In 2005, the Festival gave the Cinéfondation the task of organizing L’Atelier, a new step in its action to promote the creation of new works. Each year, L’Atelier selects about fifteen feature length projects from around the world, and invites their directors to the Festival de Cannes in order to put them in contact with film professionals.
Cinefondation also hosts La Cinef which was created in 1998 to the search for new talent. La Cinef forms part of the Official Selection and the selected films are presented to La Cinef and Short Films Competition Jury which awards a prize to the best three at an official ceremony. For its 25th edition, La Cinef has selected 13 live-action and 3 animated shorts directed by 6 male directors and 10 women directors, from among the 1,528 submitted by film schools all over the world. Four of them are from schools taking part for the first time and these 16 shorts reflect the diversity of filmmaking education in the world. Check out the Student Short Competition titles here. Since 1998 more than 410 films from more than a hundred schools in the world have been selected.
Cinefondation also hosts The Résidence du Festival every year weloming in Paris a dozen young foreign directors who work there on their first or second fictional feature film project, in two sessions lasting four and a half months (from October 1st to mid February, and from the end of February to mid July). The Residence gives them a place of residence in the heart of Paris, a personalized program accompanying the writing of their scripts, and a collective program of forums with film industry professionals.
The residents also benefit from:
- 800-Euro grant per month
- Free access to a large number Paris cinemas
- French lessons (optional)
- The possibility of attending festivals during their stay
The selection of the candidate is based on the quality of their already made shorts — or first feature film, as well as on the interest of the feature film project in development, and on the candidates’ motivation. Since its creation in 2000, the Résidence has welcomed more than 200 filmmakers from more than 60 different countries. Nearly 60% of the filmmakers emerging from the great halls of this “Villa Médicis” of cinema have finished their films.
Then there is the Cannes Film Festival L’Atelier. The filmmakers are selected according to the quality of their project and that of their previous films, as well as on the state of progress of their finance plan. The programme will enable them to gain access to international financing and speed up the production process.
In order to help the selected filmmakers, L’Atelier undertakes to:
- Publish a Livre des Projets (Project Brochure) to promote the film projects and present the directors and their producers to film professionals and the media.
- Organize appointments with producers, distributors and grant distribution managers in the L’Atelier pavilion, situated in the Village international-Pantiero, in order to meet any shortfall with other already agreed financing. The filmmakers’ previous films and screenplays will be made available for consultation.
- Associate the selected filmmakers with the daily life of the Festival by providing them with access to the programme of daily Festival screenings, meetings and events.
This year from the 22nd to the 27th of May, L’Atelier will gather 15 international directors chosen for the quality of their earlier films and the potential of their current projects (final stage of writing) meet in Cannes with their producers. Every day, they are given a list of their appointments for the day, each lasting 30 minutes. These meetings are held in the Workshop pavilion in the Pantiero international village. Each director is given a table with a sign bearing the name of their project.
One of these is Tamara Dawit and her project The Last Tears of the Deceased, the only Ethiopian film or project in the Festival. Tamara Dawit is a producer and director whose 2020 documentary Finding Sally traced her aunt’s disappearance to her rebellious past which landed her on the most wanted list when she joined the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party.
Now at L’Atelier, she will be moving ahead The Last Tears of the Deceased.
Tamara Dawit is a producer behind Gobez Media and is based between Toronto, Canada and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Tamara has experience producing music content, creative documentaries, formatted television and has recently branched into dramatic films. She has also overseen the production of digital projects and campaigns for Plan International, MTV Canada, Girl Effect, Kids Can Press and Make Poverty History. In Canada, Tamara is a founding board member of REMC (The Racial Equity Media Collective). She has been an advisor to the Canada Media Fund, UNESCO, and the European Union on policies and programmes to support the film industry in both Canada and Ethiopia. Tamara has participated in labs and pitches at Cannes, RIDM, TIFF, IDFA, Hot Docs, and Sheffield. She is an alumnus of both the Berlinale and Durban Talents, the Doha Film Institute Producers Lab, Produire Au Sud, Good Pitch, the Apost Lab and EAVE.Tamara has experience producing music content, creative documentaries, formatted television and has recently branched into dramatic films. She also brings delegations of Ethiopian filmmakers to such international events as Deutsche Welle Akademie during the Berlinale or to TIFF.
We hope that The Last Tears of the Deceased will not be the only Ethiopian film to show in the Cannes Film Festival or in other festivals to come. However, we recognize the extreme circumstances now reigning with the ongoing war in Ethiopia. We all long for peace and the fruits peace bears upon art and culture! Thank you Tamara for being true to your heritage while enjoying the peace and calm of Canada! You are a model of integration and cultural integrity.
For other projects at L’Atelier, come and visit them at the Village International Pantiero Pavilion 227 or at https://www.cinefondation.com/en/atelier/presentation
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