Urska Djukic’s Little Trouble Girls, a co-production between five European countries, is among the winners at the Les Arcs Film Festival Industry Village, which handed out its prizes this evening (Monday, December 18).
The film took the €10,000 (£8,638) post-production services award in the Work in Progress section. Slovenia’s Spok Film and Nosorogi, Italy’s Staragara I.T., Croatia’s Izazov, Serbia’s Non-Aligned Films and France’s Sister Productions are all producing the film.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
The feature debut of Slovenian director Djukic, Little Trouble Girls centres on a shy 16-year-old girl who spends her first year at a Catholic high school choir navigating between her curiosity for eroticism, and the expectations of her environment.
The film has previously been through a number of well-regarded labs, including the Cinefondation residence and TorinoFilmLab. It shot in summer this year, and is currently in post-production.
It was selected by a Work in Progress jury consisting of incoming Edinburgh Film Festival director Paul Ridd; Belgian filmmaker Fien Troch; and festival programmer Annina Wettstein. The jury said the film “demonstrated from a small sample of striking images a powerful magnetism of imagery and ideas,” and they “impressed by seeing a ferociously intense, beautifully staged and performed scene of intimidation. Then a bold juxtaposition of images - a belly button match-cut to a rose infiltrated by a bee - demonstrated the film’s visual ambition and boldness.”
Other Les Arcs winners included Frida Kempff’s The Swedish Torpedo, winner of the music composition prize consisting of €5,000 in-kind and €5,000 of executive production service. Also in the Work in Progress strand, Kempff’s film is a historical drama about Sally Bauer, the first Scandinavian to swim the English Channel in 1939.
Guadeloupian director Nelson Foix’s French feature Zion took the €6,000 audience engagement award; while receipients of the Producers Network awards were Heather Millard of Iceland’s Compass Films with her project Shitballs by Alfrun Ornolfsdottir; and Gijs Kerbosch of the Netherlands’ Hala with Angels by Emma Westenberg.
The 15th edition of the Les Arcs Industry Village has seen a substantial increase in attendance, with 700 industry guests around the multi-level French ski resort – up from 450 in 2021. Combining industry meetings with ample opportunity for skiing, the 2023 edition coincided with the 20th anniversary celebrations of Arc 1950, the ski village where much of the industry activity takes place.
As well as bringing back its popular raclette dinner in a wintry chalet and European Cinema Ski Cup, new events at this year’s industry strand included a concert by French musician Voyou, held on a 2,800m mountain peak at sunset.
A popular end-of-year event for French industry with select international attendees, talking points among attendees at this year’s Les Arcs included the recent appointment of Tricia Tuttle as director of the Berlinale; and mental health, with a panel dedicated to addictive, harmful working behaviours in the industry, where private and professional lives can become overly mixed.
The Industry Village closes tomorrow (Tuesday, December 19), with the public festival running until Saturday, December 23.
Les Arcs 2023 Industry Village winners
Talent Village award – Cute (Den) dir. Marlene Emilie Lyngstad
Special mention – Docile (Fr) dir. Josephine Darcy Hopkins
Coproduction Village award – Kingdom of the Blind (Fr) dir. Francois Robic
Work in Progress
Post-production award – Little Trouble Girls (Slovenia-It-Cro-Ser-Fr) dir. Urska Djukic
Special mention – Wind, Talk To Me (Ser-Cro-Slovenia) dir. Stefan Djordjevic
Audience engagement award – Zion (Fr) dir. Nelson Foix
Music award – The Swedish Torpedo (Swe-Est-Fin-Bel) dir. Frida Kempff
Producers Network awards – Heather Millard, Compass Films (Ice) for Shitballs; Gijs Kerbosch, Halal (Neth) for Angels
Coprocity Development award – The Meltdown (Chile-Mex-Ger-Arg-Sp-Fr) dir. Manuela Martelli
Special mention – Warrior (Ukr) dir. Masha Kondakova
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