Babylon News

News

Babylon Alumni Successes

2010 Alumni

Mirella Muroni has received development funding from the Amsterdam Art fund for her project Wegfallen/Falling Away.
Dima Hamdan was awarded a place on the prestigious mentorship and development scheme Hothouse, run by the London Film School, to further develop The Kidnap.

2009 Alumni

Following Babylon 2009, Sally El Hosaini took part in the Sundance Film Director’s Lab with her project My Brother the Devil, was one of Screen International’s 2009 Stars of Tomorrow, and is now working with a UK producer to finance the film. She attended the marketing/distribution workshop in Berlin.
Daniel Cattier’s project Poings Nus/Naked Fists took a positive step forward during 2009 with Daniel’s direction of a documentary special for Belgian television on the same subject as his feature, the struggle for Congolese independence.
Najat Jellab was the sole first time feature film author to be selected at the 2009 Dubai Film Connection with her Babylon project Le Fils de la Mer/The Son of the Sea
Arzu Kökeng acquired a major Dutch producer for her 2009 project Kanka/Live Loud Laugh Long and is developing the screenplay along with the director.
Zornitsa Sophia continues to develop her third feature Estrogen, also taking part in 2009 in EAVE and the MFI Script 2 Film Workshops. The project was selected at the 2009 Mannheim Meetings.
Veit Helmer was awarded Development funding from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and was selected for Cinemart 2009 with his project Baikonur which is scheduled to shoot during autumn 2010.
Pia Marais, who joined the Babylon Berlin Workshop in October 2009, was also selected for Cinemart where she won the ARTE France Cinema Award 2010 for her project Layla Fourie.

2008 Alumni

Producer Isabelle Stead launched Son of Babylon (formerly Um-Hussein) by Mohammed El Daradji, at the Arab Film Festival Abu Dhabi 2009. It was selected for the World Cinema Competition at Sundance 2010, the Panorama section of the Berlinale 2010, and Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010, and continues its successful festival run. It was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights Award in Berlin in February 2010.
Hüseyin Tabak’s award-winning short film Cheeese was screened at Montreal, he completed his first documentary feature Kick Off in autumn 2008, having been discovered by leading producer Josef Aichholzer after participating at Cannes with Babylon 2008;
Gahité Fofana completed his feature film Wallaye! during 2009.
Karim Bensalah was awarded a development grant from the CNC for his project L’Oliver Rouge.
Samona Naomi Williams, G-Luv was one of 15 young professionals selected to take part in Film London’s emerging Producer training programme in July 2008; together with Michael Djaba she is actively in financing on their film and planning production for 2010;
Firos Kariman has continued to develop Icarus with ScriptHouse and at the Binger Institut; he is currently planning his first feature film shoot.
Producer/Director/DOP Giorgio Caprioglio is currently shooting his first feature.

2007 Alumni

Mitko Panov’s feature The War is Over, shot in Switzerland and Macedonia in the Albanian language, was launched at the Babylon workshop Berlin 2009 and at a special screening in Macedonia November 2009. Academic previews have included screenings and director Q&As at Cambridge University and the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in December 2009 and at UCL London in June 2010.
Ayse Polat’s Luks Glück is completed and due for release in Autumn 2010, having attained major production finance from Hamburg Film Fund and ZDF;
Sülbiye Günar’s film Burnout (formerly Alpenhof) is currently in post-production, produced by ZDF’s Kleines Fernsehspiel, starring Sibel Kekilli (seen in Fatih Akin’s Head On);
Show Chun Lee completed the script of Shanghai Belleville during 2009. The film is currently at production finance stage and took part in L’Atelier at Cannes this year, having previously attended 8 major finance markets. The project was awarded MEDIA Development Funding in 2007; producer Juliette Grandmont has raised a total of Euros 100k in development funding; avance sur recettes is confirmed on the project which is due to shoot later in 2010.
Faisal Qureshi continues to work on his feature script Battle Without Banners with veteran UK Director Alex Cox; he won the Best Film Story award at the Brussels Film Festival and Best Short Film at Super Shorts Film Festival in London 2009; he was Associate Producer on controversial UK Independent Film Four Lions which is currently on general release in the UK.
Anthony Alleyne developed his thriller with UK’s Studio of the North in 2008 and continues to produce online drama Jonny Fredo with Babylon 2008 alumnus Piero Passatore.

Past News

Babylon 2009 alumni Veit Helmer and Pia Marais selected for Cinemart 2010

Congratulations to Veit Helmer, whose project Baikonur participated in the Babylon 2009 Rotterdam and Cannes workshops, and to Pia Marais, whose project Layla Fourie participated in the Berlin 2009 workshop: both projects have been selected to take part in Cinemart 2010, during the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

SON OF BABYLON selected for Sundance World Cinema Competition

The Sundance Film Festival has announced its competition line-up today, revealing two films made by Yorkshire production companies in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Son of Babylon(Human Film) and Four Lions (Warp Films) will both have their World premieres at Sundance, the key annual international event for independent cinema, which takes place in Utah from 21st - 31st January 2010.

Son of Babylon (BABYLON 2008) is a Leeds / Iraqi film written and directed by Mohamed Al-Daradji and produced by Leeds based Human Film with support from Screen Yorkshire's Production Fund. The film unearths Iraq's hidden horrors as Al-Daradji takes his audience on a journey through Iraq in 2003....Saddam Hussein has fallen and on hearing the news that prisoners of war have been found alive in the South, Ahmed, a young boy and his grandmother, Um Ibrahim, set out to uncover the fate of the boy's father, one of the many soldiers who never came home. From the mountains of Kurdistan to the sands of Babylon, as his grandmother struggles to accept an awful truth, Ahmed retraces the footsteps of a father he never knew.

Son of Babylon is the second feature film from Mohamed Al-Daradji, following his debut Alhaam, a film that represented Iraq for the Oscar and Golden Globe Awards in 2007. Son of Babylon is a multi-national collaboration of independent filmmakers that has united many well respected organisations from the US, Europe and the Middle East including: Sundance Institute (US), UK Film Council (UK), Screen Yorkshire (UK), CNC (France), Hivos, Doen, Nederland Fond and Rotterdam Media Fonds (Netherlands), Pyramedia and ADACH (UAE).

The second film in the same competition comes from Sheffield based Warp Films , best known for their BAFTA award winning feature This Is England. Four Lions, directed by Chris Morris and written by Morris, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain (Peep Show) is a comedy about some self-styled British jihadis, starring: Riz Ahmed (Shifty), Arsher Ali (Trial and Retribution), Nigel Lindsay (Rome), ayvan Novak (Fonejacker) & Adeel Akhtar (Law & Order).

Hugo Heppell, Head of Production at Screen Yorkshire says: "We are incredibly proud to have been able to support Son of Babylon and are delighted to congratulate Mohammed Al-Daradji, producer Isabelle Stead and all at Human Film, as well as Mark Herbert and the Warp team on their fantastic achievements. For Yorkshire to have two of only 14 films selected for one of the most prestigious competitions in the independent film calendar shows the world class talent we have here."

UK participant Sally El Hosaini has been selected for the 2009 Sundance Director's Lab

Sally was one of only 12 directors selected internationally with her upcoming directorial debut, My Brother the Devil. She will spend most of June at the Sundance Resort in Utah where she will have the opportunity to workshop her script and to shoot four scenes from her film with actors.

Casting for the lab is now complete and the actors joining her in Sundance will be:

Riz Ahmed (Shifty, Rage, Britz, Road to Guantanamo) playing sexy, drug-dealing, gang member, Rashid
Josef Altin (Poppy Shakespeare, The Young Victoria, Boy A, Eastern Promises) playing Rashid's little brother, Mo
Dhafer L'Abidine (Rise of the Footsoldier, The Mark of Cain, The Children of Men, Da Vinci Code) playing Sayed the French Algerian biker.

For more info about Sally click here.

For more info about the Sundance Lab Selection click here.

Funding Awards

2008 French participant Karim Bensalah has been awarded Development Funding from the CNC (Centre National de la Cinématographie) for his script L'Olivier Rouge.

For more info about Karim click here.

Mitko Panov's project The War is Over, which took part in the 2007 programme finished shooting July 2008 in Macedonia and Switzerland. Mitko was at the Locarno Film Festival 9th-11th August 2008 to present his film, accompanied by Babylon Programme Director Gareth Jones.

Click here for full Screen Daily report [pdf].

Now in post-production, The War is Over is a co-production between Kamera300, Switzerland & Pirej Film, Macedonia, the first Macedonian state funded film to be shot in the Albanian language.

Languages: Albanian, Serbian, French.

Shot on RED on locations in Macedonia and Switzerland by veteran Polish cinematographer Piotr Jaxa.

Anticipated length: 110 min.

Cast: Muzafer Edemi, Sheqierie Bucaj, Armond Morina, Blerta Sulaj, Selman Lokaj, Dritro Ame, Enver Petrovci, Sulejman Lokaj.

Development supported by: Guggenheim Foundation, UT Austin, Federal Office of Culture, Switzerland; Zurich Filmstiftung, EU MEDIA Programme, Brussels; BABYLON, London.

Production supported by: The Ministry of Culture of Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian Film Fund & Kamera300, Switzerland.

Mitko's project Witness, also workshopped in Rotterdam, was awarded the First Prize for Best Screenplay at the Central European Pitch Forum in Hungary, October 2007 and was a participant in the ScriptEast programme 2007.

Mitko and Andrea Panov
Martin Blaney, Mitko Panov, Andrea Panov, Gareth Jones, Christoph Thoke

Ayse Polat has been awarded major production funding by the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and the FFA for her film Luks Gluck which is in pre-production. Ayse's own company punktpunktpunkt Filmproduktion will co-produce with Intervista Digital Media for ZDF.

Sülbiye Günar was awarded Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg development funding, October 2007, for her film project Burnout. She has been developing the script during 2008 and the project is now confirmed for production by ZDF.

Writer/producer team Show Chun Lee and Juliette Grandmont received MEDIA Development Funding for their film Shanghai Belleville. The screenplay is completed and the project is now at casting stage.