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Teona Strugar Mitevska, Sofia Exarchou, Hanna Sköld, Marian Crisan, Pavle Vučković, Moin Hussain, Emin Alper, and duo Esther Rots and Dan Geesin are representing Europe. Fifteen feature-film projects (and 16 filmmakers) hailing from 15 countries have been selected for the 16th edition of the Cinéfondation Atelier, which will take place as an integral part of the 73rd Cannes Film Festival (12-23 May), preparations for which are still in full swing, although all eyes are obviously on any new developments in the coronavirus epidemic.This year, Europe will be very well represented, with eight projects. The most prominent of them is The Happiest Man in the World by North Macedonia’s Teona Strugar Mitevska, whose latest opus, God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya, was unveiled in competition at Berlin in 2019 before scooping the European Parliament’s Lux Prize. As a reminder, the three previous films by the director were presented in the Panorama.

Screen UK Star Of Tomorrow Moin Hussain will present his project Birchanger Green.

Screen Star of Tomorrow Moin Hussain, Egypt’s Mohamed Siam, North Macedonia’s Teona Strugar Mitevska and UK-Yemini filmmaker Sara Ishaq are among the 16 directors who will present projects at the 16th edition of the Atelier co-production meeting in May.

The initiative, run by Cannes Cinefondation, will take place within the framework of the Cannes Film Festival, from May 14-21.

A total of 15 projects from 15 countries will attend this year.

Hussain will present his debut feature project Birchanger Green, about a directionless man in his thirties who...

Screen UK Star Of Tomorrow Moin Hussain will present his project Birchanger Green.

Screen Star of Tomorrow Moin Hussain, Egypt’s Mohamed Siam, North Macedonia’s Teona Strugar Mitevska and UK-Yemini filmmaker Sara Ishaq are among the 16 directors who will present projects at the 16th edition of the Atelier co-production meeting in May.

The initiative, run by Cannes Cinefondation, will take place within the framework of the Cannes Film Festival, from May 14-21.

A total of 15 projects from 15 countries will attend this year.

Hussain will present his debut feature project Birchanger Green, about a directionless man in his thirties who...

Films include Queen Of Hearts, Only You and When Tomatoes Met Wagner

Danish filmmaker May el-Toukhy’s Sundance hit and local box office sensation Queen Of Hearts, is one of 10 features by European female directors selected to screen as part of the fourth edition of Europe! Voices of Women in Film at the Sydney Film Festival (Sff) in June.

Trine Dyrholm stars in the film about a happily married woman who falls in love with her teenage stepson. Dyrholm also features in the zombie film Endzeit-Ever After by Swedish-born, Berlin-based Carolina Hellsgard which is also screening at Sff as part of the programme.

The TorinoFilmLab and Series Mania have announced the nine projects participating in this year’s SeriesLab, an intensive mentorship program that culminates March 26 in Lille when participants will present their projects to an industry audience at the Series Mania Forum.

A joint venture conceived to address the challenge of developing screenwriting talent in the European TV industry, SeriesLab mentors creative talent from across the continent by bringing together writers, creators and showrunners from nine series in early-stage development.

The program shepherds participants through the entire process of creating a TV series concept via a four-month course composed of three residential workshops and two online sessions. With the support of established script consultant tutors and other industry experts, the participants develop a commercial mini-bible and outline the treatment of the pilot.

“I’m really excited about the wonderful work our tutors and participants have done during these months,” says Nicola Lusuardi,...

The most daring stylistic flourish in Esther Rots’ forensically first-person, raw-nerve drama seems at first like a mistake. Over crisp images of a happy Dutch family — bearded Dad, his pregnant, laughing wife and their blond, tousle-haired daughter driving around in a well-kitted-out camper van — a baritone sings a comic operetta, in English, about bathrobes, kitchen counters and home juicers. “In this neat and tidy little liiiife … she is a neat and tidy little wiiiife,” he booms to jaunty, parping tubas and pompous, martial percussion. The absurd, baroque stylings of Dan Geesin’s compositions are so incongruous with the pictures, it seems possible it’s the sound leaking in from the screen next door.

But while we never quite get over this dislocating effect — nor are we ever sure how closely we should be parsing the lyrics for clues to our protagonist’s state of mind — we’re not supposed to:...

Titles include Colombian jungle thriller ‘Monos’.

Adventurous young Dutch distribution outfit Gusto is adding to its slate and has snapped up rights to Alejandro Landes’ Colombian jungle thriller Monos, fresh from its Sundance and Berlinale screenings.

Amsterdam-based Lemming Film was the Dutch partner on the film, which was presented at Rotterdam’s pitching market, Cinemart, in 2016.

Gusto, formed in Amsterdam by Hein van Joolen and Katrien Remijn just over a year ago, acquired Monos from the producers and the acquisition complements several other new Iffr or Berlinale titles on the company’s slate.

Gusto is on board fast-rising Dutch-Bosnian auteur...

Near record levels of inward investment are boosting the local industry.

As the Dutch film industry comes together at International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr), there is much to be optimistic about in 2019.

The local industry is experiencing near record levels of inward investment as a location and post-production hub and Dutch co-production is blossoming. There may have been a slight - 0.8% - decline in admissions to 35.7 million cinema visitors in the Netherlands in 2018 but box office revenue has risen due to an increase in ticket prices.

Dutch market share for local films has remained broadly stable: it fell slightly from...

Selection includes 39 titles and 31 world premieres.

This year’s Forum programme at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 7-17) will feature 39 films, including 31 world premieres.

The Forum brings together challenging and thought-provoking filmmaking that brings together film with visual art, theatre and literature.

Highlights include a Super 8 silent vision of Elfriede Jelinek’s ghost novel ’Die Kinder der Toten’ in a film of the same name by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, Ghassan Salhab’s “essayistic collage” An Open Rose for which the filmmaker has used the letters from prison by Polish Marxist Rosa Luxembourg, and the documentary Landless, the...

The Netherlands had 10 films including shorts, docs and fiction features at Tiff this year.

Retrospekt*, the second feature by award-winning director/screenwriter Esther Rots world-premiered in the Contemporary World Cinema programme of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is produced by Rots Filmwerk (Nl) and Column Film (Nl) in co-production with Serendipity Films (Be).

In a stunning non-linear structure Retrospekt unfolds the layered story of Mette (37) who questions where the sense of fulfillment she once felt with her husband and daughter has gone. When the care agency she works for can’t provide what she considers adequate support for Miller, a victim of domestic violence, Mette takes her into her family home, a decision that has life-changing consequences.

Esther Rots’ first feature Can Go Through Skin* world-premiered at Berlinale 2009 and won numerous prizes worldwide, including the Fipresci Award at Transylvania and the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at Gothenburg.

I can’t think of a better term to describe Esther Rots’ Retrospekt than her own: “sensory cinema.” We get a feeling for what this means during the opening scene as Dan Geesin’s score and Bas Kuijlenburg’s boomingly operatic baritone drowns out the action onscreen with English lyrics telling a story of which we’re not yet certain is even worth our attention. We don’t know these characters beyond visible traits: a pregnant woman, her husband, and their young girl packed up in an Rv heading to who knows where. What this marriage of sight and sound conjures within becomes all we really have to decide to invest in this strange puzzle or frantically seek a quick escape. Hopefully you’ll choose the former because the subsequent ride is worth it.

The woman is Mette (Circé Lethem), a domestic abuse counselor who takes her job very seriously...

Domestic Disturbance: Rots Presents a Puzzle with Portrait of Troubled Woman

Female agency and fractured fellowship form the basis of Dutch director Esther Rots’ sophomore effort Retrospekt, which deposits its protagonist in a troubling situation and then flounces our assumptions by continuously jumping back and forth in time. A before and after portrait of what initially seems a familiar tale of an unhappily married woman who metamorphoses into a warped shell of herself following a debilitating accident, flashbacks formulated as returning memory functions as the narrative structure. Rots jumps inadvertently between periods of her heroine’s life, leaving the audience to fill in the pieces, guessing at what could have possibly catalyzed the situation she currently finds herself languishing in.…...

The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival has rounded out its slate of gala premieres in what is looking like a very strong filmmaker-driven slate. Here are all the new additions.

Galas 2018

Green Book Peter Farrelly | USA World Premiere

Closing Night Film — Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy Justin Kelly | Canada/USA/United Kingdom World Premiere

The Lie Veena Sud | Canada World Premiere

Opening Night Film — Outlaw King David Mackenzie | USA/United Kingdom World Premiere

Special Presentations 2018

22 July Paul Greengrass | Norway/Iceland North American Premiere

American Woman Jake Scott | USA World Premiere

Baby ( Bao Bei Er ) Liu Jie | China World Premiere

Boy Erased Joel Edgerton | USA International Premiere

Driven Nick Hamm | Puerto Rico/United Kingdom/USA North American Premiere

Duelles (Mothers’ Instinct) Olivier Masset-Depasse | Belgium/France World Premiere

A Faithful Man ( L’homme fidèle ) Louis Garrel | France World Premiere

Gloria Bell Sebastián Lelio | USA/Chile World Premiere

Hold the Dark Jeremy Saulnier | USA World Premiere...

Beneficiaries include team behind children’s fantasy film Admiral.Scroll down for full list of projects

The Netherlands Film Production Incentive scheme has backed 21 film projects to the tune of €6.1m in its latest funding round, including 15 feature films, five documentaries and one animated feature.

The average investment was €291,185, with the smallest being €40,000 and the largest sum, €900,000, going to the team behind 2015 fantasy film Admiral [pictured] for their new project Redbad 754 A.D.

Currently in pre-production, Redbad 754 A.D. will be directed by Rob Reiné (who is attached to direct episdoes of Marvel’s upcoming TV series Inhumans) from a script by Alex van Galen. Dutch producers will be Farmhouse TV en Film, with Belgian outfit Bulletproof Cupid co-producing.

The Conductor, directed and written by Maria Peters and produced by Shooting Star Filmcompany, received the second largest grant with €898,111. Peters’ previous credits include romantic drama Sonny Boy and family film Mike Says Goodbye!.

Projects also receiving...

Justine Smith

Bright Star, Jane Campion

Orlando, Sally Potter

Trouble Every Day, Claire Denis

Cleo 5 a 7, Agnes Varda

A New Leaf, Elaine May

The Night Porter, Liliana Cavani

American Psycho, Mary Harron

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat

Point Break, Kathryn Bigelow

Everyone Else, Maren Ade

Ricky D

Connection, Shirley Clarke

Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold

35 Shots of Rhum, Claire Denis

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Derin

Seven Beauties, Lina Wertmuller

The Hitch-Hiker, Ida Lupino

Lina Wertmuller- Swept Away

Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt

Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel

Xxy, Lucía Puenzo

Special mention:

Skyscraper – Shirley Clarke

Wasp – Andrea Arnold

On Dangerous Ground – Ida Lupino (uncredited)

Wanda

Chris Clemente

Little Miss Sunshine, Valerie Faris

American Psycho, Mary Harron

Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola

We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay

Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold

Monster, Patty Jenkins

A League of Their Own, Penny Marshall

Wayne’s World, Penelope Spheeris

Clueless, Amy Heckerling

Point Break,...

Just what were Den Of Geek’s favourite films of 2010? Our writers put forward their personal choices, in our mammoth round-up...

The year’s nearly over and the season of turkey beckons. As 2010 draws to a close, what better time to pick over the films of the last 12 months? Here, then, are the writers of Den Of Geek’s five favourite films of the year, along with their most despised misfire of 2010.

And at the bottom, we’ve got the round-up of the overall top ten (it'll take a bit of scrolling if you want to go directly there!). So, what’s our absolute favourite movie of the year? Read on to find out…

Ti Singh

Top 5

1. Agora

2. Inception

3. Toy Story 3

4. Robin Hood

5. The Social Network

Stinker of the year: The Other Guys

I love a good historical epic, and in a summer dominated by sequels, remakes and reboots,...

The 33rd Gothenburg International Film Festival (Giff) ended last Sunday. This port city on Sweden’s west coast and home to the Volvo company, is the world’s largest market for Nordic films. The main event at the festival is the prestigious Nordic Competition, where films from the five Nordic countries – Sweden, Norway, Finland, Demark, and Iceland are screened. This year Denmark made a very strong showing with two Danish films tipped to win the award. Brotherhood, a debut feature from Nicolo Donato explores the rise of fascist neo-Nazi groups and the problems that arise when homosexuality is discovered among its ranks. R, also a debut feature by directors Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm, is a grim film about prison life. In the end, R emerged victorious.

It seems to be a time for prison films - Jacques Audiard’s The Prophet, won the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes film...

Cologne, Germany -- Dutch/Irish co-production "Nothing Personal," a feature debut from Polish-born director Urszula Antoniak won big at this year's Golden Calves, the Dutch national film awards, taking four trophies, including that for best film.

The story of a woman who abandons her life and all her possessions in the Netherlands for a nomadic lifestyle in Ireland, also secured nods in the best director, best cinematography and best sound design categories. The film stars Lotte Verbeek and Stephen Rea.

Martin Koolhoven's World War II epic "Winter in Wartime" picked up three Golden Calves, for best actor Martijn Lakemeier, a 16-year-old first-timer, best supporting actor Raymond Thiry and best production design. Director Esther Rots, another first-timer, scooped three trophies for her intimate drama "Can Go Through Skin," taking Golden Calves for best actress Rifka Lodeizen and best editing prizes along with a special Jury award.

Dutch Oscar contender, Jean van de Velde...

Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.

Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.

Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.

All three films should give an added boost of star power to...

Cologne, Germany -- The Berlinale's avant-garde sidebar Forum has completed its lineup, adding new political documentaries from the likes of Hans-Christian Schmid, Simone Bitton and Thomas Heise.

Bitton follows up her Sundance award winner "Wall" (2004) with another documentary focused on the conflict in the Middle East. "Rachel" takes up the story of U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed in 2003 while trying to prevent the destruction of houses in the Gaza Strip.

Schmid, whose drama "Storm" will screen in competition in Berlin, has a Forum entry with the doc "The Wonderful Life of Laundry," a look at the lives of Polish workers who launder the dirty linen trucked across the border from Berlin luxury hotels. Heise's new documentary, "Material" is also set in Berlin and features previously unreleased footage of events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Other nonfiction entries at the 2009 Forum include Thai documentary "Citizen Juling,...

Opening Film (Out of Competition) "Fanfan la Tulipe" -- Gerard Krawczyk Closing Film (Out of Competition) "Modern Times" -- Charlie Chaplin In Competition "Dogville" -- Lars Von Trier "Les Invasions Barbares" -- Denys Arcand "Il Cuore Altrove" -- Pupi Avati "Carandiru" -- Hector Babenco "Uzak" -- Nuri Bilge Ceylan "Mystic River" -- Clint Eastwood "The Brown Bunny" -- Vincent Gallo "The Moab Story -- The Tulse Luper Suitcases Pt 1" -- Peter Greenaway "Tiresia" -- Bertrand Bonello "Shara" -- Naomi Kawase "Bright Future (Akarui Mirai)" -- Kiyoshi Kurosawa "A Cinq Heures De L'Apres Midi" -- Samira Makhmalbaf "Ce Jour La" -- Raoul Ruiz "Father and Son" -- Alexander Sokurov "Elephant" -- Gus Van Sant "Swimming Pool" -- Francois Ozon "Les Cotelettes" -- Bertrand Blier "La Petite Lili" -- Claude Miller "Strayed (Les Egares)" -- Andre Techine "Purple Butterfly" -- Liu Ye Out of Competition "Mansion by the Lake" -- Lester James Peries "Les Triplettes de Belleville" -- Sylvain Chomet "Qui a Tue Bambi" -- Gilles Marchand "Le Temps du Loup" -- Michael Haneke "Va et Vient" -- Joao Monteiro "The Matrix Reloaded" -- Wachowski Brothers Special Screenings "Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin -- Richard Schickel "Il Grido D'Angoscia Dell' Uccello Predatore 20 Tagli D'Aprile" -- Nanni Moretti "S-21, La Machine de Mort Khmer Rouge" -- Rithy Panh "The Fog of War" -- Errol Morris "The Last Customer" -- Nanni Moretti "The Soul of a Man" -- Wim Wenders Short Films in Competition "A Janela Aberta" -- Philippe Barcinski "Cracker Bag" -- Glendyn Ivin "Fast Film" -- Virgil Widrich "Ik Ontspruit" -- Esther Rots "L'homme Sans Tete" -- Juan Solanas "My Blind Brother" -- Sophie Goodhart "Novembersno" -- Karolina Jonsson "The Most Beautiful Man in the World" -- Alicia Duffy "To Tameno" -- Marsa Makris Un Certain Regard "En Jouant 'Dans La Compagnie Des Hommes' " -- Arnaud Desplechin (opening) "A Story That Begins at the End" -- Murali Nair "A Thousand Months" -- Faouzi Bensaidi "All Tomorrow's Parties" -- Yu Lik Wai "American Splendor" -- Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini "Crimson Gold" -- Jaffar Panahi "Drifters" -- Wang Xiaoshuai "Hoy y Manana" -- Alejandro Chomski "Japanese Story" -- Sue Brooks "Kiss of Life" -- Emily Young "La Meglio Gioventu" -- Marco Tullio "Les Mains Vides" -- Marc Recha "Robinson's Crusoe" -- Lin Cheng-Sheng "September" -- Max Faerberbock "Stormy Weather" -- Solveig Anspach "Struggle" -- Ruth Mader "Young Adam" -- David Mackenzie...