CM 2021

Creative Europe

Lumière Publishing 

Milano

Pitch video

Goals at CineMart
 We&rsquo;re interested in meeting potential co-production partners, especially from France. We&rsquo;re still in the development phase so there&rsquo;s room to include co-producers and to establish a sustainable co-production structure. We are also looking for a sales agent, broadcasters and distributors.Synopsis
 Milano (11) is a boy who can&rsquo;t talk, but he can hear. He needs to express himself using sign language. He is raised by his father Alain, who grew up in a youth institution, and therefore doesn&rsquo;t really know how to raise a young kid. They live in a social housing project and try to make the most of it. Milano is part of the inclusive education system. There, they notice that Milano is often late for school or didn&rsquo;t bring lunch nor sports clothes for gym class. They also know that he&rsquo;s often home alone. His father Alain takes on extra work, likes going out, sometimes takes drugs and thus, is rarely at home. Milano is often left to his own devices and owns a key to the house. The boy is extorted by the bullies of the block. One of the only ones he can really count on is his dog Happy, who always comes to scratch the back door, but is not allowed inside by his father. When Milano is feeling very down or upset, the wind picks up, and heavy rainfall follows.Ren&eacute;e, a debt collector in her early forties, doesn&rsquo;t live far from Milano&rsquo;s public housing project, in an old villa together with her demented mother Susan. She runs a very successful debt collection agency and works so hard that she has forgotten what is important in life. Milano goes there when he&rsquo;s alone, wants to swim in Ren&eacute;e&rsquo;s pool or needs company. Alain is not very keen on a 'rich bourgeois lady' interfering&nbsp;in their lives, but he sees the advantages of it and he reluctantly allows it. Alain has told Milano that his mother Amanda passed away, but when one day Alain crosses her in the supermarket, he decides to confess that she&rsquo;s still alive. Milano demands to meet her. Amanda is a very young and unstable woman who works in a beauty salon. The first visit ends in disappointment, but Milano decides to visit her again. When she takes the boy to her small studio, she makes it clear to him that she has no money, that he shouldn&rsquo;t return, and that she has run away from her responsibility as a mother. Milano is very concerned about her and even though she rejects him, Milano keeps visiting her.Ren&eacute;e, through her wealthy charitable Lions&rsquo; Club, organises a benefit event for children with cancer. Milano attends as well. When the revenues appear to be stolen, he turns out to be the number one suspect. Alain happens to have bought a new car: it can&rsquo;t be a coincidence. After Ren&eacute;e confronts Milano and Alain with her question as to where the money went, Alain&rsquo;s pride is hurt, and he forbids her to ever see Milano again.The boys who extort Milano throw his dog into the water. Milano goes into the water in blind panic to save his dog. Only the dog comes ashore and Milano does not survive the rescue attempt. After this tragic event, Ren&eacute;e begins to question the meaning of her work and Alain falls into apathy for a short while. When he enters Milano's room one evening, he finds an envelope with money that says &lsquo;for mummy&rsquo;. Alain sees that the money from the benefit is indeed in the envelope. He is going to return it, because he is a man of honour. Ren&eacute;e sits in her office and hears the many calls to debtors; she makes a decision. Ren&eacute;e goes to Amanda's studio to give her money since that is how Milano wanted it.Alain picks himself up and decides to do things differently. He&rsquo;s at home when he hears scratching at the door. He opens the door, it is very windy and the dog Happy is wagging its tail on the doorstep. Alain goes outside with the dog; the streets are deserted, and it starts blowing even more fiercely. Alain looks up, expecting the rain. The wind suddenly subsides and the rain never comes.Director's Biography
 Christina Vandekerckhove graduated with distinction from Audiovisual Arts at KASK with the documentary Home video 53, which won the Viewpoint documentary award that year and received rave reviews in the press. She has worked&nbsp;as a freelancer director mainly for television and theatre since. In 2015 she made the film&nbsp;De nada, commissioned by Canvas, a visual musical road movie through insusceptible Spanish landscapes. As part of the TV series&nbsp;Writers in&nbsp;the Low Countries, she made a surrealistic film portrait of the illustrator/writer Randall Casaer. For more than three years she developed and shot her first documentary feature film&nbsp;Rabot&nbsp;(2017), a mosaic film about the relocation of&nbsp;the inhabitants of the Rabot towers in Ghent, that had to disappear from the cityscape. With&nbsp;Rabot, she won the Audience Award at the 2017 Ghent Film Festival, the Scam Scenario Award at the 2018 Millenium Festival in Brussels,&nbsp;the Ensor for Best Documentary, the Social Film Award and a special mention at the 2018 Human Rights Festival. De Bond Van Belgische Journalisten ranked&nbsp;Rabot&nbsp;among the five best films released in 2018. She was named Master Storyteller&nbsp;of 2018 by the Stichting Verhalende Journalistiek. The film has been shown at several foreign festivals in competition and broke all records in Belgium: the first documentary to attract so many cinemagoers. In 2020 she finished the short film&nbsp;Mia. The film was selected for the International Short&nbsp;Film competition at the 2020 Ghent Film Festival and the Flemish competition of the 2020 Leuven Short Film Festival, where it received the Humo Award. She also worked for E&eacute;n, De Wereldvrede and Lecter Scripted Media on the series&nbsp;Lockdown&nbsp;where twelve directors were asked to make a short film.&nbsp;Stella&nbsp;is the result and can be seen in the autumn of 2020 on E&eacute;n.

Lunanime bvba

Milano tells the story of an eleven-year-old boy who cannot speak but can hear with hearing impairments. He must express himself using sign language. He’s raised by his father, who grew up in a youth institution and therefore, doesn’t really know how to raise a young kid. They live in a social compound near the city and try to make the most out of it. When he’s home alone, Milano goes to Renée. She’s a rich woman from the neighbouring residential area that works as a debt collector. When all of a sudden his mother appears again, Milano and his father have to look for a new balance.