Paris-based Totem Films will launch a quartet of first features with 2022 festival hopes at the EFM next week (February 10-17), including directorial debuts by The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki co-writer Mikko Myllylahti and Italian actress Jasmine Trinca.
The company’s 2021 slate enjoyed a buzzy festival run, led by Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 as well as Berlinale best documentary winner We, Berlin Competition title Ballad Of A White Cow and My SunnyMaad, which took the jury award at Annecy.
Finnish writer/director Myllylahti’s dark comedy The Woodcutter Story stars Jarkko Lahti as a woodcutter who mysteriously retains his cool when his serene existence in an idyllic village is shattered by a series of tragic events. Totem have released a first-look image for the film which is post-production.
It is Myllylahti’s debut feature after co-writer credits on Juho Kuosmanen’s The Happiest Day In The LIfe Of Olli Mäki which won Un Certain Regard in 2016. Myllylahti’s short film Tiikeri played in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2018 and he also participated in its Next Step first feature development programme with The Woodcutter Story, winning its top prize in 2019.
It is produced by Jussi Rantamäki and Emilia Haukka at Helsinki-based Aamu Film Company, who produced Kuosmanen’s The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki and Compartment No. 6 on which Totem also handled sales.
Co-producers are Keplerfilm, Beofilm and Achtung Panda!, while Helsinki-based B-Plan Distribution has taken Finnish rights.
The company has also boarded sales on Trinca’s feature debut Marcel! about a young girl who vies for her mother’s affections with their pet dog. Alba Rohrwacher, child actress Maayane Conti and veteran star Giovanna Ralli feature in the cast.
It expands on Trinca’s semi-autobiographical 2020 short Being My Mom which also starred Rohrwacher and Conti. Award-winning actress Trinca’s credits include Fortunata for which she won Un Certain Regard’s best actress prize in 2017 and The Goddess Of Fortune.
Historic Italian film company Cinema Undici is lead producing with Totem Atelier on board as co-producer and Rai Cinema providing backing.
Other new films on the Totem slate include Moroccan-French director Sofia Alaoui’s sci-fi drama Oum, which means mother in Arabic.
Newcomer Oumaïma Barid plays a young woman from a modest rural background struggling to survive in the stifling Moroccan upper-middle-class atmosphere of her husband’s family, until a supernatural event leads to her emancipation. Mehdi Dehbi, star of Netflix series Messiah, also features in the cast.
Alaoui won the Sundance grand jury short prize for So What If The Goats Die in 2020 about a young shepherd who returns to his village in the Atlas Mountains to find it mysteriously empty.
The feature is lead produced by Margaux Lorier at Paris-based company Wrong Films in co-production with Srab Films, the company behind Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated Cannes Jury Prize winner Les Misérables. Ad Vitam has taken French rights.
The company will also launch German director Anna Roller’s first film Dead Girls Dancing about three recent high-school graduates who pick up an intriguing backpacker while on an Italian road trip. When the four girls stumble across an abandoned village, they test their new freedom to the limit.
The German-English-Italian-language drama features a buzzy young cast comprising Germany’s Luna Jordan (Fox In A Hall), Noemi Nicolaisen (We Children From Bahnhof Zoo), Katharina Stark and Italian actress Sara Giannelli.
Other previously announced titles on Totem’s 2022 slate include Yenni Lee’s Explosions In The Heart, Patricia Mazuy’s Saturn Bowling and Lovisa Sirén’sMaya Nilo (Laura).
“We all need renewal in 2022. Yenni, Mikko, Anna, Lovisa, Sofia, Patricia and Jasmine will bring audacity through their strong cinematic visions,” said company co-heads Berenice Vincent and Laure Parleani.
No comments yet