The Match Factory shepherds five of its titles from Venice to Rome to grace the MIA line-up
- Never Gonna Snow Again, Notturno and Assandira are just three of the films put forward by the German international sales agent at Rome’s audiovisual MIA market
Five titles on The Match Factory film slate will be presented at this year’s International Audiovisual Market - MIA - the sixth edition of which will unspool in Rome from 14 – 18 October - with four of these works having also made an appearance at the Venice Film Festival back in September.
The German firm headed up by Michael Weber is mainly staking its bets on Never Gonna Snow Again [+see also:
film review
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interview: Małgorzata Szumowska and Mi…
film profile], co-directed by the Polish filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Małgorzata Szumowska (Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in Berlin 2018 for Mug [+see also:
film review
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interview: Małgorzata Szumowska
film profile]) alongside Michał Englert, who has overseen photography on all of Szumowska’s feature films so far. In competition in Venice, the film was also selected from Poland for the Best International Film Oscar. "We wanted to make a film that was impossible to classify", the directors stated in an interview with Cineuropa, and in this respect they were successful, because the title effectively moves through genres and is striking for the enigmatic nature of its socio-political implications, not to mention the charm emitted by its protagonist, Russian-born English actor Alec Utgoff, who plays a mysterious masseur with supernatural powers, working for the inhabitants of a rich, suburban neighbourhood. The title is produced by Lava Films and Match Factory Productions in co-production with Mazovia Film Fund, Kino Świat and DI-Factory.
Another work to have enjoyed its world premiere in Venice is Notturno [+see also:
film review
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interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] by Gianfranco Rosi (Fire At Sea [+see also:
film review
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interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile], Berlin’s 2016 Golden Bear winner), which was subsequently snapped up by the three biggest festivals across the Atlantic - Toronto, Telluride and New York FF - following its stint on the Lido. An Italian-French-German co-production coming courtesy of 21Uno Film, Stemal Entertainment and Rai Cinema, alongside Les Films D’ici, No Nation Films Gmbh and Mizzi Stock Entertainment, Notturno was shot on the border between Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon and explores day to day life behind the ongoing, tragic reality of civil wars, ferocious dictatorships, invasions and foreign meddling, not to mention the homicidal apocalypse that is ISIS.
Meanwhile, screened Out of Competition in Venice 2020, Assandira [+see also:
film review
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interview: Salvatore Mereu
film profile] by Salvatore Mereu (Pretty Butterflies [+see also:
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film profile]) is a film noir set in Sardinia which homes in on the conflict between tradition and the future. “Which is also the reason behind the father-son clash”, Mereu explains to Cineuropa. “In the film’s narrative structure, there’s a clear reference to classic American noir films”, adds the director, who extracted Assandira from Sergio Atzeni’s novel of the same name. Gavino Ledda, Anna König and Marco Zucca star in the cast, while Viacolvento produced the film with RAI Cinema.
The fourth title to hail from Venice is a short film, Omelia Contadina, by JR and Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders [+see also:
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interview: Alice Rohrwacher
interview: Tiziana Soudani
film profile], Happy As Lazzaro [+see also:
film review
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interview: Alice Rohrwacher
film profile]), a “cinematographic act” to ward off the disappearance of an age-old culture. The work sees a rural community come together on a high plateau bordering three regions - Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany – for a memorial service in the name of small-scale farming. The film stars the local folk of the Alfina plateau.
The fifth and final film offered up by The Match Factory to the MIA is the comedy Rosas’s Wedding [+see also:
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film profile] by the Madrilenian director and actress Iciar Bollain (Take My Eyes [+see also:
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film profile], Yuli – The Carlos Acosta Story [+see also:
film review
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interview: Icíar Bollaín
film profile]). At almost 45 years of age, Rosa (Candela Peña) realises she has spent her entire life trying to please other people and decides to push the big red button, shake things up and seize control of her life. “Reaching a compromise between Rosa’s desires and those of her family will prove a huge challenge, even when it’s a case of organising her own wedding”, the Spanish director explains. “There are lots of Rosas hiding among us in our everyday lives, and we all have a part of Rosa inside of us”. A Spanish-French co-production by Tandem Films, Turanga Films, Setembro Cine, La boda de Rosa la película AIE and Halley Productions, the film was selected for the San Sebastián International Film Festival back in September.
(Translated from Italian)
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