Producers Lab Toronto reveals line-up

The24 producers from Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will participate in the fifth edition of the networking platform, which runs Sept 3-6 during the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14).

PLT is targeted at producers who have had previous experience in working on international co-productions and now have projects in the pipeline that could be interesting for the international market.

European producers

The ten European producers were selected by European Film Promotion’s member organisations from previous participants of its Cannes-based initiative Producers on the Move. They include:

• Human Films’ co-founder Isabelle Stead, who has played a key role in the new wave of Iraqi cinema by producing such award-winning films as Mohamed Al-Daradji’s Son Of Babylon and In The Sands Of Babylon. She is now developing a third project with Al-Daradji, Birds of Paradise, about an eccentric woman’s lone crusade to save Baghdad street children from becoming suicide bombers.
  
  
• Italian Alessandro Borrelli’s La Sarraz Pictures whose productions include Eugène Green’s La Sapienza which premiered at this year’s Locarno Film Festival and will also be shown in Toronto. Borrelli is now developing Sergio Basso’s historical adventure film Fingertips set in Shanghai of the 1930s.
  
  
• Switzerland’s Xavier Ruiz will be in Toronto with his new company, RCE Ruiz Cardinaux Entertainment, which he launched last year with Jean-Paul Cardinaux to produce his third feature, the black comedy Sweet Girls. The company’s development slate of humourous and subversive stories includes the horror comedy Heidi vs. Zombies, based very loosely on Johanna Spyri’s children’s classic.
  
  
• Henning Kamm’s Hamburg-based Detailfilm has had a busy 2014, with films by Karim Ainouz (Praia do Futuro) and Kutlug Ataman (The Lamb) at this year’s Berlinale and the world premiere of Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis’ short II (Two) in the Leopards of Tomorrow competition in Locarno last week. Kamm is currently working on such films as Stéphane Robelin’s #Flora63 and Lili Horvath’s The Wednesday Child.

Speaking to ScreenDaily on his way to this week’s Sarajevo Film Festival, Kamm said: “I’m thrilled to be a part of the Producer’s Lab Toronto. It’s an incredible opportunity to extend my network across the Atlantic and around the globe.

“Especially as we are developing Mohammad Rasoulof’s new film Mahan. The Iranian-born, Hamburg-based helmer has been a regular TIFF guest with his former films and now returns to shoot parts of Mahan in Toronto.”

Canadian producers

 The ten Canadian producers taking part in PLT were selected by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) and the Toronto festival from an open call across Canada.

They include:

• George Ayoub who founded Ramaco Media with partners to produce the Canadian-Spanish co-production, the English language horror thriller The Returned by Manuel Carballo.
  
  
• Judy Holm’s Toronto-based Markham Street Films specialises in documentaries, feature films and series, including the feature documentary David and Me, the feature comedy Big News From Grand Rock and the drama Hold Fast.  Features in development range from the historical romance The Mistress Of Nothing and the coming of age tale The Edible Woman based on the eponymous Margaret Atwood novel.
  
  
• Paula Devonshire’s company Devonshire Productions  has produced horrormeister George A. Romero’s Survival Of The Dead and Randall Cole’s drama Real Time, and most recently completed the coming of age drama Wet Bum which premieres at this year’s TIFF. She is now developing genre features Backwater, Dead And Buried, and Involuntary Muscles to be made as international co-productions.

Australia and New Zealand

This will be the second consecutive year when Screen Australia (SA) and the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) are supporting the event by sending two producers each to take in the Producers Lab.

Kristian Moliere (Triptych Pictures) and Anna Vincent (Southern Light Alliance) will be representing Australia at the event, while John Barnett (South Pacific Pictures) and Tom Hern (Four Nights Film) will be in Toronto as this year’s presece from New Zealand.

PLT’s four-day programme of events include pitching sessions, case studies, roundtables and various networking events with key people from the film industry and film funds.

The first four editions of PLT were attended by such producers as Romania’s Ada Solomon, Germany’s Nicole Gerhards, Luxembourg’s Donata Rotunno, The Netherlands’ Els Vandervorst and Denmark’s Kim Magnusson as well as Stephen Traynor, Sarah Timmins, Réal Chabot from Canada, and Fiona Copland and Melanie Coombs from Australia.

PLT 2014 producers

Europe

Nuno Bernardo, beActive Entertainment (Portugal)
Alessandro Borrelli, La Sarraz Pictures (Italy)
Daniel Burlac, Elefant Films (Romania)
Alise Gelze, Tasse Film (Latvia)
Henning Kamm, DETAiLFILM (Germany)
Mark Lwoff, Bufo (Finland)
Radim Procházka; Produkce Radim Procházka (Czech Republic)
Xavier Ruiz, RCE Ruiz Cardinaux Entertainment Switzerland)
Isabelle Stead, Human Films (United Kingdom)
Marta Velasco, Áralan Films (Spain)

Canada

George Ayoub, Ramaco Media
Bev Bliss, Moving Films
Paula Devonshire, Devonshire Productions
orga Dorter, Gearshift Films
Walter Forsyth, Gorgeous Mistake Productions
Judy Holm, Markham Street Films
Mehernaz Lentin, Industry Pictures
Thomas Michael, Fella Films
Geordie Sabbagh, Geordie Sabbagh Productions
Marc Stephenson, Sheep Noir Films

Australia / New Zealand

Kristian Moliere, Triptych Pictures
Anna Vincent, Southern Light Alliance
John Barnett, South Pacific Pictures
Tom Hern, Four Nights Film