The Festival de Cannes has unveiled the lineup for this year's Cinefoundation Atelier, the co-production forum where in-development projects will try and secure funding at this year's Cannes festival, slated to occur tentatively from 6 to 17 July.
Founded in 2005, L'Atelier has had an impressive track record with 172 projects out of the total 246 selected having been released theatrically, alongside 23 currently in pre-production.
For L’Atelier’s 17th edition, 15 projects from 15 countries have been selected as per the last edition, with two projects from Southeast Asian filmmakers:
Indonesian filmmaker Yosep Anggi Noen and producer Yulia Evina Bhara of KawanKawan Media will be presenting Noen's fourth feature Jilah and the Man with Two Names, a thriller revolving around the exploits of the eponymous Jilah as she tracks down her cyber lover Aji and uncovers the mysteries of his identity. Jilah was previously present at the 22th Asian Project Market of the Busan International Film Festival and the 37th edition of Rotterdam’s co-production market CineMart.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese filmmaker Trương Minh Quý and Philippine producers Bianca Balbuena and Bradley Liew of Epicmedia Productions, will be presenting Trương's debut fiction feature Viêt and Nam, "a love story haunted by the ghost of (the) history" about a miner whose plans to migrate to Europe through a shipping container intersects with a spiritual journey to understand the death of his father during the Vietnamese civil war, as he struggles with his lover, a fellow miner. Viêt and Nam is supported by the Hubert Bals Fund.
Southeast Asia have traditionally been well-represented at L'Atelier, with past projects that were selected including titles such as Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu's debut feature Tiger Stripes, currently in pre-production, and Filipino filmmaker Petersen Vargas's sophomore feature Some Nights I Feel Like Walking, both in 2020; Burmese filmmaker The Maw Naing's The Women in 2019; Filipino filmmaker Carlo Francisco Manatad's Whether The Weather Is Fine, Thai filmmaker Nontawat Numbenchapol's Doi Boy, and Vietnamese filmmaker Bùi Thạc Chuyên's Glorious Ashes in 2018; Vietnamese filmmakers Phan Ngoc Lan's Cu Li Never Cries and Le Bao's Taste, and Singapore's City of Small Blessings by Chen-Hsi Wong in 2017; and Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, in 2016, which subsequently premiered in 2017's Quinzaine des Réalisateurs.