13/08/2008

The 5th French Language Production Forum will take place from September 26-29. The event is organised by the Namur International French Language Film Festival, with the participation of the BLCEF and the support of the Film Centre for the French Community in Belgium, Switzerland's Federal Board of Culture, the French CNC, Film Fund Luxembourg, SODEC, and the International Organisation of French-speaking countries (OIF in French).

Since 2004, selected French-language projects (from the 68 countries participating in OIF) receive expert advice, covering scriptwriting as well as production issues, from established French-speaking professionnals. For the first time this year, after their one-on-one meetings, participants will pitch their projects to an audience of professionals attending the festival.

Since its inception, this three-day Forum has helped several projects that were successful at the box office and at festivals worldwide, such as Olivier Masset-Depasse's Cages [+see also:
trailer
film profile], A Perfect Day [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Joanna Hadjitomas and Khalil Joreige, and Karim Dridi's Khamsa [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (to be released this autumn).

This year's edition will feature nine projects, including Fred Gélard's L’Enfant du Fleuve, produced by Les Films au Long Court (France); Werner Penzel's , produced by Les Films du Présent (France); Naël Marandin's Il nous reste la nuit, produced by Les Films Sauvages (France); and Naïma Bachiri's Né un 1er août, produced by Akka Films (Switzerland).

Three Belgian debut have also been selected: Mobil-Home by François Pirot (also co-scriptwriter for Joachim Lafosse), produced by Eklektik Productions; Les Vilains, the debut feature of short film genius Damien Chemin (produced by Tarantula); and Khadija Leclère's Le Sac de Farine, produced by Catherine Burniaux for Stromboli Pictures.

(Translated from French)