SLOVENIAN PRESENTATION AT THIS YEAR'S CANNES FESTIVAL

The newest edition of the most important film festival - a common point of everyone involved in film as a form of art and business - is taking place from 13 to 24 May in Cannes.

For the fourth year in a row the Slovenian Film Fund will be present in the film Mecca in a pavilion by the seaside promenade, a part of the festival and especially the market part of this event.

Two new Slovenian films will be shown at festival market screenings, where the number of films is increasing every year. In 2007, 889 films were shown at this screenings, among these 551 of them had their world premieres; while in 2008 as many as 1004 films were shown (753 premieres) in 32 venues.

This year Slovenia will be represented by the films Slovenian Girl by Damjan Kozole and 9:06 by Igor Šterk. The film Slovenian Girl is a debut for the actress Nina Ivanišin, while 9:06 already represents the third leading film role in the last four years for Igor Samobor. Both films are going to be shown to the festival selectors and buyers in Cannes as world premieres. The press will not be invited to the screenings due to the demands of the selectors of the important festivals following the one in Cannes. The Venice Festival, which these films are especially interesting for, is definitely one of such festivals.

The younger generation Slovenian director Martin Turk and his project Feed Me with Your Words will be presented in the official programme Cinefondation Residence.

In December 2008 a total of six directors were chosen for this programme out of more than 170 applications from all over the world. The jury, presided over by the director of the Cannes Festival Gilles Jacob, thus recognised Martin Turk as one of the most promising directors of the younger generation.

Since 1 March, Martin Turk is a "resident" in the Paris apartment of the Cannes Festival, where he is preparing the project Feed Me with Your Words, a story about a family reunited by the mysterious disappearance of one of its members. During the preparation he enjoys the creative and logistical support of the Cinefondation programme and its director Georges Goldenstern, a long‑time editor of ARTE France, in whose time films like Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville by Lars von Trier, April by Nanni Moretti, My Name is Joe by Ken Loach, Songs from the Second Floor by Roy Andersson, The Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke and many others were made with the significant support of the ARTE TV network.

The Cinefondation Residence programme was founded by Gilles Jacob in 1998 with the intention of helping young directors realise their first or second feature films. In eleven years of its existence it boasts a realisation of as many as 85 % of projects developed under its wing, and many of these projects started their international journey in the official sections of the Cannes Festival. Only this year five features, assisted by the Cinefondation Residence programme in order to ensure successful realisation, will be presented in these sections.

Martin Turk already succeeded in qualifying for the official programme of this most prestigious film festival last year, when his short film Everyday is Not the Same was chosen for the Quinzaine des Realisateurs short film selection.

Since 2005 the Slovenian Film Fund has been a member of the European Film Promotion, which presents the European "rising" film stars at the Berlin Festival and the perspective European producers at the Cannes Festival. The condition for the application of the producers is a successful film in the last year, either in domestic distribution or at international festivals. Slovenia will be represented by the producer Eva Rohrman of the production house Forum Ljubljana, whose last film Landscape No. 2 premiered at the last Venice Film Festival. In Cannes she is going to present her new film project Inferno to 22 producers from other European countries. The selected producers will take part in various consultations, get to know each other, and exchange their viewpoints in regard to the preparation of projects and their realisation. This year's edition of Producers on the Move also celebrates its tenth anniversary. In this period 196 producers have presented themselves here, among them two Slovenians: Ida Weiss (Bela Film) in 2005 and Jožko Rutar (Staragara) in 2006.

The Slovenian pavilion will be the meeting point for all of the above as well as for the Slovenian filmmakers seeking partners for their projects in development in Cannes. In the pavilion, individuals can organise meetings with international film professionals and present their activities. This year, the Grossman Film and Wine Festival, which is going to take place for the fifth year in August, will be presented to the international public in the pavilion for the third year in a row. The festival team from Ljutomer will be presented in Cannes on 19 and 20 May.

Sponsor of the presentation at the Cannes Film Festival: