Ada Solomon: Last News

Naman Ramachandran Netflix and the European Producers Club (EPC) have revealed the winners of a pitch contest for fictional series at the ongoing Venice Film Festival. The pitch contest is a joint initiative by EPC and Netflix to help create new opportunities for European women producers. It was launched at Series Mania in March, and open to EPC producers working for women-owned companies. Following a selection process by an independent jury, composed of Cia Edstrom, Francine Raveney and Olivier Kohn, the competition finalists pitched their projects to the Netflix content team. Anna Mannion of Tri Moon Films, Ireland, won the first prize of €50,000 ($49,762), while Ada Solomon of Microfilm, Romania, won the second prize of €20,000.

Marta Balaga “The Americans are coming,” argued European Producers Club’s Alexandra Lebret during Locarno’s StepIn’s wrap-up session. And it can be a good thing. “They want to benefit from lower costs and tax incentives [in Europe].

Marta Balaga HanWay Films’ Head of Production Katie Ellen, microfilm producer Ada Solomon and Co-Head of WME Independent Alex Walton will address the audience during Locarno’s StepIn opening keynote. According to this year’s theme “The Ground Is Shaking,” they will take on four topics: A.I., current challenges in independent production and financing, the traditional theatrical model and gender equality and diversity representation.

The European Film Academy has unveiled its new board which has been voted in under updated guidelines aimed at ensuring a more balanced geographical representation of its members.

Christopher Vourlias When Roma actress-turned-director Alina Șerban reflects on her life, rising from an impoverished background in Bucharest to become an acclaimed and groundbreaking force on stage and screen, she describes it as “an urban Cinderella story.” A review from one of her first stage shows, she says, sums it up best: “Roma actress beats the odds.” As a multi-faceted artist, Șerban has dedicated her life and career to reframing the narrative about her marginalized community. Now she’s developing her feature-length directorial debut, “I Matter,” a deeply personal story about a young Roma woman studying to be an actor who, faced with the threat of being kicked out of her orphanage, must suddenly confront the reality of making it through life on her own.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The jury for the Docu Talents From the East Award, presented Sunday as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival, split the award between two projects: “A Picture to Remember” by Ukrainian director Olga Chernykh and producer Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon, and the Czech-Slovak co-production “Chronicle” by Martin Kollar. The award comes with a cash prize of $5,000. Eight documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the next 12 months, were presented in the program, which is curated by the Ji.hlava Intl.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the lineup of Cannes Film Market’s newly launched initiative Cannes Investors Circle has remained under wraps, Variety has learned about four of the nine projects which were pitched during the invitation-only event. The initiative was created by the film market’s new executive director Guillaume Esmiol to connect VIP private investors with select filmmakers and producers boasting a stellar track records. Curated by experts such as Medici’s Tamara Tatishvili, Arte Cinema’s Rémi Burah and financier Serge Hayat, the nine projects are budgeted between €2 million and €12 million. Among these are “Dracula. The Second Coming” directed by Radu Jude, the Romanian helmer of Berlinale prizewinning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” directed by Ada Solomon at microFILM; “Rivo Alto,” directed by Clément Cogitore (“The Wakhan Front”) and produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Kazak Productions (“Titane”); “The Girl” directed by Marina Ziolkowski (“But You Look So Good”) and produced by Philippe Gompel (“Cherry”) at Manny Films, and “The Birthday Party” directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez (“Chaika”) and produced by Giorgos Karnavas (“Triangle of Sadness”) at Heretic.

Marta Balaga Berlinale Series, established in 2015, keeps offering new shows proper cinema treatment. But it’s not just about that “dark room and the level of concentration you hardly get when you sit on a sofa,” explains head of the event Julia Fidel, noting a surge in stories with a “reasonable” budget.  “We want to screen very different episodic narrative styles from any country in the world. There is this expectation of showcasing ‘blockbuster’ series, which we also include, but the real benefit of [having] a series section at a major festival are the discoveries.”  Such as Market Selects’ Israeli offering “Traitor.” “If the story is outstanding and the characters relatable, the language doesn’t matter,” state showrunners Ron Leshem and Amit Cohen. 

Christopher Vourlias Athens-based Heretic has acquired worlds sales rights for “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World,” the latest film from Berlinale Golden Bear winner Radu Jude (“Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn”), who is serving on the international jury at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Divided into two parts, Jadu’s latest follows an overworked and underpaid production assistant who must drive around the city of Bucharest to film the casting for a workplace safety video commissioned by a multinational company. In the film’s second half, one of her interviewees makes a statement that ignites a scandal, forcing him to re-invent his story to suit the company’s narrative.

Anna Franklin Ana-Maria Comănescu’s debut feature “Horia” starts shooting in Romania on Wednesday. The film is a Romanian/Bulgarian/Serbian coproduction, produced by Carla Fotea and Ada Solomon through Romania’s MicroFILM, in coproduction with Rossitsa Valkanova through Bulgaria’s Klas Film, and Nikolina Vučetić-Zečević through Serbia’s Biberche Productions, Film New Europe reports.The script, written by Comănescu, follows Horia, a cautious teenage boy from a Romanian village, who is badly longing for his crush, who lives on the other side of the country. He resents his only parent, Petrică, a charming mechanic, for constantly pushing him to pursue girls.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorTomasz Wasilewski’s “Fools” (Głupcy) has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Proxima Competition. World sales are being handled by Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales.Wasilewski won the best script award for “United States of Love” at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, and the East of West Award at Karlovy Vary in 2013 for “Floating Skyscrapers.”“Fools” follows Marlena and Tomasz, hidden away from the world in a small seaside town, who have been in a happy relationship for many years.

Christopher Vourlias Berlin Golden Bear winner Radu Jude (“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”) is set to begin production in Romania on his next feature, Variety can reveal.“A Case History” analyzes the relations between individuals and multinational companies in the mad dash of new Romanian capitalism, starting from the real story of preparing and shooting a problematic work safety video. Principal photography is slated to begin in summer or early fall.“The film is composed of two parts which respond to each other, forming a diptych of sorts,” said Jude.