TFL Selections & Awards
4 international co-productions awarded with the TFL Audience Design Fund
July 17, 2018
We have the pleasure to unveil the new winners of the TFL Audience Design Fund, which grants financial support as well as Audience Design consultations with TFL experts to international co-productions between Europe and the rest of the world. Namely, each film project will be awarded with € 40.000 and will be offered tailor-made advice for the implementation of innovative promotion and distribution strategies. The TFL Audience Design Fund is made possible by the Creative Europe – MEDIA sub-programme support to International Co-production Funds.
As anticipated last week, we are delighted to back A LAND IMAGINED by Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua, which will be part of the 71st Locarno Festival’s Competition. A co-production between Akanga Film Asia (Singapore), Films de Force Majeure (France) and Volya Films (Netherlands), it tells the story of a migrant worker from China who goes missing at a Singapore land reclamation site after suffering from insomnia: the trail leads the police to discover more than just history buried under all that sand.
Furthermore, we are thrilled to announce the selection of 3 other titles: MADE IN BANGLADESH by Hossain Rubaiyat, TEL AVIV ON FIRE by Sameh Zoabi, and THE PLAY by Alejandro Fernandez Almendras. Let’s have a closer look at these projects!
Produced by Les Films de L’Après-Midi (France) with Khona Talkies (Bangladesh), Beofilm (Denmark) and Midas Filmes (Portugal), MADE IN BANGLADESH is the third feature film for its director, Hossain Rubaiyat, one of Bangladesh’s handful of female filmmakers; Pyramide International handles the World Sales. After a young pregnant factory worker, Moyna, dies in a fire accident at a ready-made garment factory in Dhaka, her friend, Shimu joins the workers’ union to fight for Moyna’s cause.
In Sameh Zoabi’s political comedy TEL AVIV ON FIRE, Salam is 30 and he is still an intern on the Palestinian soap opera Tel Aviv on Fire. But he is going to become one of the writers of the show when he meets Assi, the Israeli chief of the checkpoint he crosses every day... The Palestinian director’s second feature, in the final stages of post-production, is co-produced by Samsa Film (Luxembourg), Lama Films (Israel), TS Productions (France), and Artémis Productions (Belgium). The World Sales are handled by Indie Sales.
THE PLAY marks the fifth feature of prolific Chilean director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras, whose previous works have been shown and awarded among others at the Cannes Critics’ Week, San Sebastián Film Festival, Sundance and Berlinale. After years of presenting undemanding and crowd-pleasing plays, a young director of a theatre in a small town in the Czech Republic decides to realize a more personal and ambitious project: things start going horribly wrong. A co-production between Arizona Films (France), Film & Roll (Czech Republic) and Jirafa (Chile), the movie, currently in post-production, is supported by the Jeonju Film Festival’s Jeonju Cinema Project (South Korea).