Placido, Brosens & Woodworth, Robelin, Rohrwacher, Kári and Hadzihalilovic head to Les Arcs co-production village.

Upcoming productions from Italian director Michele Placido, husband and wife team Peter Brosens and Jessica Worthworth, and Icelandic Dagur Kári are among the 26 projects due to be presented at the Les Arcs co-production village this year.

The co-production market will run from Dec 15-18 within the framework of the fourth edition of the Les Arcs Film Festival set in the French Pyrenees Mountains (Dec 15-22).

“We received close to 150 European co-production projects against 80 in 2011 – a sign of the event’s growing stature in the industry, which we are delighted about, but it also made for a difficult and long selection process,” said Les Arcs CEO Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin.

The market will present 26 projects, against 22 last year, as well as 10 projects from recent film school graduates from across Europe.

The average budget of the projects being presented this year is €2.5m, said Vanja Kaludjercic, head of professional events at Les Arcs.

“We’ve got a good mix of projects from directors with a festival track record such as Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Alice Rohrwacher, Dagur Kári, Hagar Ben Asher and Kamen Kalev.

“These sit alongside more mainstream productions from the likes of Michele Placido and Stéphane Robelin as well as films from young directors including Konstantin Bojanov, Zvonimir Juric and Olmo Omerzu,” she said.

Placido will present The Choice about a childless couple unable to conceive a child together. When the wife falls pregnant as a result of a rape, they face a tough decision. Italian Placido will shoot the film in French in the city of Lyon.

Other established directors with projects at the village include Robelin with Flora 63, about 70-year-old Lucien who starts looking for love on the Internet after a young friend gives him a lesson on how to surf the net. The film follows Robelin’s All Together (Et si on vivait tous ensemble?) starring Jane Fonda, Geraldine Chaplin and Guy Bedos as a group of pensioners who move in together.

Icelandic Kári is bringing Rocketman about a late bloomer who still lives at home with his mother but is forced to grow-up quickly after a bubbly young woman enters his life.

Brosens and Woodworth will unveil their fantastical 2014-set Kebab Royal about a Belgian king trying to get back to Belgium via the Balkans after his country’s Flemish community declares independence.

Hadzihalilovic will continue financing on her project Evolution, about a group of young boys living on an isolated island where they are guinea pigs for a sinister research programme attempting to reverse evolution.

First and second-time directors bringing projects to the event include Slovenian-born, Czech Republic-based Olmo Omerzu, who premiered his debut film A Night Too Young in the Berlinale Forum this year, with Family Film.

Croatian filmmaker Zvonimir Juric, whose debut feature The Blacks co-directed with Goran Devic was his country’s Foreign Language Oscar submission last year, will unveil his first solo feature The Reaper,  revolving around the complex character of convicted rapist Ivo.

Rising horror film directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo will unveil Among The Living about three teenagers who live through a terrifying night after they stumble upon an abandoned fairground while out on walk. SND are handling international sales.

This year’s selection also includes the second transmedia project to be presented at the village: Sexperience, revolving around 45-year-old Parisian Marianne’s wild, 24-hour hen party across Paris.

Besides the co-production market, other industry events include D.I.R.E. days (Dec 19-22) at which the 13 members of the distribution group will present their line-ups for 2013.

Roundtables will include an exchange between distributors and exhibitors  on the digitisation of French cinemas.

The popular Works-in-Progress selection, which last year included Balthasar Kormakur’s The Deep, will be revealed at a later date.

Projects at the co-production village

  • A Blast, dir Syllas Tzoumerkas, produced by Pan Entertainment - Greece
  • All Panthers are Pink, dir no director, produced by Unafilms – Germany, Serbia  
  • Among the Living, dirs Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, produced by Metaluna Productions – France. International sales : SND
  • Blinded by the Sun, dir Konstantin Bojanov, produced by Kinoelektron - France
  • Butterflies, dir Tolga Karaçelik, produced by Bulut Films -Turkey
  • Docteur Kaas Prophecy, dir Olivier Ringer, produced by Ringprod – Belgium
  • Evolution, dir Lucile Hadzihalilovic, produced by Les films du Worso – France. 
  • Face Down, dir Kamen Kalev, produced by Waterfront films – Bulgaria, France
  • Family Film, dir Olmo Omerzu, produced by Endorfilms – Czech Republic.
  • Flora 63, dir Stéphane Robelin, produced by Les films d’ici et là – France
  • Gold Mine, dir Ben Russell, produced by Kinoelektron – France  
  • Kebab Royal, dirs Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, produced by Unlimited - France
  • Kessels, dir Jan Eilander, produced by CTMLev – the Netherlands
  • Kids from the Port, dir Alberto Morais, produced by Olivo films - Spain
  • Light Years,  dir Esther May Campbell, produced by Third Films - UK
  • Paradise Trips, dir Raf Reyntiens, produced by Caviar Films – Belgium
  • Pilgrimage, dir Jamie Hannigan, produced by SPFilms - Ireland
  • Rabbits, dir Olivier Tollet and Jean-Julien Collette, produced by Helicotronc – Belgium
  • Rocketman, dir Dagur Kári, produced by Blueeyes Films – Iceland. 
  • Sexperience, collective transmedia project, produced by Sacrebleu Productions – France
  • The Benefit of the Doubt, dir Samuel Tilman, produced by Eklektic Productions – Belgium
  • The Choice , dir Michele Placido (Italy), produced by Nolita Cinema - France
  • The Charlatan, dir Giovanni Spotiello, produced by 1.85 - France
  • The Reaper, dir Zvonimir Juric, produced by Kinorama - Croatia
  • The Wonders, dir Alice Rohrwacher, produced by Tempesta films - Italy
  • Yaeli, dir Hagar Ben Asher, produced by  Rohfilm – Germany, France 

For more information: http://lesarcs-filmfest.com/2012/evenements-pro/accreditation-pro.html