Leading Polish productionhouse Apple Film has come onboard Polish-born filmmaker Agnieszka Lukasiak'sfeature debut Between TheFires which will be one of the first features to be handled by Swedishproducer Peter Kropenin's new production outfit Hob AB.

Speaking to ScreenDaily.com at this week's MannheimMeetings where he was pitching Between The Fires to potential co-production partners, Kropeninsaid that Filmpol Nord was already attached to the Swedish-Polish co-productionwhich had been developed with financial support from the Polish Film Institute.The love story between a Polish woman and an Algerian at an immigration camp inNorthern Sweden will be shot mostly in English with some passages in Polish,Swedish and Arabic. Lukasiak's 2005 feature-length project The Forgotten Ones about two women coming to Warsaw from thecountryside was awarded the Best Scandinavian Documentary at this year's NordicPanorama and the European Humanitarian Prize 2006.

Meanwhile, Kropenin ispresently in the middle of production on Tanaz Eshaghian's documentary Allah's Transsexuals about transsexualsin Iran, their acceptance by the ruling clerics and their rejection by societyat large. New York-based Eshaghian, who had previously directed the documentariesLove Iranian-American Style and I Call Myself Persian, will return toIran for a second part of the shoot next year.

In addition, Hob AB isdeveloping Iranian-born Reza Bagher's next feature Honour, a tragi-comic drama set in the immigrant community inSweden. According to Kropenin, who produced Bagher's award-winning 2000 filmWings Of Glass, he is 'activelylooking for a German co-producer for this new project since Reza has a namehere after his last film Popular MusicFrom Vittula was such a success in Germany.'

Hob AB was founded earlierthis year as the successor to Kropenin's previous company ofTV AB, withheadquarters in Faro and offices in Lulea and Stockholm to produce featurefilms, short fiction films and, to a certain extent, documentaries.

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