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New works from name auteurs including “Tropical Malady” helmer Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Romania’s Corneliu Porumboiu, and Mexico’s Tatiana Huenzo are among the 14-title first batch of features selected to benefit from the newly launched Fondazione Prada Film Fund.
The Prada Foundation film fund, whose top executives are attending the Berlinale, was officially launched last year at Venice with a total €1.5 million ($1.7 million) pot to support indie cinema from around the world without any restrictions on theme, genre, language or any other types of strings attached.
The projects that made the Prada foundation cut – out of a massive more than 1,200 submissions – hail from 26 countries across 5 continents. Of the 14 selected features, 4 are in development, 9 in production, and 1 in post. They are helmed by 6 women and 8 men, and include 2 debut features.
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“The quality and experimentation of the selected projects demonstrate the dynamic nature and variety that characterize contemporary indipendent cinema,” said in a statement Miuccia Prada, who is owner of the Prada Italian luxury group and head of the Prada foundation, the cultural institution she established alongside her husband Patrizio Bertelli in 1993.
“With the Film Fund we aim to promote the work of authors, especially those who most need concrete support to translate their vision into reality,” she added. “Moving forward, Fondazione Prada intends to continue promoting the idea of a free, demanding, and visionary cinema by building a stronger dialogue with those who conceive, develop, and produce films.”
The Fondazione Prada Film Fund offers three types of support: development, production and post. The maximum amount of funding a project can get is €250,000 ($296,000) towards production.
The fund is managed by former Directors’ Fortnight chief Paolo Moretti in collaboration with film programmer Rebecca De Pas.
Echoing Miuccia Prada’s words, Moretti underlined that the Prada foundation fund “stems from the realization that contemporary independent cinema is experiencing a period of great artistic vibrancy alongside significant structural fragility.”
“Many of the most ambitious works in terms of research and formal experimentation face increasing difficulties in finding adequate production support. The Film Fund is conceived to support this research through its many phases.”
“The selected projects reflect a wide range of sensibilities, geographies, and approaches, while sharing a high level of formal awareness and a clear artistic vision. Our goal is to help create the right productive condition for rigorous and innovative research to continue to fully take shape,” Moretti went on to point out.
Under Moretti’s guidance, the foundation’s Cinema Godard movie theater (pictured above) has stepped up its screening series and onstage conversations with name directors including Alfonso Cuarón, Xavier Dolan, Luca Guadagnino, Werner Herzog, Jia Zhangke and Rebecca Zlotowski, to name a few.
The first projects selected by Fondazione Prada Film Fund are:
“Amarcord ’90” (working title) – Yuri Ancarani (Italy) – Phase: Development
“Captions Will Be Needed” – Natalia Almada (Mexico, United States) – Phase: Production
“Cosmofonia” – Verena Paravel (France, United Kingdom) – Phase: Development
“Galerna” – Tatiana Huezo (Mexico, Spain, Switzerland) – Phase: Production
“Jenjira’s Magnificent Dream” – Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Colombia, the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Thailand) – Phase: Production
“Las Italianas” – Laura Citarella (Argentina, France, Germany, Italy) – Phase: Development
“Mulatresse Solitude” – Baloji (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, South Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo) – Phase: Production
“On Land and Sea” – Hlynur Pálmason (Denmark, Iceland, France, Finland, Sweden) – Phase: Production
“Summer in Heat” – Levan Akin (Sweden, Germany, France) – Phase: Production
“The Costume” – Corneliu Porumboiu (France, Germany, Romania) – Phase: Production
“The Difficult Bride” – Rubaiyat Hossain (Bangladesh, France, Portugal, Norway, Germany) – Phase: Post-production
“The Hallucinations” – Andrea Gatopoulos (France, Italy, Greece) – Phase: Development
“The Human Purge” – Eduardo Williams (Argentina) – Phase: Production
“The Sleeping Woman” – Daria Martin (United Kingdom, Ireland) – Phase: Production
