EXCLUSIVE: Italy’s TorinoFilmLab (TFL) has selected 10 projects for the 2025 edition of its FeatureLab training programme, for first or second film projects at an advanced development stage.
The 2025 edition comprises 10 fiction projects, selected from 179 applications. Six of the projects are debut features, with four second works.
Scroll down for full list of projects
Among the 10 projects selected this year are The Dog Trainer by Argentinian director Federico Luis, whose debut Simón de la Montaña won the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Critics Week in 2024, and is now collaborating with Chilean producer Fernando Bascuñán.
Also taking part is The Passion Of Angela Simmons by American director Lucy Kerr, winner of Locarno’s Boccalino d’Oro for best director for her 2023 debut Family Portrait, and developed with US producer Megan Pickrell.
Among debut features selected are La Canícula by Dominican filmmaker Rod Llaverías, whose short films have been showcased at Rotterdam, San Sebastián, and Locarno, developed in collaboration with Dominican producer Wendy Espinal; and Lucky Girl by French/Senegalese filmmaker Linda Lô, who has co-written two screenplays with acclaimed director Rebecca Zlotowski, and is accompanied by the French producer Didar Domehri.
In total, FeatureLab will host 22 participants, with an equal gender balance of 11 men and 11 women. Between them, they represent 13 countries: Argentina, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, France, Italy, Norway, Panama, Senegal, Spain, and the United States.
The development programme runs from June until November 2025, and includes two week-long residential workshops – in Oslo (June) and Turin (November) – and one online module in September. It concludes with the TFL Meeting Event, TorinoFilmLab’s co-production market in Turin. Each team will be supported by international experts, led by Violeta Bava and curator Amra Bakšić Čamo.
Among the recent titles supported by FeatureLab are four films selected for Cannes this year: The Caravan by Zuzana Kirchnerová, The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo by Diego Céspedes, and Mama by Or Sinai, alongside Renoir by Chie Hayakawa, which is playing in the main competition. FeatureLab also supported Little Trouble Girls by Urška Djukić and Houses by Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum, which both premiered at the latest Berlinale.
TorinoFilmLab FeatureLab 2025 projects
Synopses provided by TFL
La Canícula (Dom Rep)
Writer/dir: Rod Llaverías
Prod: Wendy Espinal
Prod co: 1981 Cinema Collective
Dolores, in her 50s, a hermit caring for her ailing mother and aunt in a decaying Dominican estate, yearns to escape her isolated life. When a long-lost aunt returns, she stirs up painful memories, forcing Dolores and the elder women to confront their generational traumas in a surreal world haunted by mongrel dogs.
Culebra Cut (Panama)
Writer/dir: Ana Elena Tejera
Prod: Tomás Cortés
Prod co: Mestizio Cinema
In 2000, following a century of American occupation, Panama regained control of the Canal Zone territory. A Panamanian soldier enters the old military bases for the first time. While assigned to clean an artificial lake, he stumbles upon a mysterious woman in the jungle. She is revealed to be the former leader of the Culebra community’s resistance who had once fought against forced displacement. Their encounter sparks a journey of personal transformation, forcing the soldier to confront his own roots.
The Dog Trainer (Arg-Chile)
Writer/dir: Federico Luis
Prod: Fernando Bascuñán
Prod co: Planta
Despite his deformed body, a small, immobile man is the best Belgian Malinois trainer in the country. He lives with his nurse and his twenty dogs trained to kill. The arrival of a young soldier, sent by the National Army, destabilizes the delicate balance of power that kept the house standing.
Inverno (It)
Writer/dir: Matteo Tortone
Prod: Alessandro Carroli
Writer: Zelia Zbogar
Prod co: EIE film
Within a week, the lives of three teenagers intertwine around the burning of a Roma camp. Alessandra is raped, Thomas is accused and Alex has to choose between the truth and bigger interests at play.
Lucky Girl (Fr-Senegal)
Writer/dir: Linda Lô
Prod: Didar Domehri
Prod co: Maneki Films
During a vacation in Bordeaux, Lili, 4, and her brothers, aged 9 and 20, find themselves left to their own devices when their flamboyant mother returns without them to Gabon to run her restaurant- discotheque. Torn between the desire to return to her lost paradise and the duty to take her “chance” while making her mother proud, Lili will grow up, use all the strategies to survive, succeed and find the lights of her native Africa.
Mar De Leva (Col)
Writer/dir: Mariana Saffon
Prod: Franco Lolli
Prod co: Evidencia Films
Elena travels to her childhood beach house in a remote region of Colombia. There, she meets Teo, a 3-year-old boy, who disappears at sea just hours after their meeting. Haunted by the event, Elena returns to the city, forced to face her crippling doubts about becoming a mother.
The Passion Of Angela Simmons (US)
Writer/dir: Lucy Kerr
Prod: Megan Pickrell
Prod co: Conjuring Productions LLC
Amid the rituals of Texas sorority life and debutante season in 2004, a college girl spirals into obsession and a haunting sense of divine purpose after witnessing a traumatic collapse during rush and a near-suffocation at a wrestling match—unraveling her identity as she searches for meaning, or madness, within the pageantry that once defined her.
Three Ages (Sp)
Writer/dir: Jiajie Yu Yan
Prod: César Esteban Alenda
Prod co: Solita Films
Xiaowei, a 7-year-old Chinese boy, arrives at Barcelona in 1992 to reunite with his parents who emigrated to Spain when he was still a baby. Kaiwen, his mother, struggles to create a bond with him, but Xiaowei is unable to correspond. Their difficult relationship will extend throughout his adolescence and adulthood, facing various moments of crisis such as the divorce of his parents and the closure of the family business.
To Leave, To Stay (Cambodia-US)
Writer/dir: Danech San
Prod: Daniel Mattes
Prod co: Anti-Archive
On a Cambodian fishing island, Mera is turning 18. She rejects a marriage arranged by her aunt and instead organises a trip with her close friend Bopha to a remote rocky island to visit a soldier who she met online. Weeks later, Mera vanishes. Bopha’s search begins. As the weeks pass without resolution, Bopha starts to understand the inner secrets and hidden desires of her missing friend, and her own
Woman Walking (Den-Nor)
Writer/dir: Kerren Lumer- Klabbers
Writer: Emil Wahl
Prod: Ingvil Sæther Berger
Prod co: Motlys as
When his wife suddenly begins to wander endlessly and unresponsive around a meadow on their farm, Sigurd is thrown into an absurd and heartbreaking struggle to bring her back – while his nine-year-old daughter slowly slips away from him, and the truth about their family threatens to tear them apart.
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