EXCLUSIVE: Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s Wild Horse In The Rotten West is one of four projects selected for the first onsite edition of First Cut Lab Paris, the lab run by French development firm Tatino Films.
Each of the four projects will participate in this week’s lab in Paris via a director, producer and editor. The teams will receive tailored feedback aimed at refining the film’s artistic vision, enhancing its international appear, and strengthening its circulation potential.
Mileva and Kazakova’s Wild Horse In The Rotten West follows a mystery boy appearing at a London college, who gets muddled up in his friends’ new concepts; and becomes whistleblower against a Russian oligarch trying to buy the institution.
The film is produced by Mileva and Kazakova for Bulgaria’s Activist38, with co-producers MK38 of the UK, and Lobo Films of France. The director duo’s previous films including 2019’s Cat In The Wall.
Also selected is A Day In The Life Of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, the new feature from Moon, 66 Questions director Jacqueline Lentzou. It follows a melancholic 15-year-old girl having a cosmic dream. The film is produced by Annabelle Aronis and Ioanna Bolomyti, with co-producers Arda Ciltepe, Steffen Goldkamp, and Andrea Queralt, for Greece’s Avion Films and Atalante Productions, Germany’s Kelek Film and France’s 4A4 Productions.
Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili, whose previous films have played at Sundance and Tribeca, participates with Guria, about a local beauty contest taking place against the backdrop of a civil war. The film is produced by Olena Yershova for Georgia’s Kino Iberica, with co-producers Cineworx from Switzerland, Tarantula from Luxembourg, ArtFest from Bulgaria, Staer from Norway and TatoFilm/Asteros from Turkey.
The selection also includes Helen Beltrame Linne’s My Letter To B, a docu-fiction hybrid about a woman’s life on an island through the decades, intertwined with the cinema of Ingmar Bergman. It is produced by Emilie Lesclaux for Brazil’s Cinemascopio, in co-production with Brazil’s OPar.
Industry advisors for the 2026 First Cut Lab Paris include Lucky Number’s Olivier Barbier, Alpha Violet’s Virginie Devesa, mk2’s Emmanuel Pisarra and Pyramide’s Anne-Cecile Rolland.
It is the first physical edition of First Cut Lab Paris, previously run as an online programme that has supported over 300 feature films including Chie Hayakawa’s Cannes Competition title Renoir and Stefan Djordevic’s Sarajevo best film winner Wind, Talk To Me.
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