On day 1 of this year’s MIA – Internationa Audiovisual Market, Rome’s Cinema Barberini hosted a special 40-minute event during which the MedFilm Festival announced the finalist projects for its industry sidebar, the MedMeetings. The projects were presented on site by the festival’s artistic director, founder and president, Ginella Vocca, with MedMeetings head Paolo Bertolin attending remotely.

MedMeetings aims to create synergies and cooperation between directors, producers, distributors and industry professionals from Euro-Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. The MedMeetings are structured into two distinct sections: MedWIPs and MedPitching. For each of the two sections, six projects are selected. These will compete for the OIM Prize (worth €10,000), the Stadion Video Prize (worth €3,500) and the MedPitching Award (worth €1,000, with an additional €1,000 bursary to be added if the project becomes an Italian co-production). This year’s jury is made up of Giornate degli Autori artistic director Gaia Furrer, editor Esmeralda Calabria, and producer and programmer Stefan Ivančić.

Bertolin talked through all of the projects. The first he introduced was Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s debut feature, Ancestors, a co-production between Turkey and Germany. The helmer, who comes from a visual-arts background, sets the film in the 1950s and tells the curious story of a woman archaeologist who tries to affirm her identity in the workplace and at a societal level in a male-dominated context.

Next up was the Kosovar-Croatian co-production Lucky Us, directed by Kosovo’s Anita Morina. It tells the story of a Kosovar family who moved to Croatia and managed to open a successful bakery. “It’s a family tale covering recent historical developments, [lying somewhere] between bittersweet comedy and drama,” Bertolin underscored.

Third in line was Egyptian filmmaker Nesrine Lofty El-Zayat’s Mabrouka (France/Egypt). The project is inspired by “almost real events” and revolves around a woman living in Cairo at the end of the 19th century. After a bad accident, she is sent to Beirut for treatment. Although this tragedy should have destroyed her both socially and politically, it becomes an opportunity for her to reaffirm her identity. The pic boasts “a strong lead who tries to find her place amidst societal obstacles”, Bertolin highlighted.

The fourth project, also from Egypt, was Amrosh Badr’s documentary Puppetson. It tells the touching story of one of the last puppet masters from Egypt, who passed on his craft to his child. Once an adult, the puppeteer’s son realises this artform is disappearing and seems willing to abandon his father’s legacy, while the world heads towards modernity and leaves traditions behind.

Next, Bertolin spoke about Saffron’s Land by Yassine El Idrissi, a Moroccan production backed by the Doha Film Institute. The project is set in a village in the Atlas Mountains, where the locals believe the flourishing of saffron is a curse instead of a blessing. The pic follows a character who goes against this superstition and fights for rationality.

The last project in the strand is Sameh Alaa’s When I Close My Eyes I See Your Eyes (Egypt). “Alaa’s name might be familiar to those following emerging global cinema. In 2020, the filmmaker won the Palme d’Or for Best Short with I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face. Those who saw the film know we’re talking about a talented director interested in gender and political matters in a harsh reality. Even this [new] film is a reflection on these topics,” Bertolin explained.

Zooming in on the WIPs, Bertolin first spoke about Irene Bartolomé’s Dream of Another Summer (Lebanon/Spain), billed as “a documentary of great poetry and sensitivity, telling the story of Beirut’s identity post-2020 explosion and ahead of recent tragic events”.

Igor Jelinović’s Epilogue (Croatia) follows a number of relationships that are changing in unpredictable ways and tackles the notion of the epilogue in a provocative fashion. “It’s hard to reveal much about this project without spoiling it,” Bertolin admitted.

Tarık Aktaş’s Kriegsaugsgabe (Turkey/Germany/USA) aims to break down boundaries. Set in the near future, in an unidentified area of Mesopotamia, it sees a mythical Sufi warrior re-emerging in a wartime context where the victims are children and teens. “Placed in a dimension that is almost legendary and speaking about war and mythology, the pic weirdly resembles reality, hinting at today’s world,” Bertolin said.

Meanwhile, Guillermo García López’s Sleepless City (Spain/France) is a work at the crossroads between documentary and fiction. The helmer followed Madrid’s largest gypsy community for years, “a reality of slums that still exists on the outskirts of Spain’s capital and is often neglected. […] With great beauty, he tells of the dreams and wishes of the youth of this community condemned to displacement,” Bertolin added.

The last two projects are Giuseppe Ferreri’s The Star Hunters (Italy/Canada) and Pınar Yorgancıoğlu’s Those Who Whistle After Dark (Turkey). The first follows “a fairly unique couple” made up of an amateur scientist obsessed with meteorites and trying to break through into science and astronomy globally, and his wife, who helps him through his “scientific explorations”. Finally, Yorgancıoğlu’s debut is “an unusual family portrait”. The plot centres on a father who has a vision, but nobody understands whether or not it is real; the mother is entangled in something she keeps hidden, while the daughter is stuck in a limbo seemingly hindering her future.

“We’re very happy with our selection and to have received so many good applications from the region’s filmmakers. Hopefully, they’ll pique the interest of the jury and the professionals attending the MedMeetings,” Bertolin signed off.