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PRODUCTION Training / Italia

The TorinoFilmLab turns five but its impact is double

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- For its fifth anniversary, the Turin-based laboratory, which will be holding its Meeting Event on 25-27 November, is broadening its programme and will include VoD

A fifth anniversary wouldn’t usually be such a solemn event, if it weren’t for the fact that what has been achieved in these few years is worth double its years. This is the case for the TorinoFilmLab - an international encounter of emerging talents – which will be holding its Meeting Event (running 25-27 November, during the Turin Film Festival) this year, for the fifth year in a row. Adding to its already rich programme of training, development and finance sessions, the event will now include an Adapt Lab, a laboratory dedicated to the cinematographic adaptations of books (read the news story).

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"We started in 2008 with two programmes," TFL director Savina Neirotti said. "In the space of five years, we got to six. And from this year, thanks to a partnership with UniversCiné, we have created a new space for Video on Demand."

But above everything, films launched from the TorinoFilmLab go far. Out of twenty awarded projects in the last five years, thirteen have already come out in movie theatres or started going through the production process. Among these – and this is only looking at 2012 - Children of Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aida Begić
film profile
]
by Bosnian Aida Begic (which won the special jury Un Certain Regard prize in Cannes), Postcards From the Zoo [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(first Indonesian film in competition at the Berlinale), Iranian A Respectable Family (selected for the Cannes Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) and the Argentine Leones (in competition in Venice in the Horizons section).

Looking to the future, many other projects are gearing up to go. The Meeting Event’s first day has been dedicated to the presentation of eleven new proposals by FrameWork, a programme for the creation of new projects. Beyond the six winners of a Development Award last year (read the news story), five extra directors have put themselves forward for a TFL production award. Over ten countries are being represented with a large variety of different stories, styles and outlooks on the world. From the nightmare of a woman who loves a serial killer (Beast by British Michael Pierce) to that of a teenager stuck in a spiral of violence (War by Swiss Simon Jaquemet), not forgetting Christelle Lheureux’s melancholic ghost story (Le vent des ombres) and a modern take on native Americans by American Iranian Babak Jalali (Land, produced by Ginevra Elkann, from the Agnelli family).

The most curious pitch may well be that of Swedish Jonas Selberg Augustsen. His film, The Garbage Helicopter, tells the story of two brothers and a sister who cross Sweden to bring an old clock back to their grandmother. A minimalist, black and white road movie with a Jim Jarmush-like atmosphere, the film should be especially amusing considering the its author’s entertaining character.

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(Translated from Italian)

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