HBF november 2022 selectie

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Among the range of the themes, characters and styles found in the selection is the urge of the filmmakers to dive into family dynamics. Self-taught Rwandan filmmaker Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo is supported for her debut feature Benimana in which ethnic tensions and reconciliation are explored by a mother and her daughter. Colombian animator María Cristina Pérez González will use the richness of painting on paper to tell a father-daughter adventure story in her feature debut Mi papá el camión. 

Cannes and Locarno award-winning Brazilian filmmaker Carlos Segundo is selected for Milk Powder, where the title evokes the absurd struggle that the protagonist has growing up and moving out of his grandmother’s house. The protagonist in Chinese filmmaker Hao Zhao’s  If I See A Rainbow spent years trying to escape the controlling grip of her family, but when her mother dies realises she is stuck in a new trap. Secrets are protected fiercely and exposed in a Christmas holiday between two different families in Cold Ashes Can Cause Forest Fires by Indian filmmaker Ashmita Guha Neogi, whose short films have won prizes at Cannes and San Sebastián. 

Support from the HBF often marks an initial vote of confidence and financial impetus that is a vital first step in a film’s development process. The scheme has offered a launchpad to some of the most distinguished filmmakers working across the world today. 

See below for the full list of supported projects. 

Concept still: Benimana

Concept still: The Riverbank

Concept still: La sombra de los peces

Concept still: Milk Powder

Concept still: Bleach

Concept still: Mi papá el camión

Concept still: Cold Ashes Can Cause Forest Fires

Concept still: If I See A Rainbow

Concept still: Leila's Trial

HBF-selected directors' portraits

Script and Project Development Support 2022 round two complete selection:

Benimana, Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo, Rwanda, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal
Just when she thought her past was behind her, Veneranda, a survivor of the Tutsi genocide working for reconciliation, sees her old demons resurface when she learns of her daughter Tina's pregnancy, shaking the family balance.

Bleach, Kaltrina Krasniqi, Kosovo
Fatime (50s), a domestic worker from Prishtina, gets a new job as a cleaner in an advertising agency run by Elvira (40s), a charismatic entrepreneur. While the agency develops the brand for a new bleach product, Fatime gets close to Elvira, and for the first time finds herself exploring the possibility of friendship outside her social class.

Cold Ashes Can Cause Forest Fires, Ashmita Guha Neogi, India
While dealing with her parents' recent separation, 15 year old Uma is visited by old family friends during the Christmas holidays. Through the course of their stay, secrets between the two families are revealed, compelling Uma to desperate actions, thus creating secrets of her own.

If I See A Rainbow, Hao Zhao, China, France
After the death of her mother, Li Qingshui finds herself becoming more and more like her. She now agrees with her mother that she has married the wrong guy.

Leila's Trial, Charlie Kouka, Tunisia, France
In Cité Nour, a run-down neighbourhood in a small Tunisian town, Leila, a 13-year old girl performs miracles and pits locals against one another: is she a witch or a saint?

Long Weekend, Katarina Koljevic, Serbia
One woman’s leap to death will lead to another woman’s leap of life. 

A Margem do Rio, Enock Carvalho, Matheus Farias, Brazil
Having hit hard times, the street-side cinema where Izaquiel works is sublet to a Pentecostal church. Izaquiel is sucked into a spiral of harassment by the new tenants, with whom he wages a muted and increasingly violent war.

Milk Powder, Carlos Segundo, Brazil, France, Germany
Vicente is a wannabe rocker who still lives with his grandmother at nearly 40. When she commits suicide, he figures he will keep her body at home for a few days until her pension arrives. Meanwhile, he accepts a job as a graduation photo album salesman, which will put on his path a constellation of women who will make him gain some much-needed perspective on his own life.

Mi papá el camión, María Cristina Pérez González, Colombia
After losing everything, Bonifacio is forced to leave the countryside and travel to the city with his little daughter to pursue his dream of being a truck driver. While misadventures take father and daughter down opposite paths in the city, Bonifacio discovers his true calling: being a dad.

La sombra de los peces, Leandro Listorti, Argentina, Germany
After spending one year in Argentine Antarctica a female palaeontologist returns to her home in Buenos Aires. In the city and while she prepares to introduce a new specimen of Jurassic fish recently discovered, a series of alterations that seem to be triggered by the finding affect her daily routine.

A Tied Woman, Miguel Ángel Moulet, Olivia Manrufo, Peru, Dominican Republic
In an Andean community in Peru, a nurse dutifully complies with her superiors' instructions in order to attain her long-awaited transfer to the capital, ignoring the consequences of the mass sterilisation campaign carried out by the government.