The Cannes Festival’s Frontières Platform is heading into its second year, following a successful inauguration in 2017.
Organized by the Fantasia Intl. Film Festival, in partnership with the Cannes Film Market, the Frontières Platform is an international co-production market and networking platform for genre projects, aimed to foster relationships in co-production and financing between Europe and North America.
This year will see 16 projects participate in the event which runs May 12-13. Among the activities to be hosted are a Proof of Concept Presentation for projects in advanced financing stages, and a Buyers Showcase for films that are already in post-production or which have recently been completed.
This year’s participants represent a wide range of countries and cultures from across Europe and North America, and for the first time a South American project in Chile’s “The Monster Within.”
Those participating in the Proof of Concept Presentations have previously workshopped their projects at the Frontières Finance & Packaging Forum in Amsterdam this past February. 10 such projects will present their teaser-trailers to potential partners on May 12 at Cannes, among them: “Free Fire,” “Crumbs,” “Baskin,” “Replace,” “The Lodgers,” and “Animas.”
“We’re thrilled to continue our very successful partnership with the Marché du Film,” Frontières executive director Lindsay Peters said via a statement. “Last year’s presentations were filled to capacity, and with successes like “Les Affamés,” “Radius,” and the upcoming “The Dark” and “Animas” coming out of last year’s Platform, we can’t wait to unveil this year’s excellent selections to the industry in Cannes.”
“I’m glad to have our new partner CinemaChile on board this year,” added Jérôme Paillard, executive director of the Cannes Festival’s Marché du Film. “We are very fortunate that they are bringing a project created by promising talents from a vibrant Chilean cinema.”
The Frontières Platform has also announced a new prize this year, the Avanpost Digital Cube Post-Production Award, which will give one of this year’s projects from the Finance & Packaging Forum w$150,000 of in-kind post-production services from Romania’s Digital Cube. Founded in 2010, Digital Cube has become one of Eastern Europe’s most comprehensive digital post-production facilities.
“We are thrilled to support films in elevated genres,” said Digital Cube CEO Cristian Nicolescu in a statement: “By facilitating access to cutting-edge post-production services for art house films. We are excited to work with up-and-coming young directors and producers and promote European and North American films at the Marché du Film in Cannes, a first for a Romanian film production company.”
In addition to the co-production and networking platform at Cannes, the program also includes a Financing & Packaging Forum which runs Feb 22-24 in Amsterdam and an annual co-production market at the Fantasia Festival July 19-22.
Frontières is co-funded by the E.U.’s Creative Europe, with support from Wallimage, CinemaChile and Telefilm Canada.
FRONTIERES PLATFORM SHOWCASE
BUYERS SHOWCASE
“G. Patrick Condon’s Incredible Violence,” (Patrick Condon, Canada)
“Ghost Town Anthology,” (Denis Côté, Canada)
“House of Sweat and Tears,” (Sonia Escolano, Spain)
“Ladyworld,” (Amanda Kramer, U.S.A.)
“Riot Girls,” (Jovanka Vuckovic, Canada)
“Zoo,” (Antonio Tublen, Denmark, Sweden)
PROOF OF CONCEPT PRESENTATION
“The Ballad of Audrey Earnshaw,” (Thomas Robert Lee, Canada, Ireland)
“Censor,” (Prano Bailey-Bond, U.K.)
“Girl Without a Mouth,” (Can Evrenol, Turkey)
“Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway,” (Miguel Llansó, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia)
“The Monster Within,” (Rodrigo Susarte, Chile, Denmark)
“The Paper Tigers,” (Tran Quoc Bao, U.S.A.)
“Reunion,” (Norbert Keil, U.S.A, Germany)
“Tin & Tina,” (Rubin Stein, Spain)
“Whitaker,” (Casey Walker, Canada, U.K.)
“The Winter Lake,” (Phil Sheerin, Ireland)
