Four new projects developed at the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator were pitched May 20 at Cannes Docs. CIRCLE is described as “a unique training initiative designed for women and non-binary writers, directors, and producers from all-over the world, offering a safe space for consultation, collaboration, sharing ideas and improving skills.” Opening the sessions producer and Programme Director Biljana Tutorov described the workshop as “a work of solidarity,” and a “circle of trust.”
The 62-minute Azerbaijan project DREAMERS, directed by Imam Hasanov, was introduced by producer Maria Ibrahimova. The story concerns Mamed, an ex-footballer, and his wife Svetlana, who are determined to create and coach the village’s first girls’ football team, all the time having to overcome deep-seated patriarchal traditions and societal norms such as early marriages. They eventually discover hope within an orphanage, as they recruit Parishan, Fidan, Nahida, Suraya, and Farida, each of whom can tell their own tale of resilience. “Against Azerbaijan’s ancient allure, the movie embodies courage and unity, resonating with hope in a historically burdened world,” the synopsis reads.
85% of the $150,000 budget is in place, with producer Ibrahimova keen to secure gap financing, co-producers, festivals and sales representation in Cannes.
Ibrahimova told how, after she settled in Azerbaijan, she began to discover “amazing filmmakers” many of whom didn’t even know what a producer was, never mind access to funding. So she became a creative producer. “In Azerbaijan you have to be very, very extra creative because otherwise nothing will get done.”
“So it was my great joy to encounter this filmmaker Imam Hasanov who came to me with this beautiful project about a couple who want to make other people’s dreams come true. That resonated with me. I often feel like that. I love making other people’s dreams come true along with my own,’ Ibrahimova said.
“Their (Mamed and Svetlana’s) arrival really ruffled some feathers because everybody said ‘football, that’s not for girls,’ [but] they decided that they were going to fight against that and start this girl’s football team and they found young women in the most unexpected place. It was an orphanage, because there they weren’t ruled by the patriarchy. All the orphanages are run mostly by women and they thought, ‘this is great, sports are great, it’s free, let them go. And they understood Mamed and Svetlana’s vision that sports can take them to a new place in life and can make them [the girls] independent.”
“That was a lot of what was also important to me, and why I made this film,” Ibrahimova signed off.
Germany-based Iranian Faze Nikoozad’s PORTRAIT OF A FRIENDSHIP tells the story of a 3-way bond between the director, her friend Narges, exiled in Germany for political reasons, and a third friend Hamideh, unable to leave Iran. All three are filmmakers. The synopsis reads how “together, they explore the notion of home through the lenses of their cameras, capture dispersed experiences and reveal filmmaking practice as a universal haven providing a sense of comfort across borders. Starting with the archive footage of their final moments together, they seek to reunite fifteen years later amid turmoil, and continue their cinematic dialogue.”
The 80-minute debut film, produced by Julia Cöllen (Fünferfilm, Germany) and currently at edit stage, is 100% financed, with a mooted delivery date of November 2024.
“There is a word in German that can’t be translated directly to any other language. It is ‘heimat’ which describes the feeling of being emotionally connected to a place you belong to. And when I think of ‘heimat’ I have to think of my two best friends,”
“So we are friends since nearly 20 years when we studied together in Iran and made films together,” she continued. “But in 2009, shortly after the Green Movement, the first important movement after the revolution in Iran, our lives took different terms. I left Iran for Germany to study filmmaking and pursue my passion for filmmaking. My other friend Narges exiled in Germany because of making critical films [of the regime] and our third friend Hamideh decided to stay in Iran rooted in our homeland. After 15 years we couldn’t be together…I’m the only one who can be in both places and see both of them. And after 15 years living in Germany, [I am] somehow lost between two worlds and haunted with a feeling of being a stranger in both countries, and my two friends are like a reflection in a mirror [and] embody the path I could have taken.”
“In my upcoming film I delve into the complexities of migration and identity through the lens of our intertwined lives,” she added. “It’s like an exploration of three women’s perspectives on belonging, choice and relentless [thoughts] of home. Our journey is chronicled through our personal archive from the time that we were together in Iran, the films that we made together and all the films that we made so far…, from our current projects and as well as the video letters we exchanged during the last movement for Women’s Freedom in Iran 2022.”
The Italian/Belgian/French co-pro WHITE LIES, directed by Alba Zari and produced by Manuela Buono (Slingshot Films, Italy) tells the curious story of Alba, her mother and her grandmother, her unknown father and the director’s childhood spent in a religious cult in Bangkok where she was named Jesus Baby.
The official synopsis reads as follows: “Alba, at 25, discovers Johnny isn’t her real father, unravelling a web of family secrets. Her grandmother Rosa fled Trieste in the 80s with her mother Ivana, joining a cult in Bangkok, practising “Flirty Fishing” for new members. Alba was born there as Jesus Baby, with a brother from another member. After a decade, Rosa fled back to Italy with Ivana and the children. Alba, devoid of cult memories, uncovers her past through research and hints from Rosa and Ivana. Rosa denies her past, becoming a wedding planner, while Ivana, suffering psychiatric issues, struggles with her past. White Lies delves into three women’s journey [towards] reconciliation and redemption through Alba’s artistic lens.”
“When I was four years old, we left the cult and we never spoke about this ever again,” director Alba told the Cannes Docs audience. “[But] many years after, when this big news came out (about her father], I needed to investigate.”
Alba showed a clip in which we saw a virtual version of her dad, created via a program called Metahuman. “I created my own father because I wanted to have his image and I talked to him and I asked him questions and I tried to know who he is, but it’s something that I had to do by myself.” Then we were shown an emotion encounter between Alba and her mother in which her mother read again the letters she had written whilst at the cult, before we meet Alba’s grandmother.
Producer Manuela Buono confirmed that the 80-minute film will be finished by the end of the year and will be available in 2025. 80% of the €320 000 is in place. “We are still looking for some funding for finalizing the film, but it’s already in editing and we are mainly looking for festivals and distribution opportunities and also sales agents,” she advised.
Ukrainian director Polina Kelm describes her 120-minute project THE ELF’S TOWER, produced by Rok Biček of Cvinger Film (Slovenia), as a “documentary fairy tale.” Producer Biček, meanwhile, describes it as “a metaphorical tale where the main protagonist, the elf, is trying to save humanity from disaster and evil destruction by giving humans wings.”
The project has much contemporary resonance, its synopsis reading how, “in a mental health institution in Kyiv, a theatre troupe of patients stages a prophetic play, as the full invasion of Ukraine is about to happen. In an endless loop, the patients rebel against the theatre director Serhiy, but nevertheless always come back to rehearse with him. The play is never ready for the premiere as if an invisible force stands in the way. Time seems to have stopped, it’s constantly snowing outside the windows and inside the institution – unnatural sounds start filling the air. We begin to understand that the play’s plot is unexpectedly more realistic and large-scale than we thought. Miracles require great faith and work. Dark times are coming and the hospital suddenly becomes the brightest place around.”
“I have to say that Polina’s project is one of the most original projects that I came across in recent years,” said Biček. “Both from the editorial point of view and topic-wise. Actually, her mix of absurdity, comedy and drama along with black and white photography reminds me of a famous Werner Herzog film Even Dwarfs Started Small, from the 1970s…She succeeds in introducing shocking sensitivity, humanism and light into this drama of the absurd in which there is a premonition of darkness throughout.”
