22-10-2013

FNE at Centeast: Latallo Filming Sailor's Stories

By

    WARSAW: Marcin Latallo, son of director Stanisław Latallo, will make his directing debut with The Sailor’s Stories, one 11 new works-in-progress pitched during the 9th CentEast Warsaw Market.

    The central character arrives in Łódź where he tells a different story to each person that he meets: before he became a sailor he was climbing in the Himalayas, dancing the tango in Argentina, studying gastronomy in France and learning Kung Fu at an Asian monastery, and now he is a private detective tracking a serial killer. When the police find a murder victim, he becomes a suspect. The movie is produced by Camera Obscura with a budget of 1.7m PLN (407,000 EUR). The film received 1 million PLN from the Polish Film Institute and logistical support from the Lodz Film Commission.

    The pitching forum also showcased Krzysztof Zanussi’s dark comedy Foreign Body, a Polish-Russian-Italian coproduction from Tor Film Production, Revolver Film Srl and V Krugu Semi; Jan Hřebejk's comedy The Icing produced by love.FRAME s.r.o.; and the biggest Polish production of the up-coming year, Jan Komasa's war drama Warsaw 44 (which recently wrapped filming in Warsaw) produced by Akson Studio in coproduction with Telewizja Polska and Orange with a budget of 25m PLN and over 6 million PLN from the Polish Film Institute.

    Russian cinema was represented by Chagall – Malevich a poetic biopic from Alexander Mitta based on a short episode from the painter's life. The film is produced by a Moscow based company Shim Film. Director Nadezhda Stepanova came to the Warsaw pitching with her new film I Know How to Knit, a heart-warming story about a girl from St. Petersburg trying to break a negative cycle with her creativity, produced by White Mirror Film Company.

    Romanian cinema was represented by Bucharest Non-stop directed by Dan Chisu and produced by Dakino Production. The film follows the non-stop nighttime life of one of the cities districts and aims to be a contemporary, humorous portrayal of the younger generation.

    The Bulgarian-Macedonian co-production set in 1968's Sofia entitled Sound Hunters follows the dangerous love affair between a young man who is a spy and an opera singer who is an undercover agent. The film is produced by Peter Oda and his Sofia based company Odavision Studio.

    The past is also explored in the Ukrainian entry The Guide directed by Oles Sanin and set in the in the early 30s Soviet Ukraine. An epic production follows the life of Peter, a privileged boy who is left alone in Soviet Russia after his father's death. He is saved by a blind minister and becomes his devoted guide. The producers are Maxim Asadchiy, Igor Savychenko and Oles Sanin. The production company is Pronto Film from Kiev.