EXCLUSIVE: French producer Catherine Dussart, who co-produced Gurvinder Singh’s The Fourth Direction, has boarded Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Memories And My Mother, which is selected for the Co-Production Market at Film Bazaar this year.

Dussart’s Catherine Dussart Productions (CDP) will co-produce the film with India’s For Films, founded by Sengupta and producers Jonaki Bhattacharya and Vikram Mohinta. She is also looking for German and other co-producers for the Bengali-language project, which has already secured backing from France’s Cinemas Du Monde.

Sengupta previously directed Labour Of Love, which won best debut at Venice in 2014 and played at around 50 other film festivals.

“He is one of India’s most interesting young directors,” said Dussart. “I was stunned by Labour Of Love and loved this project, which deals with the rapid transformation of Kolkata and has underlying socio-political themes.”

Sengupta said he plans to start shooting in Kolkata in July 2016 during the monsoon season and work with non-professional actors: “We want to explore real characters and you rarely see that kind of realism in Indian film.”

German cinematographer Fred Kelemen, a long-time collaborator with Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, is on board Memories And My Mother as DoP.

Dussart also recently co-produced Nepali director Min Bahadur Bham’s The Black Hen, which won the Fedeora award in Critics Week at the Venice Film Festival in 2015.