EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2020 FIRST LOOK – TV PILOTS COMPETITION LINE-UP!

Monday October 26th, 2020

We announce the line-up of the First Look - TV Pilots Competition of the 28th edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE International Film Festival.

ATLANTIC CROSSING

It is often said that the victors write history, which is undoubtedly true, as the losers tend to be quickly forgotten. There is another side, though, as many victors – people whose work was important to humankind’s development – are forgotten, too. People such as Crown Princess Märtha, whose merits in defending European democracy during World War II cannot be overstated, became an obscure figure even in her native Scandinavia. The series depicts her most active years when, in 1940, as a result of Nazi Germany’s invasion of Norway, she escapes with her family across the Atlantic and becomes a trusted adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The media gossip that it is more than just friendship, which bothers the royal family in Europe, but truthfully, the princess does not have time for flirting. She actively tries to convince the still-neutral United States of America to support the Norwegians’ fight for freedom. Strong and independent, Märtha knows what she must do, but living in this strange land among strange people is not easy.

Director: Alexander Eik
Cinematographer: Carl Sundberg
Produced by: Cinenord Drama in co-production with Beta Film for NRK
Distributor: Beta Film
Country and year: Norway, 2020

CITY ON A HILL

Still from "City on a Hill,"
Claire Folger/SHOWTIME

Early 1990s Boston was a city of many exciting promises that overshadowed its imperfections for most of the time. Though it was hard to deny that the city’s lawlessness made both veteran and novice criminals quite arrogant in their actions, especially considering the fact that the police force were filled with corruption and negligence. An idealistic black district attorney DeCourcy Ward is put in a situation when he cannot distinguish a friend from foe, thus he needs to surround himself with people he at least trusts. In the beginning, nothing indicates that Jackie Rohr can be included as one of them. Jackie is a seasoned FBI agent and a golden-mouthed “dirty” cop with a weird sense of humour who hates affirmative action and would love to live in a world he could do things his way. These two stubborn men quickly realize that they will have to join forces and collaborate on some level to stop the city from falling apart in months to follow. Will they be able to gain each other’s trust and respect?

Original title: City on a Hill: The Night Flynn Sent the Cops on the Ice
Polish title: Miasto na wzgórzu
Director: Michael Cuesta
Cinematographer: Alex Disenhof
Produced by: SHOWTIME Presents, Little Mountain Films, Pearl Street Films, The Levinson/Fontana Company
Distributor: Showtime Networks, ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group
Polish distributor: HBO Polska
Country and year: USA, 2019

GOOD LORD BIRD, THE

Still from "The Good Lord Bird,"
SHOWTIME

The Good Lord Bird is told from the point of view of Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson), a fictional enslaved boy who becomes a member of Brown’s motley family of abolitionist soldiers during Bleeding Kansas – a time when the state was a battleground between pro- and anti-slavery forces – and eventually finds himself participating in the famous 1859 raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s raid failed to initiate the slave revolt he intended, but was the event that started the Civil War. The Good Lord Bird weaves a humorous, dramatic and historical tapestry of Antebellum America, spotlighting the complicated and ever-changing racial, religious and gender roles that make up the American identity.

Original title: The Good Lord Bird: Meet the Lord
Director: Albert Hughes
Cinematographer: Peter Deming
Produced by: SHOWTIME Presents, A Blumhouse Television Production, Under the Influence Productions, Mark 924 Entertainment
Distributor: ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group
Country and year: USA, 2020

HUNTERS

There have been a number of films and television series dealing with the causes and effects of Nazi Germany’s traumatic legacy, and possibly even more that deal with the consequences of one of the most dangerous ideologies in human history. However, this series about 1970s America cannot compare to anything previously created. Jonah is a young Jewish Brooklynite who sets his college dreams aside to help his beloved grandmother financially. He begins to deal marijuana to people looking for asylum from life’s responsibilities. The boy is not given a chance to fulfil his duty as grandson because one day, a masked intruder brutally murders his grandma. Jonah’s new life begins as he is taken under the wing of Meyer, an affluent American citizen and Nazi concentration camp survivor. He leads a vigilante organisation aiming to vanquish anyone aspiring to create the Fourth Reich on US soil. Needless to say, Jonah’s life will never be the same.

Original title: Hunters: In the Belly of the Whale
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes
Produced by: Monkeypaw Productions, Amazon Studios
Distributor: Prime Video
Country and year: USA, 2020

KING OF WARSAW, THE

Still from "The King of Warsaw,"
  photo by Łukasz Bąk

Jakub Szapiro is a Jewish boxing champion living and fighting in interwar Poland. He is currently preparing for the last and possibly most important fight of his career. Szapiro is a violent gangster. Women tend to desire him for who he seems to be, while men – both his debtors and ideological enemies – fear him for who he is. Despite his reputation, he takes pity on a poor Jewish boy whose father he had personally murdered. He takes the boy under his wing and shows him the life of his dreams. Szapiro is a trusted man in the ranks of Jan “Kum” Kaplica, the “eminence grise” of 1937 Warsaw and a socialist leader terrified of the Polish capital’s increasing infatuation with fascist ideas and Nazi Germany’s methods of getting rid of Jewish people. Szapiro sees himself as Kaplica’s successor, a future king of Warsaw. Still, he has no idea of the various behind-the-scenes political machinations that may make him a mere pawn in someone else’s game.

Original title: Król
Director: Jan P. Matuszyński
Cinematographer: Kacper Fertacz
Produced by: Aurum Film
Polish distributor: Canal+ Polska S.A.
Country and year: Poland, 2020

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE

Still from "Little Fires Everywhere,"
Photo by: Erin Simkin/Hulu

Each self-respecting town and city needs its own queen, a person who would serve as a guiding light and a role model for all those who like to observe and judge. In Shaker Heights, Cleveland’s privileged suburbs, the queen is called Elena Richardson, and she is an ideal mother, wife, and hostess, so ideal that even her lawn is manicured to an ideal height. Though, it would probably be better to say that Elena is a self-appointed queen, as there are dozens other ideal mothers, wives, and hostesses who would love to take her place in the spotlight. And it just so happens that there might be a chance for doing so in the near future. One day, Elena becomes a landlady for Mia, a black bohemian artist who moves from town to town with her daughter, Pearl. Elena and Mia do not trust one another, especially that the former tries do everything in her power to take the poor and underprivileged neighbours under her suburb queen’s protective care. This is the beginning of a conflict that will clash two different types of attitude to life and motherhood.

Polish title: Małe ogniska
Director: Lynn Shelton
Cinematographer: Trevor Forrest
Produced by: ABC Signature Studios
Distributor: Amazon Prime Video
Polish distributor: Amazon Prime Video
Country and year: USA, 2020

NORMAL PEOPLE

Marianne is a beautiful, defiant teenager from an affluent family. Despite her potential, she does not fit in with her school peers. She prefers a good book to wild partying, contemplative loneliness to emotionally hollow chatter, and sarcastic comments to adapting to social conventions. What confuses her are her strong feelings towards Connell, an athletic, popular boy from her class whose mother works for Marianne’s family as a cleaner. He, too, thinks his attraction is quite troublesome to the antisocial girl he has never really connected outside of standard school politeness. The fact is, he starts to flirt with her, on one condition – no one can know about it, especially no one from school. However, Connell is about to discover that appearances are deceptive, and what truly matters is who somebody is in their heart. Their teenage love is fragile, but it helps them both to cope with life’s many illusions and disappointments and to better understand their ambitions and dreams.

Polish title: Normalni ludzie
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Cinematographer: Suzie Lavelle
Produced by: Element Pictures
Distributor: BBC, Hulu, RTE
Polish distributor: HBO Polska
Country and year: Ireland, 2020

RAISED BY WOLVES

Distant future. The mankind has reached a level of technological advancement and sophistication that enables it to realistically consider colonizing new planets. The Earth, however, is dying from the damage it received during humanity’s bitter religious wars. A gigantic spaceship, called the Ark and filled with the worshippers of Sol, leaves the Blue Planet and heads to Keppler-22b, a world that has everything the mankind needs to flourish once again. But the religious extremists are outrun by a much smaller ship consisting of two androids sent by the dying atheists to start a new kind of humanity – people worshipping science and scientific methods above all else. The androids are equipped with a dozen of impregnated human embryos and a technology that will make them parents to the first generation of “space people.” They establish a small settlement among the new word’s alien wilderness, unfortunately not everything goes according to plan. And then, many years later, the Ark finally reaches Keppler-22b…

Polish title: Wychowane przez wilki
Director: Ridley Scott
Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski
Produced by: Film Africa Worldwide
Distributor: HBO Max
Polish distributor: HBO Polska
Country and year: USA, 2020

UNDOING, THE

Grace is one of those beautiful, exciting, successful women who can safely say their lives are as perfect and filled with worthwhile moments as themselves. Her husband is a renowned paediatric oncologist, and her son attends an elite private school. She is a widely popular therapist and promising writer with her first book to be soon published. Suddenly, everything falls apart like a house of cards in a storm. Grace’s beloved husband becomes a prime suspect in a murder case so gruesome that she cannot bear to think about it. Worse is that she knew the victim – the mother of one of her son’s classmates. It does not help that the media looks for a sensationalist scoop and tries to use the opportunity to attack Grace’s affluent family. When she thinks she is at rock bottom, a terrible thought occurs to her – what if everything really happened and she could have stopped the tragedy if only she had not lived with blinders on? What if she deserves to be punished?

Polish title: Od nowa
Director: Susanne Bier
Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle
Produced by: Blossom Films
Distributor: Home Box Office, Inc.
Polish distributor: HBO Polska
Country and year: USA, 2020

ZERO ZERO ZERO

Still from "Zero Zero Zero,"
Stefania Rosini-Amazon Studios

Although this series is all about how the modern world is increasingly addicted to drugs, few drug addicts are depicted on screen. Instead, we observe those who profit from driving the cocaine market to dizzying heights – those who knowingly use other people’s misery for their benefit. While the show’s biggest players seem to be an Italian mafia and a Mexican drug cartel that supplies it with seeds of destruction, the series offers a much broader scale. It accentuates the different ways, mostly invisible to ordinary people, in which the world’s economy is interconnected with the drug trade. Amid this ongoing fight for money and power, a certain American family deals with the subsequent shipments’ logistics and serves as mediators between people who would gladly kill one another. Is there a place for moral doubt in this world, or is it true that what matters are the numbers, and to hell with everyone else?

Original title: Zero Zero Zero: The Shipment
Director: Stefano Sollima
Cinematographers: Paolo Carnera, Vittorio Omodei Zorini
Produced by: Studiocanal, Amazon Studios
Distributor: Prime Video
Polish distributor: HBO Polska
Country and year: Italy, 2019