Ten short-film directors from Egypt, China and throughout Europe have been selected to participate in the 10th edition of the prestigious Next Step prrogramme of Cannes’ Critics’ Week, taking place in Normandy and Paris from December 9-15.
Next Step brings together filmmakers who have premiered their films at Critics’ Week to present their upcoming features in development during a workshop with industry mentors. The aim is to keep up the momentum with filmmakers afterr what can be their frenetic first experience of a major film festival. Previous participatns include How To Have Sex’s Molly Manning Walker and The Settlers’ Felipe Galvez/
“For short filmmakers, often Cannes is their first time at a film festival and their first contact with the industry. They have their moment of glory, then everyone leaves. Our goal is to bring them back together six months later and accompany them in their journey,” explained Next Step director Thomas Rosso.
This year’s participants includes French-Swedish filmmaker Anton Bialas who is bringing the Paris nightclub-set Feminielli (The Last Pina Colada On Earth), produced by France’s Apaches Film.
France’s Nans Laborde-Jourdaa, whose short Bolero competed at Critics’ Week 2023 and won a slew of prizes, is attending with Nous Brûlons, eight interwoven stories about passionate love, produced by Caroline Bonmarchand’s Avenue B productions.
Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mustafa, fresh from a 2022 Cannes’ Film Festival residency and short film at Critics’ Week in 2023, has been selected to work on his timely refugee drama Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore.
Croatian filmmaker Andrea Slavicek, also selected for this year’s Cannes Film Festival residency, is bringing Luna On Two Planets about a photographer navigating a life blending fantasy and reality.
From China’, Zou Jing, a 2021 Critics’ Week prize-winner for her first short Lili Alone, is making he rfeature debut with a coming-of-age story about generations of abandoned girls in China called A Girl Unknown, It is produced by Wang Yang of Chinese-French production house Memoria Films.
Spain’s Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe will be at Next Step with her politically charged, 1970s-set Anekumen about young factory workers who head to a remote community
Swiss director Jela Hasler has been selected to participate with To Put Out One Fire, about two characters at odds in an urban planning office in Zurich. Portugese director Inês Teixeira brings Under my Skin about a complicated romance, produced by Portugal’s Terratreme Films.
Vincent Tilanus is a Dutch director who will attend Next Step with Dovetail about a gay teenager navigating family drama, that is being produced by the Netherlands’ Room for Film.
The 10th fllmmaker is Mexico’s Fernanda Tovar, who is develping a feature called Una Chica Triste about how a teenager who takes revenge on their rapist, to be made as a Mexico-France co-production.
One filmmaker will receive the Next Step Hildegarde Award, which is a €2,500 endowment to be announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024.
Next week’s progamme will include a session on film scoring, in partnership with music rights group SACEM, that will match the filmmakers with local composers who this year include France’s Harry Allouche, Pierre Oberkampf, Carla Pallone and Wissam Hojeij.
This precedes a new composing and screenwriting crossover initiative called Next Step Volume II that is taking place in the Corsican mountains in 2024.
Next Step was launched by Remi Bonhomme in 2014 and has since supported 88 projects from 36 different countries with 30 completed feature films and 13 more in production or premiering in 2024.
Previous participants include Un Certain Regard prize-winner Manning Walker who won the Next Step prize in 2021 for How to Have Sex, Galvez whose The Settlers won the Fipresci award at Cannes and is Chile’s pick for a best international Oscar, Elias Belkeddar’s Cannes premiere The King Of Algiers, Laura Ferres who competed in Locarno 2023 with The Permanent Picture and Moin Hussain whose Sky Peals premiered at Venice Critics’ Week.
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