Family ties, time and memory run deep across the 16 works in progress selected for Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, a major new talent platform for the region Tribeca-winning helmer Darko Lungulov, behind Serbia’s Oscar candidate “Here and There,” and Lithuania’s Ernestas Jankauskas (“Troll Farm,” “I Am Fine, Thanks,” “Sasha Was Here”) are among a handful of seasoned filmmakers set to pitch their works in progress at Tallinn’s Baltic Event industry showcase Nov. 19, next to a swathe of exciting new voices.Those take in Bafta-nominated Welsh helmer Josh Trigg, Naomi Kawase’s protégé, coming to Tallinn with the Japanese language “Leopard Spots,” and Basque newcomer Marina Palacio with “And Thus It Will Go On” produced by Gariza Films (“Sisters,” “20,000 Species of Bees”). Meanwhile Lithuanian talent to watch and American Film Institute graduate Saulius Baradinskas, Golden Lion candidate in Venice for his short “Techno Mama,” will pitch his feature debut “Concrete Music,” a crime drama and musical set in 1990s post-Soviet Lithuania.Split across the Baltic Event Works in Progress, International Works in Progress and Just Film Works in Progress for kids and youth, this year’s rich works in progress lineup takes in 16 projects in production or post-production, selected from more than 100 submissions from all around the world.“The final selection is a great blend of different genres from psychological dramas to dark comedies and satiric self-reflections,” said works in progress co-managers Kärt Väinola and Helen Räim, who received a slew of entries from Southeast, Central Europe, Latin America and Spain. One Basque project “And So It Will Go On,” made it into the International Works in Progress, a nice addition said the co-honchos as the Basque region is spotlighted at Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival.Turning on overarching themes, Väinola and Räim said “the theme of family and especially the bond between parent and child runs through the whole selection, as a source of both fear and freedom.” They also pointed at mortality and loss, “treated with rare lightness in several films,” notably in the dark comedies “A Midnight Pilgrimage,” “Marry Then Die,” “Burlaks” and “The Elderly Store,” or in the drama with fantasy elements “The Reef.” “Time and memory also appear as important central subjects in “And So It Will Go On,” and “Luci Looped in Limbo,” they observed.
For the first time, all 16 works in progress will be pitched the same day — Thursday Nov. 19 — in the morning and early afternoon to leave the filmmakers more time to discuss, mingle and create new partnerships before the Baltic Event closing ceremony Nov. 20. Won “most promising project” at Tallinn-Baltic Event Script Pool 2022.Hybrid pic shot over several years in which a child, Germán, lives isolate in a village, surrounded by adults and elderly people. Once reunited with his old friends in the endless fields, play becomes his way of discovering and understanding life.
Following “Satu-Year of the Rabbit”’s top accolade at the Nara Int’l Film Festival, prominent Japanese helmer Naomi Kawase and Nara founder invited Trigg to direct “Leopard Spots” in Japan. Shot in 16mm in a small factory town in Nara, the pic “combines British social-realist sensibility with contemplative Japanese cinema,” says Toby Cameron who produces with Aiko Flores Yoshioka, Ruth Yoshie Linton. The story turns on single mother Lilly who grapples to keep her daughter close in a bitter-sweet tale of failed redemption.
Produced by Yoel Servadio for Hiersoir Films, in co-production with 84 Films.Luci, a physicist obsessed with changing the past, must learn to accept the present. This is a pic “rooted in a deeply personal story that explores universal themes of love, loss and acceptance, with the ambition of resonating with a broad international audience,” says Servadio. Rather than using time travel and sci-fi as a spectacle, the film explores our desire to hold on to what inevitably changes, combining a high-concept premise with emotional depth and a distinctive multicultural identity.” “Požari” (“Fires,” Nina Tratnik, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia) Debut feature.
As wildfires close in on Podgorica, Ana (18) has to take care of her dying grandmother, secretly recording her parents on her phone, and uncovering the desires and long-buried tensions tearing her family apart. Produced by Code Blue production with Era Film, Cinnamon-CinneRent, Radio & Television Montenegro. Sine feels trapped by motherhood due to her demanding daughter, Ida.
When Ida suddenly disappears, Sine’s world is shattered, yet her lost freedom, old friends, and acting career unexpectedly return. Everything she ever wanted comes within reach, as long as Ida doesn’t return.
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