The feature-length fiction film project God Will Not Help directed and written by Hana Jušić will receive support in the amount of 390,000 euros. 

The project is produced by Croatian company Kinorama, with producer Ankica Jurić Tilić. Co-producers on the project are MicroFilm (Romania), Perfo (Slovenia) and Maneki Films (France).

The future film is set at the start of the 20th century, in the rural region at the foot of the Dinara mountains. Chilean woman Teresa arrives in the isolated sheepherding community claiming to be the widow of the elderman’s brother, a miner killed in a Chilean mine. The arrival of the stranger disrupts the stable structure of the community, while it also becomes clear that Teresa is carrying a secret of her own.

In addition to the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, the film has also been supported for development by RE-ACT, which supports Croatian-Slovenian-Italian co-productions. The project has been developed at the Torino Film Lab/ScriptLab workshop, at the Cannes residency Cinéfondation, and elsewhere. Details about the project are available at production company Kinorama’s website.

Eurimages has also supported a project created in co-production with Kinorama, again with Ankica Jurić Tilić as co-producer, in the amount of 149,000 euros. The Slovenian feature film project Whites Wash at Ninety will be directed by Marko Naberšnik. The story is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name written by Bronja Žakelj, which follows her life through three different periods. The script is penned by the film’s director Marko Naberšnik and the author of the novel herself.

The project is produced by Slovenian company Perfo, in co-production with Quasar Film from Italy, Biberche from Serbia, Black Cat Production from North Macedonia, Kinorama from Croatia and Protos Film from Montenegro. Among others, the project has received co-financing support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, while more details about the project may be found on the Slovenian Film Centre’s website. 

In addition, Eurimages has supported another project, which is a minority Croatian co-production. The future feature film Desire Lines directed by Dane Komljen has received support in the amount of 120,000 euros.

Desire Lines centres on Branko, who, obsessively following his brother who appears to be behaving strangely, discovers that he is actually the one who is strange. After walking through a wall in abandoned barracks, Branko realises that he is not human. Branko continues to walk aimlessly until he collapses deep in the forest, where he is taken in by three other non-human figures who welcome him into their small community. In their company, Branko discovers that every form of the living and non-living world has its own story that it wants to share. After an unexpected visit, Branko continues further, up above.

The project is produced by Serbian company Dart Film&Video, in co-production with Croatian company Pipser (co-producer is Miljenka Čogelja), Dutch seriousFilm and German Flanuer Films. The project was also supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Film Center Serbia, Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Sarajevo Canton, Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg, Dutch Film Fund, and Hubert Bals Fund (as part of the Rotterdam International Film Festival), and was developed at the CineLink of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and at the first French-Serbian co-production workshop last year.

At its first meeting of the year, which took place on 26th March, Eurimages awarded support in the total amount of 6,992,000 euros to European co-productions.

In the context of Eurimages’ Gender Equality Strategy, which aims to establish equality in the number of submitted and supported projects by female authors, in the first session 61.06% of supported projects were works by female directors.

The full list of supported projects is available on this link.