MICHA WALD
Project: Simon Konianski
Scrs: Micha Wald, Agnes Caffin
Estimated budget: $4.1m (Eu3m)
Funds in place: $1.4m (Eu1m)
For his first feature, Horse Thieves, Belgian director Micha Wald immersed himself in the violent world of the Cossacks in 1850s Eastern Europe. The film screened at Critics' Week in Cannes earlier this year.
For his second project, Wald is turning to a subject closer to home, inspired by father and grandfathers and the inevitable conflict between generations.
It is the story of young man called Simon Konianski who moves back in with his father when he breaks up with his girlfriend, the mother of his son.
The situation become unbearable due to Simon's obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his father's fixation on the Nazi death camps. To make matters worse, other family members are intent on finding Simon a wife.
'I want this film to be a bittersweet comedy that makes people laugh but whose story is tinged with sadness and tenderness,' says Wald of the project, which is being produced by Belgium's Versus Productions.
'I want us to grow fond of Simon, laugh at his misfortunes but, nonetheless, to understand him and be touched by his need for love.'
Simon Konianski is a natural extension of Wald's award-winning short film, Alice Et Moi, which looked at the problems between mothers and daughters.
'I have a great many things to say about my family, its generational conflicts and the suffering resulting from deportation and the trauma of the Nazi death camps.'
What Wald wants to explore in Simon Konianksi is how difficult it is for the third generation of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, to understand the older generation and vice versa.
Project: Simon Konianski
Scrs: Micha Wald, Agnes Caffin
Estimated budget: $4.1m (Eu3m)
Funds in place: $1.4m (Eu1m)
For his first feature, Horse Thieves, Belgian director Micha Wald immersed himself in the violent world of the Cossacks in 1850s Eastern Europe. The film screened at Critics' Week in Cannes earlier this year.
For his second project, Wald is turning to a subject closer to home, inspired by father and grandfathers and the inevitable conflict between generations.
It is the story of young man called Simon Konianski who moves back in with his father when he breaks up with his girlfriend, the mother of his son.
The situation become unbearable due to Simon's obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his father's fixation on the Nazi death camps. To make matters worse, other family members are intent on finding Simon a wife.
'I want this film to be a bittersweet comedy that makes people laugh but whose story is tinged with sadness and tenderness,' says Wald of the project, which is being produced by Belgium's Versus Productions.
'I want us to grow fond of Simon, laugh at his misfortunes but, nonetheless, to understand him and be touched by his need for love.'
Simon Konianski is a natural extension of Wald's award-winning short film, Alice Et Moi, which looked at the problems between mothers and daughters.
'I have a great many things to say about my family, its generational conflicts and the suffering resulting from deportation and the trauma of the Nazi death camps.'
What Wald wants to explore in Simon Konianksi is how difficult it is for the third generation of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, to understand the older generation and vice versa.
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