25/11/2019 - Seventeen prizes supporting development, production and distribution, and equating to a total of €437,000, were awarded to this year’s best projects at the close of the annual Meeting Event

Producer Michela Pini and director Cyril Schäublin with their TFL Production Awards for Unrest (© TFL)

Once again, the TorinoFilmLab’s awards will be making their way all over the world, from Switzerland to Colombia and from Germany to Nepal, taking in France, Italy and Romania, and journeying so far as Indonesia and Mongolia. The international laboratory which supports film talent working on their first or second works, and which closed its 12^th edition on 23 November with the usual Meeting Event in Turin, awarded - from among 11 FeatureLab projects - its two production prizes (totalling €80,000) to the Swiss project Unrest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cyril Schäublin
film profile] by Cyril Schäublin (an 1872 love story set in a watch factory in Switzerland, which also bagged the ArteKino International Prize and the Amsterdam Post Lab Award) and the Romanian work Victus by Andrei Tănase (a tragicomic story of a woman close to breaking point who accidentally releases a tiger from the local zoo and subsequently sets out in search of it).

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The three co-production prizes allocated by Creative Europe – MEDIA and equating to €150,000, meanwhile, were won by the Colombian-Dutch project A Male [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabián Hernández
film profile] by Fabián Hernández (which sees a teenager from Bogotà trying to shake off the masculine stereotypes imposed by society; the project also scooped the Sub-ti Award), the first feature film by Israeli actress Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum, Houses (where the protagonist returns to her childhood home in an attempt to re-discover herself), and Runner [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Marian Mathias (the story of a first love, set in the American Midwest, which promises to be of great visual impact).

“Now that market pressure is high and the industry is all going in the same direction, it’s very important that we support filmmakers who take risks in their cinematic language and their stories”, Romanian director Adina Pintilie affirmed to Cineuropa. The latter is a member of this year’s FeatureLab jury, alongside producer Isabelle Glachant, the delegate general of Venice’s Critics’ Week Giona Nazzaro, production and television expert Julia Oh and international co-productions senior consultant Katriel Schory. “The TFL lends support to some very daring projects. Without its backing in terms of development and production, a research project such as Touch Me Not [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adina Pintilie
film profile] would probably never have been made”, added the filmmaker who won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2018 with this title.

The TFL’s three Audience Design Fund Awards of 2019 – supporting the development of innovative strategies to draw in audiences upon the film’s distribution - were handed to Cuban Dancer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Roberto Salinas, Night of the Kings [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Philippe Lacôte
film profile] by Philippe Lacôte and Maternal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maura Delpero
film profile] by Maura Delpero. Last but not least, new to this year’s edition was the first TFL World Co-Production Fund Award, which supports the making of films directed by experienced filmmakers (third works onwards) and which went to The Sky Is Mine by Deepak Rauniyar.

The winners of the 12^th TorinoFilmLab awards are as follows:

2 TFL Production Awards
Unrest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cyril Schäublin
film profile] - Cyril Schäublin (Switzerland)
Victus - Andrei Tănase (Romania)

3 TFL Co-Production Awards
A Male [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fabián Hernández
film profile] - Fabián Hernández (Colombia/Netherlands)
Houses - Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum (Israel)
Runner [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Marian Mathias (Germany/France/US)

TFL Audience Design Fund Awards
Cuban Dancer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Roberto Salinas (Italy/Canada/Chile)
Night of the Kings [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Philippe Lacôte
film profile] - Philippe Lacôte (France/Canada/Ivory Coast)
Maternal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maura Delpero
film profile] - Maura Delpero (Italy/Argentina)

TFL World Co-Production Fund Award
The Sky Is Mine - Deepak Rauniyar (Nepal/Norway/Germany/Netherlands/Singapore)

Related prizes

TFL White Mirror
Wild Encounters - Sarah Arnold (France/Switzerland)

Hamilton Behind the Camera Award – Talent for the Future
The Songsmith - Bayu Prihantoro Filemon (Indonesia)

CNC Award
Painless - Michael Wahrmann (Brazil)
Special Mention of the CNC Jury
Ze - Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir (Mongolia)

ArteKino International Prize
Unrest - Cyril Schäublin

Amsterdam Post Lab Award
Unrest - Cyril Schäublin

Sub-ti Award
A Male - Fabián Hernández

Sub-ti Access Award
A Year of Cold - Min Bahadur Bham (Nepal/France/Norway/Singapore/Myanmar)

(Translated from Italian)