Eight Nordic documentary projects selected for IDFA Forum

A House Made of Splinters is the latest film by the award-winning Simon Lereng Wilmont (The Distant Barking of Dogs). While war is raging in Eastern Ukraine, taking a heavy toll on families near the frontline, an orphanage run by social workers is a temporary haven and safe space for kids who can stay there for nine months.

“We are filming the last scenes in Ukraine, but are also editing alongside the filming process,” said producer Monica Hellström of Final Cut for Real who mentions that Covid 19 has impacted the production, shot between Denmark, Germany and Ukraine, but also access to the main protagonists. “We obviously needed to be extra careful when entering the orphanage, in order to keep the kids and staff safe,” said the producer.

The film is co-produced by Story Sweden, Donkey Hotel in Finland, Moon Man in Ukraine, with co-financing from DR, SVT, YLE, VRT, VPRO, TV3, RÚV, ARTE, MDR, and support among others from Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Cinephil handles sales. Delivery is set for the fall 2021.

Apolonia, Apolonia is the long-gestated film by Lea Glob, former Nordic Talents winner, multi awarded for the films Olmo and the Seagull (2014) co-directed with Petra Costa, and Venus (2016) co-directed with Mette Carla Albrechtsen. The film is a coming-of-age story told over the course of a decade, an existential voyage into the mind of a young female painter’s thoughts on sexuality, art, idealism and love, as she lives and rethinks them through her twenties. The film follows Apolonia as she leaves Denmark to move back to her birthplace in Paris to become a painter.

The film will be presented in rough cut stage at IDFA Forum. It is produced by Sidsel Lønvig Siersted for Danish Documentary, in co-production with Poland’s Staron Film, with co-financing from DR, SVT, YLE, ARTE G.E.I.E, support among others from Nordisk Film & TV Fond. Autlook Film Sales handles sales.

The other six Nordic films at IDFA Forum are the following:

• Life is beautiful (Al Haya Helwa) Norway/Palestine In Development. Directed by Mohamed Jabaly for Norway’s Stray Dog Productions and Palestine’s Idioms Films. Living the diaspora wasn’t a choice. In forced exile, in the dark, arctic winter, Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly is fighting, using his camera to feed hope for a better future.
• Garden of Ghost Flowers - Sweden/UK. In development. Directed by Lundahl & Seitl for producer Emma Ward. The film uses VR to create a virtual, floral, biohybrid life-form, Ghost Flower, which exists and evolves in symbiosis with collective human behaviour.
• Of Boys & Men - Denmark In production. Directed by Anders S. Jepsen, produced by Anne Köhncke of Final Cut for Real. When they were both boys, one sexually abused the other. Now as adults, they try to understand what happened. A film about identity, sexual boundaries, transgressions and grey areas.
• Song of Summer & Winter Denmark/Germany/US In production. Directed by Talal Derki, produced by Sigrid Dyekjaer (Siggi Production) and Heba Khaled (Jouzour Film Production), in co-production with Beth Earl (Rustic Canyon Pictures). In Syria, the poverty and hunger have taken over. In the meantime, a group of young actresses are trying to save what is left of their dignity, by standing up against blackmail and refusing to be sexually exploited in a corrupted media scene where man has the upper hand.
• Stay Home Norway/Sweden In production. Directed by Maren Thingnæs and Marianne Mørk, produced by Kari Anne Moe and Gudmundur Gunnarsson (Fuglene), in co-production with Therese Högberg (Bautafilm). In Stay Home, we experience 2020 through the eyes of 11 children and teenagers from different countries around the world. They take us on their individual journeys with Covid-19 as a common backdrop. They all go through big changes when the pandemic hits them at the same point in history.
• The Trans Syrian Express Finland/ Poland/Russia In development. Directed by Alina Rudnitskaya, produced Pertti Veijalainen (Illume), in co-production with Dorota Roszkowska (Arkana Studio) and Sergey Vinokurov (317 Film). Organised by the Ministry of Defence and by the personal order of Vladimir Putin, the train exhibition “Syrian Breakthrough” transports the spoils of war from Syria around the country. The train stops at all the major cities in Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, from Vladivostok to Murmansk.

During the five-day IDFA Forum unspooling November 16-20, a total of 63 projects in development or production stage, will be pitched online to international professionals. The Docs for Sale catalogue includes more than 440 new titles, of which 150 are part of IDFA's official festival selection. For further information, check: www.idfa.nl