Linking to Paris-based Nadia Turincev (“Raw,” “Mimosas”) and her producer partner Omar El Kadi to develop and produce two new Swiss films, Geneva-based Akka Films is also ramping up TV production, with Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, writer-directors of the acclaimed “My Little Sister,” Switzerland’s Oscar submission, teaming to create a new TV series .
Headed by Nicolas Wadimoff and Philippe Coeytaux, Akka is readying with Turincev and El Kadi “O Jacaré,” the third feature from Swiss-Portuguese filmmaker Basil Da Cunha whose debut, “After the Night” played the Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2013. Its follow-up, “O film do mundo,” screened in main competition at Locarno in 2019.
Presented at 2021’s online Industry Village, part of France’s Les Arc Film Festival, “O Jacaré” concludes Da Cunha’s trilogy set in the humble district of Reboleira on the outskirts of Lisbon. Described by its producers as a breathless ensemble thriller in the line of his previous features, it turns on a robbery in the hood which threatens its close-knit solidarity.
A second Swiss film, “Purgatory,” marks the feature-length fiction debut of Ufuk Emiroglu. Set in Switzerland, it explores the theme of exile, narrated from a feminine perspective, which the director already addressed in her doc feature, “My Father, the Revolution and Me.”
With Wadimoff, a multi-prized doc and narrative feature director, in development on his next feature, “La Baie des Cigales,” which is set to shoot in Marseille, Akka’s production ramp up can play off the determination of French-language Swiss pubcaster Radio Television Suisse (RTS) to move ever more into premium drama series production.
Co-written by Chuat and Reymond and directed by the former, the series “Toxic” is also co-produced by RTS.
Akka Films will hit Series Mania with mini-series “Off Season” which world premieres in French Competition.
Produced by Coeytaux who is co-producing with Gaumont TV, RTS and France Télévisions, the increasingly involved crime thriller is set at an end-of-season Valais ski resort. Marina Hands (“Lady Chatterley”) stars as a local police inspector on the trail of serial killer who is severely compromised when her only son accidentally kills a seasonal worker.
Directed by Pierre Monnard, and co-starring Sofiane Zermani, “Off Season” will air from broadcast March 31 on RTS and the Play Suisse platform.
Akka is also driving ever deeper into documentary production, appointing U.K.-born and Mexico-bred filmmaker Juliana Fajul (“Radio Silence”) to oversee its doc department.
Turincev’s credits also include the Oscar-nominated “The Insult.” She and El Kadi launched a first slate at their new outdoor Easy Riders in 2019.
Founded by Wadimoff in 2003, Akka has produced both doc and narrative features, often in international co-production.