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Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s Baltic Event Co-Production Market has selected 14 feature projects for its 2024 edition.

Titles include Anastasiya Gruba’s debut Women Suicide Season, a co-production between Ukraine through Oleksandra Kostina’s Bosonfilms and Germany. The film centres on a man who escapes from his mother to a hermit’s life in a trailer; only for his loneliness to be interrupted by suicidal women who are drowning nearby.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Women Suicide Season has participated in numerous labs and development workshops, including the Marche du Film’s Pop Up Film Residency and Global Media Makers LA Residency.

Welcome to Kino Laika: Aki Kaurismäki and Mika Lätti’s cinema in Karkkila, an hour away from Helsinki. A place where love for movies – and dogs – meets ghosts of cinema’s past.

“One time, I had a 35mm copy of the Lumière brothers’ film ‘Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.’ I lent it to some cinema and it never came back. And now, I have forgotten which cinema it was,” recalls Kaurismäki, who, like Lätti, has been a resident of Karkkila, a modest town of 9,000, for decades now.

“I have lived here for 38 years and I like it a lot, but we never had a cinema here before. To see movies, local people had to travel to the next town or even Helsinki. Not anymore. It’s wonderful to offer them this chance,” he adds.

“Karkkila has been a good place for us both and we wanted to give something back to this town.

Each year we are proud to partner with the European Film Promotion to celebrate ten emerging European talents as part of their ongoing Efp Shooting Stars programme. Today we’re pleased to join the reveal of 2023’s cohort, who we’ll be getting to know better next year at the 73rd Berlinale.

Here are 2023’s European Shooting Stars:

Joely Mbundu (Belgium), Alina Tomnikov (Finland), Leonie Benesch (Germany), Thorvaldur Kristjansson (Iceland), Benedetta Porcaroli (Italy), Yannick Jozefzoon (The Netherlands), Kristine Kujath Thorp (Norway), Judith State (Romania), Gizem Erdogan (Sweden) and Kayije Kagame (Switzerland).

We’ll be meeting with each of the Shooting Stars out in Berlin next February and speaking to them. So, remember to check back next year for those interviews.

In the meantime, here are more details about each of the intake from the Efp themselves.

Belgium / Joely Mbundu ©Tina Herbots

Joely Mbundu hails from Villeneuve-St-Georges, France and attended school in Flanders,...

Nordisk Film has signed a development and distribution deal with Mrp Matila Röhr Productions, a leading Finnish production company launched 30 years ago by Marko Röhr and Ilkka Matila, two veteran industry players in Finland.

Under the deal, Nordisk Film will have exclusive distribution rights for the Nordic territories to Mrp’s upcoming features, kicking off with “Hamsters,” a drama-comedy produced directed by Markku Pölönen, Klaus Härö’s “Never Alone,” and the animated title “Malcolm Rocks.”

The pact also gives Nordisk Film the rights to Mrp’s library of 43 titles for the Scandinavian territories.

“Hamsters,” which is currently in pre-production, is based on Veikko Huovinen’s book. “Never Alone,” meanwhile, is based on the true story of a man who fought to help Jewish refugee seekers in 1942. ‘It is the story of an unusual friendship and political power based on the memoirs of the journalist Maarit Tyrkkö,’ said Matila, who is producing the film.

Box office blockbusters such as “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” and small screen series including “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “One Day at a Time” and “This Is Us” are among the finalists for the 44th annual Humanitas Prize, Humanitas executive director Cathleen Young and president Ali LeRoi announced Tuesday.

“It’s always an honor and a privilege to lift up writers who are passionate about telling stories that entertain us, but also deeply explore what it means to be a human in a way that promotes peace and love,” Young said.

A total of 58 writers are nominated for their work in the 30-minute comedy, 60-minute drama, children’s teleplay, independent feature film, drama feature film, comedy feature film, family feature film and documentary categories. The prize was created to celebrate writers “whose work inspires compassion, hope, and understanding in the human family.”

“Humanitas enjoyed an embarrassment of riches this year,...

Disney/Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther and NBC’s This Is Us are among the nominees for the 44th annual Humanitas Prize. Winners will be revealed in a ceremony February 8 at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

The prize was created to honor film and TV writers whose work inspires compassion, hope, and understanding in the human family.

The February ceremony will also also honor Marta Kauffman with The Kieser Award and Kenya Barris

with the Voice For Change Award.

Here are the nominees:

60-minute Drama

God Friended Me, “Pilot” Written by Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt

Orange Is The New Black, “Be Free” Written by Brian Chamberlayne

The Good Doctor, “More” Written by David Shore and Lloyd Gilyard Jr.

This Is Us, “This Big, Amazing, Beautiful Life” Written by Kay Oyegun

30-minute Comedy

Dear White People, “Volume 2: Chapter VIII” Written by Jack Moore

One Day At A Time, “Hello, Penelope” Written...

Screen reports on the 19 project pitches, including animations, family fare and a Daniel Dencik drama.

The Nordic Co-Production And Finance Market at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films event hosted its project pitches today (August 24).

They included Daniel Dencik’s drama about a disintegrating relationship 1000 R.I.P.; a children’s animation from Norway’s Aleksander Nordaas, the director of festival hit Thale; Icelandic director Marteinn Thorsson’s new psychological thriller; Martin Skovbjerg’s debut feature produced by hot new Danish outfit Snowglobe (who won Locarno’s Golden Leopard with Godless); and a new family film, hand drawn 2D animated Amundsen & Nobile.

Projects from Georgia, Italy and Canada were also included in the 19-strong line-up.

Overview of pitches:

1000 R.I.P., dir Daniel Dencik, prod Michael Haslund-Christensen, Company Haslund/Dencik Entertainment (Den)

The team behind 2015’s Gold Coast reunites for this fable inspired by The Passenger about a couple who meet a half Japanese model in the desert...

Once I Was A Dragonfly was selected from 10 works in progress presented to the festival’s jury.

Producer-director Elli Toivoniemi’s feature documentary debut Once I Was A Dragonfly received the Best Pitch Award at this year’s Finnish Film Affair (Sept 22-24) in Helsinki.

The new $3,400 (€3,000) award, which was sponsored by the Finnish Film Foundation for use in the film’s international marketing, was decided by a three-person jury made up of Fortissimo Films’ Berenice Fugard, Robert Burke of TenOne Entertainment and La-based critic Barbara Gasser.

Announcing the winner on Wednesday evening, Gasser said that it had been a “tough decision” to make the final choice from the 10 works in progress, but Toivoniemi’s film boasted “stunning visuals” and was “a story we could also relate to”.

The $224,000 (€200,000) Tuffi Films production centres on 24-year-old Miikka Friman’s lifelong fascination with dragonflies from the tender age of six and the decisions he must take as the obligations...

Helena, a daughter of two famous writers Aila Meriluoto and Lauri Viita, has only dim recollections of her childhood. She adored her father and blames her mother of her his schizophrenia and breaking up the family. When Helena finds out about a biography her mom is writing, she suffers a nervous breakdown and ends up in a mental hospital. Aila returns from Sweden to take care of her daughter and as a part of the recovery process Helena starts to read the biography which takes her back in the artistic life of her parents in the 40´s and 50´s. She experiences an epic love story that drove a man insane and is forced to relive the darkening of Lauri Viita.

That is the set-up for new Finnish period drama Falling Angels (Putoavia enkeleitä) from director Heikki Kujanpää. Once I got over the leading man’s resemblance to a young Willem Dafoe - it’s creepy,...