Boost!-projects selected for CineMart 2013

42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam
23 January – 3 February 2013

PRESS RELEASE 30 November 2012

Boost!-projects selected for CineMart 2013

Completing this year’s Boost! edition, projects by Michel Lipkes (Mexico) and Teboho Edkins (South Africa) have been added to those by Pablo Stoll (Uruguay), Ognjen Glavonic (Serbia) and Gurvinder Singh (India) selected earlier this year.
The projects by Stoll, Glavonic, Lipkes and Edkins will be presented at CineMart 2013, while Singh’s project takes part in Rotterdam Lab 2013. The full line up of CineMart 2013 will be announced by mid-December.

The Boost! coaching trajectory is organized by Hubert Bals Fund, CineMart, Binger Filmlab and NFDC of India supported by MEDIA Mundus.

Yearly five projects selected for Hubert Bals Fund Script and Project Development support are offered the opportunity to further develop their project at Binger Filmlab as part of the Binger On Demand programme. At Binger Filmlab, the filmmakers are offered coaching based on the specific needs of the project and filmmaker. During the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Boost! projects are presented at CineMart, where they will be offered special pitching and project development sessions prior to taking one-to-one meetings at the co-production market.

The partnership with NFDC of India entails the selection of one South Asian project. This years' selection, THE FOURTH DIRECTION by Gurvinder Singh, will - after its presentation at the Goa FilmBazaar travel onwards to Rotterdam to participate in the Rotterdam Lab - in order to follow up on previously made connections.

Boost!-projects presented at CineMart 2013:
- Silver Shadow / Pablo Stoll / Uruguay
- The Load / Ognjen Glavonic / Serbia
- Strange but True / Michel Lipkes / Mexico
- Days of Cannibalism / Teboho Edkins / South Africa

Boost!-project taking part in Rotterdam Lab 2013:
- The Fourth Direction / Gurvinder Singh / India

SILVER SHADOW will be Pablo Stoll’s fifth feature film. Together with Juan Pablo Rebella he scripted and directed the acclaimed 25 WATTS (2001) and WHISKY (2004). After HIROSHIMA (2009, his first solo feature) and ‘3’ (2012, selected for the Quinzaine in Cannes) he now prepares SILVER SHADOW that chronicles the few summer days during which Dante, the former bassist of a once popular rock band, must pull his life together. It shows the way in which he falls in love with a married former secondary school classmate, how he copes with the ghost of his best friend and how he fails at both.

Ognjen Glavonic (Serbia) writes his first feature film THE LOAD. Set in Serbia during the NATO bombings in 1999, the film follows the driver of a freeze truck. He does not want to know what the load is, but the cargo slowly becomes his burden.

STRANGE BUT TRUE will be Michel Lipkes second feature film. Lipkes directed several short films, co-founded production company Axolote cine and became a programmer for FICCO, Guadalajara and FID Marseille, among others. His feature début MALAVENTURA first screened in Morelia 2011 and saw its international premiere in IFFR 2012’s Bright Future. From there it was selected in many festivals worldwide. STRANGE BUT TRUE tells the love story of two young trash collectors working under the despotic direction of Mr.Clean. Tragedy ensues when they find a corpse of a wealthy man and Mr. Clean takes terrible decisions.

Teboho Edkins grew up in Lesotho and South Africa. The short and mid-length films he made between 2004 and 2011 have been shown in over 100 film festivals and galleries worldwide. His 54’ film THE GANGSTER PROJECT premiered in FID Marseille 2011 and screened in IFFR 2012, among other festivals. DAYS OF CANNIBALISM is a three-part feature film in three parts, stylistically a Western, set in contemporary Africa. It is a film about man-eat-man, from the business of globalised trade in China, to a band of smugglers in Lesotho to the violence of a cattle raid deep in the high mountains.

CHAUTHI KOOT (THE FOURTH DIRECTION) will be Gurvinder Singh’s second film. He made his feature début with ALMS FOR THE BLIND HORSE that premiered 2011 in Venice’s Orizzonti section and was also selected for IFFR 2012’s Bright Future. Set in 1984 in Punjab against the backdrop of the militant Sikh movement, THE FOURTH DIRECTION explores the dilemma of the common man trapped between excesses of the military on one side and terrorists on the other, leading to an atmosphere of suspicion, fear and paranoia.


Boost! webpage: www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/professionals/hubert_bals_fund/boost/

(End of press release)

Press information IFFR:
IFFR Press Office, Bert-Jan Zoet / Nancy van Oorschot, [email protected], +31 10 8909090

Press information Binger Filmlab:
Esther van Driesum, [email protected], +31 20 5309630