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FUNDING Italy

IDM South Tyrol gets behind Abel Ferrara’s Siberia

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- The new film by the US director is an Italian-German production; nine projects are being funded, including a dark comedy by Alessandro Angelini, a remake of the Danish movie Adam’s Apples

IDM South Tyrol gets behind Abel Ferrara’s Siberia
Director Abel Ferrara (© La Biennale di Venezia / foto ASAC)

Nine projects have secured funding from the IDM South Tyrol Film Fund & Commission, following the third and final call of 2017. A total of €1.314 million have been earmarked, and 70 days of principal photography are scheduled to take place in the region. Five of these titles are Italian, three are Austrian and one is German; eight projects are being backed at the production stage and one in pre-production. Standing out among the titles being supported in production is the new movie by Abel Ferrara, Siberia, an Italian-German production by Vivo film together with The Match Factory. The film, which will likely be toplined by Willem Dafoe, flanked by Isabelle Huppert and Nicolas Cage, has secured €500,000 in funding and will be shot in various attractive locations in the region, including the summit of the Plose mountain (which is 2,562 metres high).

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Alessandro Angelini is also coming back to the director’s chair with his black comedy Abbi fede, an Italian remake of the famous Danish movie Adam’s Apples [+see also:
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by Anders Thomas Jensen. It is the first fiction film staged by Bolzano-based Greif Produktion, which is partnering up with Austria’s Sigma Filmproduktion and Italian outfit Cannizzo Produzioni. The cast is said to include Giorgio Pasotti, Marco D'Amore, Robert Palfrader and Kasia Smutniak. The IDM Film Fund & Commission is supporting the project in production to the tune of €350,000.

Meanwhile, mountaineer Reinhold Messner is stepping behind the camera for the third time, following Still Alive and La montagna sacra. Cerro Torre is the working title of his new documentary, taken from the name of the peak in Patagonia where, in February 1959, two men, only one of whom survived, attempted to climb the summit while being battered by snow storms and avalanches. The cast also includes Messner’s son, Simon. German outfit Riva Film, which is staging the project, has received €150,000 in backing from IDM.

The new project by Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi also takes the form of a documentary. Following Italy: Love It or Leave It, the directorial duo are turning their attention to a subject that is more topical than ever, given the flurry of recent sex scandals – namely, what connects the so-called “three Ps”: penis, power and politics? Dicktatorship [+see also:
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is being produced by Italy’s Doclab and is receiving €34,000 in backing from the IDM Film Fund & Commission.

Three other projects funded by IDM are being helmed by three female directors from the South Tyrol region: Maura Delpero, Karin Duregger and Evi Romen. The first is working on Hogar (which was previously backed by IDM at the pre-production stage), an Italian-Argentinian production by Disparte, Vivo film and Campo Cine; it is receiving production support of €62,000. Karin Duregger has written and will direct the doc Die Soldatin des Kaisers - Das abenteuerliche Leben der Viktoria Savs with Austrian firm WEGA-Filmproduktionsgesellschaft, which has been granted €55,000 by the Film Commission. Lastly, Evi Romen is hard at work on Hochwald, which has been backed with €45,000 at the development stage; the project’s production partner is Vienna-based Amour Fou.

The list of projects being funded by the IDM following this year’s final call is rounded off by Der Geldmacher by Urs Egger, a historical drama produced by Austria’s epo-film, and the documentary Dream Big/Sogni in grande, directed by Katia Bernardi and staged by Trento-based production house GiUMa Produzioni.

The next few deadlines for presenting funding applications to the IDM South Tyrol Film Fund & Commission for 2018 are as follows: 24 January, 2 May and 19 September.

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(Translated from Italian)

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