Up-and-Coming European Producers Pitch Their Projects in Cannes

European Film Promotion is playing host at the Cannes Film Festival to up-and-coming European producers, selected for its Producers on the Move program. Variety invited the producers to share details of their upcoming projects, which include “Vanda,” Clémence Poésy’s debut feature as a director.

Lixi Frank, Austria
Project: “Fanny Is Alive”
Director: Alexandra Makarová
In 1947, Fanny is still living in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, hoping to emigrate to Palestine. When her husband Karl finds her after years of searching, that hope is shattered, forcing her to return to Vienna – into a society that once sought to erase her. Fanny and Karl must then confront whether a future together is still possible after all they have lost.

Roxanne Sarkozi, Belgium
Project: “Harvest”
Director: Anke Blondé
Harvest, the lighthearted drama by Berlinale Talent Anke Blondé, follows the young Romanian Lucian and his mother Alina as they chase a better life in Sicily. While Alina toils in the greenhouses, Lucian makes new friends. But when their parent-child roles reverse, things fall apart.

Dagmar Sedláčková, Czech Republic
Project: “Sow”
Director: Tereza Nvotová
Ema has spent her life invisible in a theater where her mother was once a star. When a door opens into another world where she can finally take center stage, she’ll give it whatever it asks.

Constantinos Nikiforou, Cyprus
Project: “Excavators”
Director: Argyro Nicolaou
Excavators follows Klió, a young video artist investigating the decades-old disappearance of her grandmother during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, after her remains are unearthed in the occupied north of the island. Blending family drama with mystery, this debut feature explores political memory and intergenerational relationships in a society scarred by war, displacement and unresolved conflict.

Maria Møller Kjeldgaard, Denmark
Project: “The von Sydow Murders”
Director: Isabella Eklöf
A 1932 true crime love story. Unfolding one of the most scandalous crimes in Sweden; a five-person murder/suicide in Stockholm’s upper classes, experienced from the point of view of a young woman. Like Eklöf’s previous films, “Holiday” (Sundance) and “Kalak” (San Sebastián), this part chamber play, part road movie will explore power structures, generational trauma and the boundaries of love.

Marianne Ostrat, Estonia
Project: “Saima: Scenes From a Midlife Crisis”
Director: Chintis Lundgren
Animated feature for adults
“Saima: Scenes From a Midlife Crisis” by Chintis Lundgren and Draško Ivezić is a deep yet funny take on navigating the chaos of midlife transformation. Expressed through a bold, imaginative aesthetic, the film invites adult audiences to connect with themes of abandonment, control and self-discovery. Co-developed between Alexandra Film (Estonia), Adriatic Animation (Croatia) and Avec ou sans Vous (France).

Daniel Kuitunen, Finland
Project: “The Liar’s Paradox”
Director: Zaida Bergroth
“Liar’s Paradox” is a psychological thriller about Alma Stone, a mathematician whose disgraced ex-husband, a legendary theater director accused of abusive working methods, seeks refuge in her isolated home. When a young and charismatic actor arrives to study under the fallen master, an intense triangle of manipulation, desire and performance begins to unfold. As the situation spirals into a violent psychological game, Alma must decide whose story to believe.

Julie Billy, France
Project: “Vanda”
Director: Clémence Poésy
In the vein of “Fish Tank” and with the pulse of “À plein temps,” the first feature directed by Clémence Poésy follows a fiercely free mother whose life unravels when her 7-year-old son’s absent father returns. A story of a woman’s fight for independence.

Philipp Trauer, Germany
Project: “War Tourist”
Director: Kilian Riedhof
Writers: Astrid Ströher, Marc Blöbaum, Kilian Riedhof
Inspired by true events “War Tourist” is an existential satire about a man on a quest for greatness by way of vacationing in active war zones.

Danae Spathara, Greece
Project: “Human Negligence”
Director: Eirini Vianelli
“Human Negligence” by Eirini Vianelli is a dark comedy about four generations of women who are comedically forced to leave behind their lavish home, unsustainable facades and inherited dysfunction in order to survive both a devastating fire and each other. The film is a stop-motion animation feature that blends deadpan wit and surreal situations into a reflection on existential whiplash. It was part of 2024 Sundance Intensive Screenwriters Lab.

Sunna Guðnadóttir, Iceland
Project: “True North”
Director: Nanna María Magnúsdóttir
Live-Action Family Film
Convinced she has ruined her mother’s career, a trouble-prone 11-year-old travels to Iceland to live with her estranged father, but when she finds him absent, she seeks refuge in an unlikely friendship with a polar bear, and the hard lesson that true courage means accepting people, and yourself, as you are.

Julianne Forde, Ireland
Project: “Mondegreen”
Director: George Kane
“Mondegreen” is a black comedy/psychological thriller that follows reformed ex-stalker Nira, who falls for touring musician Guy Mondeville and follows him to Canada in an effort to escape mounting public shaming for a prior incident, only to become the prime suspect in Mondeville’s missing person’s investigation. Now she must prove her innocence despite the evidence of her past suggesting otherwise.

Stefano Centini, Italy
Project: “Poem of a Phantom”
Director: Jorge Thielen Armand
Caracas, 2029: as a new coalition government takes over, Italian-Venezuelan architect Marcello is invited to rebuild an iconic structure which once represented Venezuela’s prosperity. His journey will unravel past ghosts and future misdeeds.

Ivana Shekutkoska, North Macedonia
Project: “The Pot, the Lid and the Nurse”
Director: Vardan Tozija
Currently in development, “The Pot, the Lid and the Nurse” follows a burned-out nurse who, after a public breakdown, takes a job caring for an elderly couple in a remote mountain town, becoming entangled in their long-buried secrets, bitterness, and unexpected tenderness.

Olivia Sophie van Leeuwen, The Netherlands
Project: “The Woman Who Made Van Gogh Famous”
Director: Willemiek Kluijfhout
“The Woman Who Made Van Gogh Famous” is a documentary about Jo van Gogh-Bonger, the woman who rescued Vincent van Gogh’s work from obscurity after his death and transformed him into one of the most celebrated artists in history while disappearing from the narrative herself.

Agata Novinski, Slovak Republic
Project: “Wish It!”
Director: Kristina Dufková
“Wish It!” is a stop-motion animated feature about two children whose wishes unexpectedly come true, leading them on a playful yet emotional journey across a small town, exploring family, imagination, and the surprising power of what we dare to wish for.

Xavi Font, Spain
Project: “Petróleo”
Director: Álvaro Pulpeiro
“Petróleo,” Álvaro Pulpeiro’s fiction feature debut, is a geopolitical fever dream set in a collapsing petro-state in Central America, where a European engineer enters a world of oil extraction, corruption and foreign interference, as the pursuit of resources slowly dissolves territory, memory and identity itself.

Linda Mutawi, Sweden
Project: “The Replaceable” (in development)
Director: Abbe Hassan
An elevated Nordic thriller set between Malmö and Copenhagen, where a grief-driven young man infiltrates a trafficking network to avenge his missing brother, only to uncover a shadow economy of organ trade, vanished refugees and outsourced violence operating in plain sight. Then he discovers his brother may still be alive inside the system he came to destroy. Revenge turns to rescue in a story of brotherhood, loyalty and how far we will go to save the ones we love.