Paris-based Slot Machine is re-teaming with Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, whose film “Donbass” won Cannes’s Un Certain Regard directing prize, on his long-gestating project “Babi Yar,” which will mark his most ambitious film to date.
The film will chronicle the September 1941 massacre of 30,000 Jews by Nazi troops over a three-day period. Marianne Slot, the founder of Slot Machine, said “Babi Yar” would be a testimonial film without protagonist and a politically engaged movie that resonates with contemporary issues, such as homophobia and anti-semitism.
“Babi Yar” will be a powerful and timely film, and it will also be artistically ambitious,” said Slot, who is working alongside veteran producer Carine Leblanc at Slot Machine.
“Babi Yar” is being set up as a co-production between France, Ukraine and Romania. It will mark the fifth narrative feature from Loznitsa, who not only has an impressive track record as a documentarian, but also his narrative features have all world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Slot Machine is also teaming up with Spanish producer Miriam Porté on Neus Ballús’ “The Odd Job Men,” an edgy comedy following the often surrealist everyday job of a peculiar team of three plumbers for six days. Ballús based her script on real-life experiences of handymen.
Beta Cinema has come on board to handle international sales on the film. Jour2Fete will distribute the film in France.
Slot Machine, which backs auteurs like Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Lucretia Martel, has had a banner year in 2018 with Benedikt Erlingsson’s Icelandic film “Woman at War,” and is also co-developing the English-language remake with Jodie Foster. As previously announced, Foster will direct and star in the film.