International jury awards Romanian director Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not $200,000, at least ten other films get development backing

Five international films in development have been awarded production funds at the TorinoFilmLab, which wrapped its 4th edition Tuesday.

The lab, presented during the Turin Film Festival, aims to support emerging world talents by focusing on first and second feature works.

An international jury chaired by Italy’s Alberto Barbera producers selected the following projects for funding:

Touch Me Not, from Romania’s Adina Pintilie, received $200,000 (Euros 150,000);

Underground Fragrance by Pengfei Song, a France/Taiwan/China co production received $187,000 (Euros 140,000);

Mr. Kaplan by Uruguay’s Alvaro Brechner received $133,000 (Euros 100,000). The film also took one of two audience awards of $40,000 (Euros 30,000) voted on by all the industry professionals present;

Beirut I Love You, an Italy/Lebanon co production by Zena el Khalil and Gigi Roccati received $106,000 (euros 80,000). The film also took a $1,300 (euros 1,000) EP2C Post Production Award as well as the remaining audience award for an additional $40,000  (Euros 30,000);

Los Hongos, Oscar Ruiz Navia’s Colombia/France/Mexico co production received $67,000 (Euros 50,000).

Separately – 6 out of 16 projects presented in the lab’s Script and Pitch programme received development awards – those are Rey by Niles Atallah (Chile/USA); War by Simon Jaquemet (Switzerland); Le Vent Des Ombres by Christelle Lheureux (France); Beast by Michael Pierce (UK); Tikkun by Avishai Sivan (Israel); Everything We Always Had Was Now by Martijn Maria Smits (Netherlands/Belgium). Smits’ film also took the $8,000 (Euros 6,000) ARTE International Relations Award from ARTE France Cinema.

Held during the Turin Film Festival, the lab hosted 120 professionals spanning screenwriters, directors, producers and sales agents searching projects in development.

The lab is supported by the Regional government of Piedmont among other Italian entities and receives funds from the EU’s MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus programmes.