Finisterra, a series about the Nazi presence in Portugal during World War II, has won the ‘most promising project’ prize at the TV Beats co-financing market at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
The series receives a €3,000 prize, and was selected by a jury consisting of Morgane Bruna from Wild Bunch TV, Richard Pommerat from N9ne Studio and Joachim Friedman from the Internationale Filmschule Koln.
The jury noted a “visually strong and artistically challenging series” that “tells a universal, yet poetic story about the oppression of women, the abuse of power, and addresses the question of which stories influence our lives and our society.”
The seven 45-minute episode series has a €1.8m budget, and is written by Guilherme Branquinho, Leone Niel and Gabriela Giffoni, and produced by Frederico Serra, for Portugal’s Take It Easy. Currently in development, it is looking for co-producers, distributors and international broadcast partners.
The project won a national screenwriting competition in 2020, held by Portugal’s Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual and Netflix.
A special prize went to Italian-French project Cosmic Girl, which receives €10,000 and entry to the Hypewriter TV Series Pitch Forum in Budapest.
Produced by Claudio Esposito for Italy’s The Piranesi Experience, the climate action thriller was described as “a story that deals with our future existence, our failure and our fight to survive” by Boris Bezic, director and creative producer of Hungary’s Paprika Studios, which selected the winner.
Spotlight award
Filmmakers Sarah Polley and Ali Abbasi both received the third annual DDA Spotlight award.
Polley’s feature Women Talking, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand, plays in the Screen International Critics’ Choice section at Black Nights; while Abbasi’s Cannes 2022 feature Holy Spider is in the Best of Fest strand.
Tiina Lokk, Black Nights director, said that Women Talking “amplifies women’s stories through shining a light on women’s subjugation by historic religious communities”, and Holy Spider “goes to great lengths to refocus the narrative on female voices.”
The Spotlight award was established in 2020 for UK PR firm DDA’s 50th anniversary, to increase focus on diversity and inclusion in cinema.
Black Nights holds its awards ceremony on Saturday, November 26, with the festival continuing until the following day.
No comments yet