Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel has unveiled the projects to be presented at its 2024 industry programme VdR-Industry, taking place April 14-17, including features from Iran-born French filmmaker Mehran Tamadon and Chilean director Tana Gilbert.
A total of 29 projects have been selected. 15 projects in development will be part of VdR–Pitching, and six projects in finishing stages will be presented at the VdR–Work In Progress pitch. Four projects have been selected for both the VdR–Rough Cut Lab and the VdR–Development Lab respectively.
Scroll down for full list of projects
The line-up includes a number of returning Visions du Réel directors. Tamadon, whose 2023 documentary My Worst Enemy world premiered in Berlin’s Encounters section before heading to the Swiss festival, returns with his project The Last Days of the Hospital which is set within a French psychiatric hospital.
Gilbert, whose documentary Malqueridas was presented at VdR–Industry in 2021 and played in Venice Critics’ Week last year, comes to the Swiss festival again with Burning Daddy which reflects on post-dictatorship Chilean fatherhood through a family history.
Ukrainian film collective Tabor, who won the visions sud est industry award last year with their project The Days I Would Like to Forget are back with Listening to the World by Yelizaveta Smith, a family portrait exploring deafness and disability in a time of war.
The selection also includes 13 first time feature documentaries. They include Flood from Katy Scoggin who was cinematographer on Laura Poitras’ Academy Award-winning Citizenfour. With the support of Poitras as executive producer, Scoggin is turning the camera on herself, examining her complex relationship with her evangelical father in Flood.
Projects part of the VdR–Pitching and VdR–Work In Progress showcase will be eligible for awards totalling over CHF 80,000 (£71,000) of cash and in-kind support.
Head of industry Alice Burgin said: “This year’s projects are fresh and exciting, and have an urgency that we cannot ignore. They are looking for the most original and powerful formal approaches to revisit the past, and cast a critical lens on the present, in order to look bravely towards an uncertain future.”
2024 juries
The 2024 Industry Jury includes Rémi Burah, CEO and selection committee member of ARTE France Cinema, Lisa Kleiner Chanoff, co-founder of Catapult Film Fund and Kristy Matheson, head of festivals at the British Film Institute.
The Eurimages Jury, awarding the €20,000 Eurimages Co-production Development Award, includes Eleni Chandrinou, producer and the Greek national representative of the Council of Europe alongside Susana Santos Rodrigues, co-director at IndieLisboa International Film Festival, and producer at Mira Film Vadim Jendreyko.
The visions sud est jury, awarding the CHF 10,000 (£8,900) prize to one project from the global south, comprises Zsuzsi Bánkuti, head of Open Doors at Locarno International Film Festival, Meret Ruggle, the co-director of Trigon-film and John Canciani, artistic director of the Internationale Winterthur Short Film Festival.
The festival’s full programme will be announce on 19 March 2024.
VdR–Industry projects 2024
VdR–Pitching
Burning Daddy (Chile-Ger)
Dir. Tana Gilbert
Prod. Paola Castillo (Errante), Dirk Manthey (Dirk Manthey Film)
Dreams of the Wild Oaks (Iran-Sp)
Dir. Marjan Khosravi
Prod. Milad Khosravi (Seven Springs Pictures), Stephanie Von Lukowicz (Lukimedia)
Fixing the War (Ukr-Ire)
Dirs. Vadym Ilkov, Clare Stronge
Prod. Oleksandra Kravchenko (Moon Man), Gary Lennon (Plainsong Films)
GEN_ (Fr-It)
Dir. Gianluca Matarrese
Prod. Dominique Barneaud (Bellota Films), Donatella Palermo (Stemal Entertainment)
Life of Tipu (Ire)
Dir. Bob Gallagher
Prod. Ciarán Deeney, Séamus Waters (EZ Films), Jeanie Igoe (Homebird Productions)
Magnetic Letters (Phil-Fr-Ger)
Dir. Demie Dangla
Prod. Gale Osorio (Binisaya Movement Inc.), Philippe Djivas (Dynamo Production), Laura Kloeckner (Seera Films)
On the Way (Pol)
Dir. Natalia Dolgowska
Prod. Anna Gawlita, Marta Szymanowska (Kijora Film)
Once You Shall Be One of Those Who Lived Long Ago (Swe)
Dir. Per Bifrost, Alexander Rynéus
Prod. Jonas Selberg Augustsén (Iris Film)
Pratopia (Neth)
Dir. Sean Ali Wang
Prod. Jia Zhao (MUYI Film)
She Wrestles (US)
Dir. Charles Fairbanks
Prod. Lucila Moctezuma (She Wrestles Documentary)
The House of Shadows (Alg-Fr-Ger)
Dir. Amine Hattou
Prod. Boualem Ziani (Libre Image), Emilie Dudognon (IDA.IDA), Thomas Kaske (Kaske)
The Last Days of the Hospital (Fr-Switz)
Dir. Mehran Tamadon
Prod. Delphine Morel (TS Productions), Elena Tatti (Box Productions)
The Shadow of Yolüja
Dir. Hanz Rippe Gabriel (Col)
Prod. Fernanda Pineda (Paramo Films)
Totemic (Switz-Ger)
Dir. Stéphanie Barbey
Prod. Luc Peter, Katia Monla (Intermezzo Films), Dirk Manthey (Dirk Manthey Film)
To the Moon and Back (Switz)
Dir. Elisa Gómez Alvarez
Prod. Palmyre Badinier (Rita Productions)
VdR–Work in Progress
At Least to See the Ocean (Dom Rep)
Dir. Pablo Lozano
Prod. Pablo Lozano, Juan Antonio Bisonó (La Felicidad)
Beyond the Fold (Ire-UK-US)
Dir. Ross McClean
Prod. Bronte Stahl (Here and Elsewhere Films), Ross McClean (Nightstaff), Roisín Geraghty (Little Rose Films)
Flood (US)
Dir. Katy Scoggin
Prod. Will Lennon (Archelon Films) Exec Prods: Laura Poitras, Nico Opper
Listening to the World (Ukr-Ger-Swe)
Dir. Yelizaveta Smith
Prod. Eugene Rachkovsky, Olha Beskhmelnytsina (Tabor), Antonia Kilian (Pink Shadow Films), Mario Adamson (Sisyfos Film Production)
Shifting Baselines (Can)
Dir. Julien Elie
Prod. Andreas Mendritzki, Aonan Yang (GreenGround Productions)
The Myth of Mahmoud (Kenya-Leb-Pal-US-Qatar-Yemen)
Dir. Mayar Hamdan, Shaima Al Tamimi
Prod. Shaima Al Tamimi (Y2P Studios)
VdR–Rough Cut Lab
Cuitá, Stone from the Sky (Brazil)
Dir. Antonia Cattan
Prod. Isabel Lessa, Julia Murat (Esquina Film Production)
Moondove (Leb)
Dir. Karim Kassem
Prod. Karim Kassem (Screen Productions)
TAU (Georgia-Ger)
Dir. Timofey Stekolschuk
Prod. Sergey Yahontov, Archil Gelovani (Independent Film Project), Pavel Karykhalyn (Eversince GmbH)
The Second Death (US)
Dir. Philip Cartelli
Prod. Philip Cartelli (Nusquam)
VdR–Development Lab
Leaf Remnants (Col)
Dir. María José Alarcón Ardila
Prod. Lina Sampedro Cárdenas
My Grandparents’ Window Overlooks a Cemetery (Syr-It)
Dir. Lamis Al Mohamad
Prod. Lamis Al Mohamad
Plastic Atlantis (Cabo Verde-Senegal)
Dir. Samira Vera-Cruz
Prod. Pedro Soulé (KS Cinema) Yanis Gaye (Gorée Cinéma)
The Unlikely Hero (India)
Dir. Ishani Roy
Prod. Nisheeth Kumar (Indie Film Collective)
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