Nick Holdsworth Noaz Deshe, whose “Xoftex” had its world premiere this week in competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is in post-production with his next project.
Deshe tells Variety the new film is a documentary set in Ukraine, which is a collaboration with Russian dissident Pyotr Verzilov – an artist and member of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot – and “House of Cards” creator Beau Willimon.
Deshe – a Romanian citizen whose grandfather was Ukrainian – won’t be drawn on the documentary’s title, but says it is “about intimacy and love in a time of love and dreams.” Deshe’s unsettling sophomore feature “Xoftex” is a deep dive into the world of the “other.” Like his acclaimed 2013 directorial debut “White Shadow,” about an albino boy, “Xoftex” takes viewers into a landscape of alienation and pain that is challenging to watch.
Inspired by a vast Greek refugee camp named Softex just north of Thessaloniki, that houses mostly Arab asylum seekers fleeing war in the Middle East, “Xoftex” is a liminal space where time loses its meaning as people who have lost all control over their own lives await bureaucratic decisions that will decide their destiny.
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