IDM Film Fund & Commission, officially presents at MIA 2020 the three Series Projects finalists of the Drama series workshop RACCONTI | Script Lab. Carolina Hellsgård and Olivia Vieweg, Gabriel Borgetto and Helena Hoffman, Sebastian Sattler and Johannes Kotzke are the participants to RACCONTI #8, and will present their projects MIDNIGHT CIRCUS, NEW TIMES and STEISSBACH.
For more info discover here IDM | Racconti Book of Projects
Please see below the projects’ scheme and request a meeting to: Alessia de Paoli (IDM Südtirol) Alessia.dePaoli@idm-suedtirol.com
Discover more on MIA Digital.
RACCONTI #8 | IDM Script Lab Pitching Session
Thursday October 15th from 2.00 to 3.00 PM
PROJECT #1
Title: MIDNIGHT CIRCUS
Author: Gabriel Borgetto & Helena Hofmann
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Coming Of Age
Format: 8 x 45’
Target group: 15-45
Logline: After her parents die in a fire, 16-year old Mathilda is saved by the crew of the Circus Luce della Luna. Soon she realizes that not only she but the whole Circus is blessed with supernatural talents – a curse rather than a blessing because it’s these talents that create fear amongst the normal mountain folk and forces the whole crew to live a life in hiding their true selves. When Tyrol is infected by a dreadful disease, the Circus finds itself as the scapegoat and Mathilda seems to be their only hope – or is she actually the source for the quickly spreading sickness after all?
Synopsis: The Luce della Luna is a Circus like no other. As soon as it gets dark and the moon comes out, it’s time for the mystical main show that leaves the audience in awe and wonder. Areal artist glide through thin air as if they were not affected by gravity, fire puckers paint enchanted fiery animals into the sky and a clown seems to be able to control the emotions of his audience. However extraordinary these performances may seem, the crew does its very best to hide the big secret behind the magical show: the ambitioned Italian director Giulio ‘Caesar’ Racconti managed to gather a handful of show-artists possessing supernatural powers based on the five elements of creation: fire, earth, water, air and ether – a curse rather than a blessing because it’s these gifts that create fear amongst the normal mountain folk and forces the whole crew to live a life in hiding.
Young Mathilda (16) is a jaunty but nonetheless charming farmer’s girl also carrying the gift of creation. When Mathilda’s family dies in a big fire, she finds refuge in the Circus at the same time when a strange sickness rises amongst the children of the alpine region. It doesn’t take long for the superstitious mountain folk to find a scapegoat: The Circus Luce della Luna and its suspicious new apprentice Mathilda.
Caesar and his crew find themselves either getting annihilated by the Count’s henchmen or trying to find the source of the menacing sickness on their own. A quest leading them further into the mountains and deep into the world of Tyrol’s alpine mythology, trying to find the reason for the sickness that lets infected children forget words, names and people up to a point where they wouldn’t even recognize their own parents. As it turns out, Mathilda is ether-born, a rare breed amongst the gifted and therefore the most important asset and key in order to fight the source of the sickness – a kind of ghost, half man, half beast that wants to get even with the humans that killed him when he was still a breathing human being – a gifted ether-born just like Mathilda. Mathilda is tempted to join the battle against the humans as she now knows that it was the townsfolk that set her parent’s farm on fire killing her whole family and future in just one night. Is Mathilda strong enough to withstand the temptation of her own revenge?
PROJECT #2
Title: NEUZEIT (New Times)
Author: Olivia Vieweg, Carolina Hellsgård
Genre: Horror
Format: 6×45’
Logline: When the dead learn to run, human kind has to evolve.
Synopsis: Three years after a zombie apocalypse, only a small city in Germany called Jena, remains. People believe that nobody could possibly survive outside its borders. That’s when we meet 22-year-old Vivi who lives in the forest. Vivi has lost an eye. And… she’s not alone. A new kind of plant-zombie walks with her, called Eve. But their peaceful life is over, when Eve connects to the ground and loses all her human abilities. Vivi can’t bear the loneliness and returns to the city. At the protection fence she befriends the worker Nadja, who brings Vivi to the city hospital. The head scientist – Dr Klose is suspicious about the new arrival. She wants to know what’s under Vivi’s eye patch, but Vivi refuses to show. But Dr Klose finds a way and discovers that… sprouts are growing out of Vivi’s eye! She subjugates Vivi to a series of experiments, to see if she’s a human or a plant or something in between. Together with Nadja and a bunch of other patients Vivi escapes from the hospital. She desperately wants to stay with her new found friends, and make up lies in order for them to follow her. But nature is calling Vivi, and she’s slowly turning into a plant creature…
In the NEUZEIT Series, there are different generations of Zombies existing parallel to each other. In the third generation, nature has finally taken over the Zombie bodies and rendered a more tame and adaptable creature. This is the generation that Vivi and Eve belong to. The series will focus on the co-existence between the third generation and nature. We follow the group of patients as they are actively hunted by Zombie hunters. In fact, the humans will be more dangerous and scary than the undead creatures. The plant Zombies are the key to stop the virus, and therefore highly valid to scientists like Dr Klose, who takes a keen interest in the group.
PROJECT #3
Title: STEISSBACH
Author: Sebastian Sattler & Johannes Kotzke
Genre: Horror and Mystery
Format: 6×40’
Modern Horror-Fans
Logline: Being lost his whole life, a selfish crook has to join a religious cult in order to find the truth about his past. But seeing behind the curtain of this isolated mountain village reveals not only his origin – but the true nature of our whole existence.
Synopsis: STEISSBACH is a modern mystery-horror series, but packed in the innocent shell of a classic 1940’s German-Austrian „Heimatfilm“. Two different worlds clash when a wounded loner from the modern world stumbles into the secluded community of a peaceful mountain village. But don‘t be mistaken: True evil knows how to mask itself … The rain pours down on LUIS (33) as he reaches the feeble lights behind the trees. A village, finally!!! Claiming he is just looking for shelter the sect-like community takes him in. They are overly friendly, which seems weird and very mysterious. But they treat his wounds, give him dry clothes and food. If it wasn‘t for the deal: As soon as he is able to – he has to leave. But Luis doesn‘t want to go … Everything then changes when he sees a holy ritual, something he shouldn‘t have seen. The villagers now want him dead, but being a conman Luis saves his neck with a fateful lie. Only now he isn’t allowed to leave the village ever again. The presence of an outsider provokes trouble in the tight community. Not everybody accepts him, even though the leader, an old woman called ALBA (90) has decided to keep him close. Luis on the other hand, tries to blend in – while secretly sneaking around. A mysterious photo reveals that he is looking for his birth-mother, who he has never met. But he knows, she must have been here in this village and then … just disappeared. And with Luis discovering the truth about her whereabouts, he finally sees the dark secret of the village. A secret his birth-mother was about to reveal and even died for. A new perspective of what life is and how our earth was created: A circle of multiple worlds inside our own – constantly regenerating itself, called „Hollow Earth“. And due to our excessive and reckless lifestyle, a renewal process has already started. The world is getting rid of its most harmful virus … us. The end of the world as we know it. Luis, a selfish loner who doesn‘t care about anybody else then himself, of all things he might be our last chance.
