Marseille” by Yim Brakel, “Meat” by Rioghnach Ni Ghrioghair, “The Price of Gold” by Eugen Jebeleanu and “Sentinel” by Carl Joseph E. Papa.
Una Gunjak – behind “Excursion” – presented “How Melissa Blew a Fuse,” Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, known for “Pamfir,” will now focus on “Something Strange Happened to Me,” while “Strange Root” by Lam Li Shuen and Mark Chua, “Unidentified Actress” by Ashim Ahluwalia and Daniel Mann’s “The Uganda Project” rounded out the selection.
U.S. director Cheryl Dunye, behind “The Watermelon Woman” and now developing “Black Is Blue,” also delivered a Talk at the festival, joined by fellow director Albertina Carri.
“It’s about a Black trans man, Black trans woman and an android. It’s an homage to ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ It starts with two gunshots and a voice, and you have to fund the film to find out what happened! It’s going to be set in the Bay Area, in Oakland, where I live. In the not-too-distant future, which is getting closer and closer every hour. By the time I get back [home] I don’t know where I will be in the world,” she said about the story that explores “why things are the way they are and how do we have hope for our future, as queer people?”
Dunye also opened up about her career. “I started as a baby dyke, as we all did,” she joked about her past as an “anarcho-feminist-separatist.”
“It’s all about politics and my engagement with the world, all about intersectionality. How do I make poetry with my work and how do I make it entertaining?,” she wondered. “The Black lesbian woman is at the bottom of the totem pole of American culture. I had freedom to do anything I wanted. Marginality is my strength.”
The Darkroom strand of the industry event saw presentations of “The Art Patron” by Julia Thelin and “Bayaan” by Bikas Ranjan Mishra. Alexandre Koberidze (behind “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?”) brought “Dry Leaf,” spotlighted alongside “The Ivy” by Ana Cristina Barragán.
“Kaktarua” by Yudhajit Basu and Prithvijoy Ganguly, “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes” by Gabriel Azorín, “The March” by Leo Erken and Frieda Gustavs were also shown, as well as “Sorella di Clausura” by Ivana Mladenovic.
Full list of winners:
Eurimages New Lab Award – Outreach
“Erratics”
Chile, France, Argentina
Eurimages New Lab Award — Innovation
“One Charming Night”
Netherlands
ArteKino International Award
“Inbetween Worlds”
Czech Republic, Slovakia
Filmmore Post-Production Award
“The March of the Sunflowers”
Brazil
Filmmore Work-in-Progress Post-Production Award
“Wild Dogs Don’t Bite”
Georgia, Luxembourg
VIPO Award
“Four Seasons in Java”
Indonesia, Singapore
Outward Gaze Prize
“Tear Gas”
Georgia, France, Germany
Hubert Bals Fund Empowerment Award
“Tear Gas”
4DR Studios Award
“Strata”
Luxembourg
4DR Studios Award for Best Immersive Project in Darkroom
“The Great Orator”
Netherlands
