Projects by directors including Aisling Walsh, Ena Sendijarević, Andreas Fontana and Beatrice Gibson are among the 2024 line-up for CineMart, the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
CineMart has revealed 16 feature film projects and four immersive projects for its upcoming 41st edition, which runs from January 28-31. Cinemart is also presenting six works-in-progress, of which four are features and two immersive, as part of its Darkroom strand.
The project selection includes Lucia from Irish filmmaker Aisling Walsh whose Maudie (2016), starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke, world-premiered in Telluride. The new project centres on the talented but troubled daughter of author James Joyce.
Claes Bang, who starred in Ruben Ostlund’s The Square, is attached to Another Journey Without Women, directed by Illum Jacobi, whose film The Trouble With Nature played at IFFR in 2020. The film about six chain-smoking know-it-alls embarking on a tragi-comedic polar expedition in 1918 Greenland has Greenlandic actor Hans-Henrik Suersaq Poulsen in the lead role, alongside David Dencik and Bang as the famed explorer Knud Rasmussen.
Dutch-based Bosnian filmmaker Ena Sendijarević, whose Sweet Dreams is this year’s Dutch submission for the Oscars, brings The Possessed. In her new project, eccentric director Diana shoots a film about the effects of a witch hunt on the modern female psyche on an isolated island, but nothing goes as planned. Sendijarević is also a member of the Tiger competition jury.
UK director Beatrice Gibson will attend with La Nuit, a UK-France co-production about a woman wandering the streets after an abortion, embarking on a series of quiet encounters. It is Gibson’s first feature length film after shorts such as Two Sisters Who Are Not Sisters which played in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2019 and I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead which was at Toronto in 2018.
Swiss filmmaker Andreas Fontana, whose eerie thriller Azor world premiered in Berlin’s Encounters section in 2021, brings Les Diplomates, which sees two diplomatic counterparts from Austria and Switzerland secretly negotiate the contours of history as the Eastern Bloc disintegrates – fueled by a petty personal grudge.
The Sunflowers Of The Moon is directed by Tunisian filmmaker Ismaël, whose dark thriller Black Medusa, co-directed with Youssef Chebbi, was in the Tiger Competition in 2021. Another returning Tiger filmmaker is Alejandro Telémaco Tarraf (Piedra Sola) who brings Alumbre, about a wounded man’s confrontation with pain and belonging.
CineMart 2024 project selection
Alumbre, dir. Alejandro Tarraf (Sp), prod. Zeitun Films
Another Journey without Women, dir. Illum Jacobi (Den), prod. Adomeit Film
Bad Gays, dir. Loïc Hobi (Switz), prod. Cloud Fog Haze Pictures
Cherub, dir. Barbara Rupik (Pol), prod. Madants
Cloud of the Unknown, dir. Yuan Gao (HK-Fr), prod. Chinese Shadows, Shasha & Co Production
Les Diplomates, dir. Andreas Fontana (Switz-UK), prod. Alina Film
A Distant House Smokes on the Horizon, dir. Shengze Zhu (China-US), prod. Burn The Film
Fathoming, dir. Sara Tirelli (It), prod. dispàrte (Immersive)
The Great Escape (Of Three Geraniums), dir. Joren Vandenbroucke (Bel), prod. Animal Tank (Immersive)
La Gruta Del Viento, dir. Eduardo Crespo (Arg), prod. Pensar con las manos
Hold Time for Me, dir. Fradique (Ang-Ger-Sp), prod. Seera Films, Uika Films, Migranta Films
Lucia, dir. Aisling Walsh (Ire-Lux), prod. EZ Films, JKML, Calach Films
The March, dir. Frieda Gustavs & Leo Erken (Neth- Ukr), prod. NL12 (Immersive)
La Nuit, dir. Beatrice Gibson (UK-Fr), prod. Somesuch, Norte Productions
Other People’s Dreams, dir. Daniel Hui (Sing), prod. Momo Film Co, 13 Little Pictures
The Possessed, dir. Ena Sendijarević (Neth), prod. Aventura
Skarpnabba, dir. Sawandi Groskind (Fin), prod. Kenno Filmi Osk
The Spirit of Law, dir. Natalia Meta (Arg), prod. Picnic Producciones, Rei Cine
The Sunflowers of the Moon, dir. Ismaël (Tunisia), prod. Utopia Films
The World Came Flooding In, dir. Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (Australia), prod. Film Camp (Immersive)
Darkroom works-in-progress selection
Alternates, dir. Jonathan Hagard (Fr-Jap), prod: Floréal (Immersive)
Diamonds in the Sand, dir. Janus Victoria (Jap-Phil), prod. Paperheart
Duchampiana, dir. Lilian Hess (Fr-Ger), prod. Tchikiboum
The Idyll, dir. Aaron Rookus (Neth-Belg-Est), prod. Studio Ruba
Mongrel, dir. Wei Liang Chiang (Fr-Taiwan-Sing), prod. E&W Films
La Vie Devant Nous, dir. Olivier Meys (Bel-Fr-Lux), prod. Michigan Films
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