In Italy, for the sixth year, at the Trieste Co-Production Forum When East Meets West, the jury has selected projects that will receive the Italian-Baltic co-production feature film development support award. The total amount of aid is EUR 40 000, which is allocated to three projects following the decision of the experts, this year supported the plans of Latvia and Lithuania to cooperate with Italian film studios.
The first Italian-Baltic co-development prize 2025 of 13.000 EUR:
DOLCE FAR NIENTE
The documentary directed by Elena Kairytė will be co-developed by Lithuanian company “Baltic Productions” with producer Rūta Jekentaitė and Italian company Kine Societa Cooperativa.
Motivation: The warm and intimate documentary explores love, cinema, and the passing of time with humour. Capturing 85-year-old Lora’s Guerra attempt to juggle treasured memories of glamorous life while still embracing life’s everyday joys.
Lora Guerra’s Italian home is a testament to the extraordinary life she shared with her husband Tonino, the poet whose film collaborations with Federico Fellini and Michaelangelo Antonioni made him one of the most famous screenwriters of the 20th century. Forty years ago, the couple left behind a glamorous life in Rome filled with iconic friends and started a new life in a remote House of Almonds located in Emilia Romagna region. Filled with rare mementos and artifacts like Tonino’s art and personal letters from Fellini, the house is an archive of 20th-century Italian culture. And the film will tell these stories.
Scriptwriter and Director: Elena Kairytė (Lithuania)
Lithuanian company: Baltic Productions, producer Rūta Jekentaitė
Italian company: Kine Societa Cooperativa
The second co-developement prize of 7.000 EUR:
LATVIAN PROJECT (TITLE) THE ART OF BITING YOUR TONGUE
Fiction co-developed by Latvian company Tasse Film and Italian company COREGO
Motivation: The fiction of the director Ieva Norvele tels a story about young Milan based Latvian woman Rita who is working as pilates instructor and tries to establish herselh as the perfomance artist. Rita's childhood experience in Latvia, dancing in a famous children's dance group, continues to influence her life and her decisions as she lives in two countries, Latvia and Italy.
The film, which tells the story of a young contemporary artist, reflects the sense of the world of a thirty-year-old European living between Italy and her home country Latvia.
The third Italian-Baltic co-development prize of 20.000 EUR:
TRE MADRI (THREE MOTHERS)
the fiction film directed by Enrico Lando will be developed by the Italian company Jolefilm s.r.l.
with the producer Francesco Bonsembiante and co-developed with the Latvian company Air Productions with the producer Antra Gaile.
Motivation: the story centred on women and on mothers of the human and animal world, deals also with tradition and economic progress, homophobia and inclusion, matriarchy and feminism, the respect of nature and its domination. Very current and urgent themes we have to keep on caring about.
Script writers: Enrico Lando, Dino Gentili, Līga Gaisa
Director: Enrico Lando
Italian company: Jolefilm s.r.l.
Latvian company: Air Productions