New Paolo Sorrentino film recieves Eurimages funding

• Scroll down for full list of titles including funding amount and co-producers

Paolo Sorrentino’s upcoming project, In the Future (Il Futuro), is to receive €460,000 ($640,000) from the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund. The film marks the Italian director’s follow-up to Oscar-winner The Great Beauty and is set set to start shooting in May, starring Michael Caine.

The intimate drama about “friendship between two old people” is from Sorrentino’s regular producers, Nicola Giuliano and Francesca Cima through Indigo Films with French co-producer Bis Films. Co-financing comes from Italian distributor Mediaset/Medusam, which looks set to release in Italy later this year.

It is one of 19 films, which includes a documentary and an animated feature, that will receive a share from the €5.4m ($7.5m) pot.

Other titles include Schneider vs. Bax from Alex van Warmerdam, the Dutch director behind Cannes competition title Borgman. Fortissimo has taken world rights to the survival thriller, which pits a writer against a hitman who gets more than he bargained for.

Matteo Garrone, the Italian writer-director of 2008 crime drama Gomorrah, has received funding for The Tale of Tales (Il racconto dei racconti), set to star Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel.

The English-language film marks his follow-up to Cannes Grand Prize winner Reality and is due to shoot in Italy this spring. The period fantasy is based on three tales from Giambattista Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti and is produced by Garrone’s Archimede Film with Jean Labadie’s Paris-based Le Pacte. Rai Cinema will release the film in Italy. Le Pacte will distribute in France, while HanWay Films will handle international sales.

Wondrous Boccaccio (Maraviglioso Boccaccio) marks Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s follow-up to Caesar Must Die, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2012.

The adaptation of Boccacio’s collection of short stories, Decameron, has a cast that includes Jasmine Trinca, Riccardo Scamarcio, Kim Rossi Stuart and Michele Riondino, and will shoot for 10 weeks from the end of this month in Tuscany.

Wondrous Boccaccio is produced by Italy’s Cinemaundici and Stemal Entertainment with Rai Cinema and France’s Bis Films.

Cristian is Tudor Giurgiu’s follow-up to Romanian comedy Of Snails and Men. The feature, from Romania’s Libra Film Productions, tells the story of a young idealistic prosecutor who tries to solve a case against an elder colleague accused of corruption.

Nils Gaup, director of Journey to the Christmas Star (the number two film at the Norwegian box office in 2013), is preparing to shoot Viking epic The Last King (Birkebeinerne).

The $7.4m project, made by Paradox Rettigheter with producers Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B. Kvae, will tell the legendary story of two men in 1206 who skied across the mountains and smuggled to safety the young infant and future King Håkon Håkonsen. It is planned for release in 2015 and the cast includes Kon-Tiki’s Jakob Oftebro. The project previously received $2.3m from the Norwegian Film Institute.

Mænd & Høns (Men and Chickens) is the upcoming feature from Denmark’s Anders Thomas Jensen, best known for his screenwriting work on Susanne Bier features including Oscar-winner In A Better World, Love Is All You Need andthe upcoming A Second Chance. He has previously directed three features, the last of which was Adam’s Apples in 2005.

Mads Mikkelsen stars in the black comedy about two outcast brothers who attend a family reunion, only to learn some hard truths about themselves and their family. It will be shot by M&M Productions.

Zud, the debut feature of Polish director Marta Minorowicz, fuses documentary and drama. Producers are Zero One Film and Joon Film.

It focusses on Suhbat, a young teenager who feels responsibility towards his financially troubled family in rural Mongolia. His relationship with a childhood friend is tested to the limit when his father takes over the training of the horse he will race in Naadam, a prestigeous annual horse race.

Full list of titles

Aferim!
by Radu Jude (Romania)
Awarded: €157 000
Co-producers:
HI FILM PRODUCTIONS (RO)
EZ FILMS (FR)
KLAS FILM LTD (BG)

Birkebeinerne
by Nils Gaup (Norway)
Awarded: €460 000
Co-producers:
PARADOX RETTIGHETER AS (NO)
ZENTROPA INTERNATIONAL SWEDEN (SE)
NEWGRANGE PICTURES Ltd (IE)
PROTON CINEMA Kft (HU)

Cristian
by Tudor Giurgiu (Romania)
Awarded: €160 000
Co-producers:
LIBRA FILM PRODUCTIONS (RO)
CHOUCHKOV BROTHERS Ltd (BG)
COR LEONIS FILMS (HU)

Die Nacht der Tausend Stunden
by Virgil Widrich (Austria)
Awarded: €380 000
Co-producers:
AMOUR FOU VIENNA (AT)
AMOUR FOU FILM LUXEMBOURG Sarl (LU)

Il racconto dei racconti
by Matteo Garrone (Italy)
Awarded: €470 000
Co-producers:
ARCHIMEDE Srl (IT)
LE PACTE (FR)

Il Futuro
by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)
Awarded: €460 000
Co-producers:
INDIGO FILM Srl (IT)
BIS FILMS (FR)

La Novia
by Paula Ortiz (Spain)
Awarded: €230 000
Co-producers:
GET IN THE PICTURE
PRODUCTIONS, S.L. (ES)
MANTAR FILM YAPIM REKLAM Ltd (TR)

Mænd & Høns
by Anders Thomas Jensen (Denmark)
Awarded: €320 000
Co-producers:
M&M PRODUCTIONS (DK)
BABELSBERG FILM GmbH (DE)

Mama
by Vlado Skafar (Slovenia)
Awarded: €110 000
Co-producers:
GUSTAV FILM d.o.o. / SCCA/PRO.BA (SI)
TRANSMEDIA SPA / ARCH PRODUCTION SRL (IT)

Maraviglioso Boccaccio
by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani (Italy)
Awarded: €470 000
Co-producers:
CINEMAUNDICI s.r.l. / STEMAL ENTERTAINMENT s.r.l. (IT)
BIS FILMS (FR)

Melanijas hronika
by Viesturs Kairišs (Latvia)
Awarded: €110 000
Co-producers:
FILM STUDIO MISTRUS MEDIA (LV)
INLAND FILM COMPANY Oy (FI)

Molly Monster
by Matthias Bruhn (Germany), Michael Ekblad (Sweden), Ted Sieger (Switzerland)
Animation
Awarded: €370 000
Co-producers:
LITTLE MONSTER Gmbh / PEACOCK FILM AG (CH)
TRICKSTUDIO LUTTERBECK GMBH / ALEXANDRA SCHATZ FILMPRODUKTION (DE)
SLUGGERFILM AG (SE)

Nasa Svakodnevna Prica
by Ines Tanovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Awarded: €90 000
Co-producers:
STUDIO MAJ PRODUCTION d.o.o (SI)
DOKUMENT (BA)
SPIRITUS MOVENS d.o.o. (HR)

Our Sun
by Joost Van Ginkel (Netherlands)
Awarded: €210 000
Co-producers:
PRPL B.V. / BASTIDE FILMS B.V. (NL)
GÖTAFILM INTERNATIONAL AB (SE)

Schneider vs. Bax
by Alex van Warmerdam (Netherlands)
Awarded: €470 000
Co-producers:
GRANIET FILM (NL)
CZAR TV (BE)

Sedmero
by Alice Nellis (Czech Republic)
Awarded: €280 000
Co-producers:
ET CETERA GROUP, s.r.o. (SK)
HONYS MOTION s.r.o. / SALAMANDER SYNDICATE (CZ)

Vatreno krstenje Ljiljana Vidica
by Ivan-Goran Vitez (Croatia)
Awarded: €180 000
Co-producers:
INTER FILM d.o.o. (HR)
ZILLION FILM (PRODUCTION) (RS)

Wait for me
by Mitko Panov (“The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”)
Awarded: €380 000
Co-producers:
TIPI’MAGES PRODUCTIONS Sarl (CH)
PIREJFILM (MK)
SAMSON FILMS Ltd (IE)
MP FILMSKA PRODUKCIJA (HR)

Zud
by Marta Minorowicz (Poland)
Documentary
Awarded: €60 000
Co-producers:
ZERO ONE FILM GmbH (DE)
OTTER FILMS / MM FILMS (PL)

In additon, Eurimages will grant €331,867 ($460,000) to 16 distributors for 78 films distributed in Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The access of Switzerland to the Creative Europe programme from the European Union having been suspended, the professionals from the Swiss audio-visual sector, will be able, with immediate effect, to benefit from distribution support programme as well as from the exhibition and digital equipment for cinema theatres of the Eurimages Fund.

Finally, the Eurimages board recommended the renewal of executive director Roberto Olla for a fourth consecutive two-year term running from July 1 2014.  This is the first time ever since the establishment of the fund in 1988, during which time Eurimages has supported 1,579 co-pros with around €479m ($666m).