Poland’s Manana is gearing up for its first feature film production, Jacek Borcuch’s Lasting Moments (working title).

AP Manana was set up a decade ago to work on local festivals and independent distribution, with the new Manana production arm set up in 2010.

Manana founder Piotr Kobus will produce the new film with Agnieszka Drewno. They are in Rotterdam this week to present the project at CineMart.

Borcuch, who is well known in Poland and made an international splash with All That I Love (screening in Sundance, Rotterdam, Pusan), has been working on the new script for about two years. The story is about a young Polish couple who met while picking fruit in Germany and face new challenges when they are back in Poland.

Kobus says he has been attending Rotterdam for a decade and had to bring Lasting Moments to CineMart because the market was extremely useful showing a rough cut of All That I Love in 2009.

Lasting Moments already had development funding from the Polish Film Institute and is hopeful for more production funding from the PFI later this spring. Germany’s Pandora Film Producktion is already on board as a co-producer.

The team expects to shoot starting this summer on the Euros 1.75m project. Locations will include an area near Potsdam in Germany, and then the Polish cities of Kwidzyn and Krakow. It will be shot in 35mm by DoP Michal Englert.

Well-known painter Wilhelm Sasnal will serve as art director.

WIDE Management did strong business on All That I Love (which was Poland’s Oscar submission), but no sales company is yet confirmed to rep Lasting Moments.

After Lasting Moments, Kobus noted that Manana has two other projects in development that are “quite formed” already

Kobus said he expects his background in distribution to be useful in production. “I want to hold onto distribution as well, I see it as fresh blood, working with filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Jasmila Žbanić, if I work with their films, it’s working on a profesional level with these people. That’s a huge value for a producer.”

As a distributor, Manana has worked with films include The Milk of Sorrow, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and Honey.

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