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More than ever, we need stories that can make us think, excite us, or wake us up in the crazy context we live in. The LIM2024 Selection is the flurry of our deep desire to work on developing stories that can offer new perspectives into today’s madness.

With LIM | Less is More, we try every year to support in this delicate moment of development stage, authors who understand the importance that their work can mean for the human beings around them. It is not just about entertainment, we believe that cinema should and can touch people’s deepest heartstrings.
And so, here we are, on tour in this Europe of Cinema, this Europe of Stories, with its blurred borders.

All the projects have a point of view different from each other, but which reflect the concerns, dreams, hopes, fears and projections of these directors and screenwriters, who feel the need to collaborate with each other and with LIM, to offer the best development possible for each of their projects.

Whether they come from Ukraine*, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Balkans or Central Europe, the common goal is to be able to communicate in the best possible way what is precious within them and that may resonate with viewers and all those who believe in the power of stories.

* As in 2023, LIM team and Creative Europe — MEDIA – with logistical support of the French CNC – have decided to join forces in order to support three Ukrainian filmmakers (in partnership with Terrarium), among the sixteen projects selected for LIM2024.

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LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), and Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), in partnership with the Norwegian Film Institute, Région Bretagne (France), Focal (Switzerland), MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), as well as Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland and Ffilm Cymru Wales. With the exceptional contribution of French CNC and Terrarium.

To quote Orson Welles, “times of terror, murder and bloodshed in Europe have created Michelangelo, Da Vinci and the Renaissance movement”. Our aim is that the sixteen selected projects, each one with its own specific vision and cinematographic approach, can blossom in 2023 producing an unforgettable year of film development, generating substance, hopes and visions.

This year, LIM Team and Creative Europe — MEDIA – with a logistical support of the French CNC – have decided to join forces in order to be able to exceptionally support four Ukrainian writers / filmmakers (in partnership with Terrarium), among the sixteen projects selected for LIM2023, for the development of their feature film projects.
The darkness of the geopolitical context of 2023 pushes us to redefine what films are made for. Do we need films that comfort us? Or films that give us strength?
Our selection team has been pushed to look at all the projects received this autumn with new lenses. And the nature of the projects received has indeed substantially changed in nature. As if the filmmakers where shaken by the context, like antennas of the world’s trouble.

The premises are strong and the ingredients are here…
Some very personal and original approaches to the genre as in the case of the Scottish Ciaran Lyons, the Portuguese Gonçalo Almeida, the Swiss Luca Zuberbühler and the Ukrainian Stanislav Bytiutskys. We can already imagine them telling each other scary stories, while walking back at night on the beaches of Plouneour-Brignogan, LIM’s headquarters in Brittany.
With the sound of the wind… maybe some of their words will reach as well those sitting at the Café du Port in the middle of a writing room, the Azeri Suad Gara, the Danish Christian Bonke, the British Alfie Baker and the French Théo Jourdain. They are discussing their main characters and the weight they carry.
Just a bit further, on the same huge beach covered in white sand, observing the incredible change of the landscape due to the tides, slightly lit by the moon, the Basque Ainhoa Gutiérrez del Pozo and the Australian Gabrielle Brady are murmuring about the impact of the ocean on their projects.
On the other side of the bay, hidden in the dunes, in a circle, we discover little by little the Belgians Hyun Lories and Sun Mee Cattrysse, the Croatian Lana Barić, the Norwegian Magnus Lysbakken, as well as the Ukrainians Kateryna Gornostai, Alina Matochkina and Tetiana Symon. They all seem to look at the moon, and share how for each of them intimacy becomes a weapon in times of turmoil. It’s as if they feel totally safe, daring to expand their world into new territories.

Throughout 2023, the development of all sixteen projects will be taken care of by four midwives / sparring-partners, four rare brains from all over Europe: Meritxell Colell Aparicio (Spain), Tony Grisoni (UK & Italy), Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (Ukraine) and Vinca Wiedemann (Denmark).

In the same movement, LIM2023 has selected twelve “Development angels”, creative producers, development executives or script development professionals that want to benefit from the script development frame and tools LIM has developed over the years.
From every corner of our continent, they are Rebecca Anastasi, Nina M. Barbosa Blad, Marek Čermák, Penny Davies, Paul FitzSimons, Clara Kiskanc, Elena Martin, Gaia Meucci-Astley, Nicola Ofoego, Joyce Palmers, Gemma Pascual and Anja Wedell.

No sure recipe indeed, but so many inspiring human beings together, with their dreams, their hopes, their fears, combined with the tides, raises the possibility of something outstanding happening within this LIM2023 Selection.

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LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), and Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, Région Bretagne (France), as well as Screen Scotland (UK) and Focal (Switzerland).
With the exceptional contribution of French CNC and Terrarium.

StoryTANK presents its third season of meetings and interviews dedicated to the construction of narrative. Created by Le Groupe Ouest, this European “Think Tank” confirms its commitment to becoming a true platform for boosting the dialogue, reflection and mutual enrichment between scriptwriters and the researchers coming from a wide range of scientific fields.

In a world dominated by globalised audiovisual media and mass produced narrative, it’s more than ever necessary to re-think our work as storytellers, scriptwriters and story-makers. It’s a matter of opening up new perspectives and broadening our views to encompass all storytelling possibilities, to break the walls of habit and acquired automatisms and to move away from the well-trodden paths dictated by current trends and sponsors.

Do we need to define an ethic for scriptwriters? Is the hero of TV series a social player in his own right? What stories are told in non human-centric cultures? How can we enter new sensory worlds? What happens in our brains when an ‘aha-moment’ occurs? Is the writer’s state of « flow » comparable to that of a marathon runner? Or how can we encourage the brain to break out of its overly familiar circuits?

These are just a few of the interrogations which arise during the discussions among storytellers and researchers working in fields as varied as ethnology, semiology, sociology, psychology and neuroscience.
StoryTANK is able to draw on the expertise of the participating storytelling professionals with outstanding career paths, who have preserved these qualities essential to our profession: the enthusiasm for thinking outside the box, the ability to self-question and an aptitude for exploration of the imagination.

Enjoy your exploration!

A partnership between LIM & TERRARIUM

 

In January 2023, LIM will select 4 filmmakers from Ukraine to develop their 1st, 2nd or 3rd feature film project.

LIM is welcoming four writers / directors from Ukraine, applying with a fiction project at an early stage of development. LIM is also open to candidates coming from theatre, documentary and visual arts.

LIM programme includes three one-week workshops between March and October 2023, as well as a tailor-made Event, LIM MEET, where the filmmakers will meet producers, coproducers and sales agents coming from all over Europe.

This Call for Projects is proposed together with TERRARIUM, the plateform for scriptwriters settled in Kyiv.

Call for Projects is now closed

LIM | Less is More, the European training programme for first to third feature development, powered by Creative Europe — MEDIA and the alliance of ten European countries, launches its new 2023 Call for Projects, for writers/directors.

At the heart of its new label created in 2021 (The European feature film development programme for committed filmmakers in a changing world), there is the fundamental idea that using the concept of limitation is not only a matter of budget, but becomes a necessity, both to enhance creativity and to rethink how independent cinema is conceived in a time of deep ecological and political concern.

LIM is conceived as a platform to help talented new filmmakers sculpt the films that humans of our times need.
LIM’s battle keeps the necessity to work collectively on generating meaning in a context of void created by the religion of quantity & consumption.
LIM’s team wants to continue to open new types of collaborations between writers, filmmakers and producers to help independent cinema open new horizons of humanism.

For its 2023 Call for Projects, LIM is welcoming writers & directors from (and/or living in) the European Union, Eurimages Countries and non-EU countries participating in the Creative Europe Programme, as well as the United Kingdom, applying with a fiction project at an early stage of development.
LIM is also open to candidates coming from theatre, documentary and visual arts.

More about LIM2023 Call for Projects →

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LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), and Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, Région Bretagne (France), as well as Screen Scotland (UK) and Focal (Switzerland).

LIM | Less is More, the training and coaching programme for feature film development driven by Le Groupe Ouest and powered by Creative Europe (MEDIA) opens a new chapter of its adventures. A few months ago, LIM team decided to rename its core motto: for committed filmmakers in a changing world. For LIM’s artistic director, Antoine Le Bos, “with the dark context we are going through in Europe, we need to fight like hell to generate films that can help us wake up!”.

In this perspective, LIM team has been shaping a new quartet of tutors/script consultants. The seventeen filmmakers and twelve Development angels selected in 2022 will work with Tony Grisoni (UK & Italy), screenwriter of Terry Gilliam and Michael Winterbottom among others, Lucile Hadzihalilovic (France), writer-director of Innocence and Evolution, and collaborator of Gaspar Noé for most of his films, Vinca Wiedemann (Denmark), script-advisor and close collaborator of Lars von Trier on Nymphomaniac and Melancholia, as well as of Thomas Vinterberg on The Hunt, and last but not least Romain Compingt (France), screenwriter of Golden Camera Divines as well as the moving En attendant Bojangles.

This outstanding team of European brains will have to find the right point of fusion with a very unique and human selection of talents and projects that can embody our struggle for meaning and awakening:
With the second features of Edon Rizvanolli (Kosovo) who created a strong impression with his Unwanted in 2017, Antoine Russbach (Switzerland) with the second part of his shouting trilogy started with the multi-awarded Those who work, Reinis Kalvins (Latvia) who delivered with The Shift a unique Noir experience so close to the Russian border. We also have Vincent Maël Cardona who left a strong impression at the 2021 Cannes’ Quinzaine des réalisateurs with Les Magnétiques – César for Best First Film last week – and now comes back to his roots with a story based in rural Brittany, as well as the third feature of Christian Volckman – we cannot forget the unique film experiences generated by Renaissance and The Room. And the first features of filmmakers coming from an outstanding background in short film, theatre, documentary or visual arts: Jela Hasler (Switzerland), Fanny Ovesen (Norway & Sweden), Andreea Valean (Romania), Valeria Testagrossa & Giulia Pietrozini (Italy), and Deborah Viegas (Brazil & Portugal). Coming from the troubled context of today’s middle east, Nitzan Rozen (Israel) and Dahlia Nemlich (Lebanon) will keep us awake until very late, like Sandro Souladze, young and talented Georgian filmmaker, so close to a burning border also. Like often in LIM, a strong and singular presence from Wales and Scotland, with Zillah Bowes and Isaac Knights-Washbourn with their first features also. And from Flanders, Belgium, the daring Meltze Van Collie, taking us to Greenland, for a bit of fresh air that we definitely need!

Following the whole process of development, the Development angels just selected by LIM for 2022 generate a unique scope of European professionals dedicated to helping deliver/nurture strong screenplays for tomorrow’s independent cinema: Cecilie Aspenes (Norway), Andrés Bartos (Catalonia, Spain), Diana Caravia (Romania), Viktorija Cook (Lithuania), Mirna Everhard (The Netherlands & Flanders, Belgium), Harry Flöter (Germany), James Heath (Scotland, UK), Judith Lichtneckert (Switzerland), Jules Reinartz (France), as well as Mira Staleva (Bulgaria), and Raymond van der Kaaij (The Netherlands).

Last but not least, in the tragic context of Putin’s invasion, LIM team is honored to welcome among this year’s Development angels, Aleksandra Zakharchenko, from Ukraine.

More about LIM2022 Selection →

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LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), and Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, Région Bretagne (France), as well as Screen Scotland (UK) and Focal (Switzerland).

Presentation of LIM2021 sixteen Feature Film projects & Brainstorming moment:
“Rethinking the Meaning factory: StoryTANK Insights”

On 8-9 November 2021, on the beaches of Western Brittany (France) and broadcasted worldwide online, LIM MEET will be stepping into a new world.

First and foremost, the new world paved by the sixteen feature film projects selected in 2021 among 400 candidates from 75 countries. Each of them selected for their humanist perspective into tomorrow. First to second features from filmmakers with substance! They will all be presented to the Industry Professionals from 9 am to 1 pm on Monday 8 November and have the opportunity to meet producers afterwards.

Secondly, a brainstorming moment –  Rethinking the Meaning factory: StoryTANK Insights – involving researchers & producers, will occur on Tuesday 9 November at 9.30 am: Don’t we need Meaning Makers more than ever? What impact Films have on Society?

LIM is digging from now on into a new path. It becomes ‘The European feature film development programme for committed filmmakers in a changing world’. Because working with limitations as a development/research tool to trigger both creativity and substance for films is the frame of mind we want to foster in a time of intense concern for sustainability and meaning.
How independent filmmakers now will work and conceive their films is becoming highly political in the best possible sense. We need free films to reach humans, spectators, citizens. We need films to carry meaning in a world where materialism has shaped a consumption of void on big screens.

These are the thematics that will be at the heart of the exchanges during these two days.

REGISTER my.weezevent.com/LIMmeet-2021

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* LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest(France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), and Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre – LKC, the Norwegian Film Institute – NFI, Region Bretagne (France), as well as Screen Scotland (UK), and Focal (Switzerland).

LIM | Less is More, the European training programme for first to third feature development, powered by Creative Europe — MEDIA and the alliance of ten European countries*, launches its new 2022 Call for Projects.

And LIM’s team, led by Le Groupe Ouest – the European Film Lab established on the coast of northern Brittany – is creating its own revolution:

After being labeled since its creation four years ago ‘The European development programme for limited budget feature films’, LIM becomes ‘The European feature film development programme for committed filmmakers in a changing world‘.
At the heart of this new label, there is the fundamental idea that using the concept of limitation is not only a matter of budget, but becomes a necessity both to enhance creativity and to rethink how independent cinema is conceived in a time of deep ecological and political concern.

LIM is conceived as a platform to help talented new filmmakers sculpt the films that humans of our times need.
LIM‘s battle points at the necessity to work collectively on generating meaning in a context of void created by the religion of quantity & consumption.
LIM‘s team wants to continue to open new types of collaborations between writers and filmmakers to help independent cinema open new horizons of humanism.

« That’s really what constraints do: I think they force you to look at your script more profoundly… no escape routes! » — Nathalie Biancheri #LIM2017 (Ireland & Italy), Director of WOLF, TIFF / Toronto 2021 Official Selection
« Given the crisis we have experienced and we are still facing, there is a lot of thinking to be done, and I think that writing and development will be even more important to bring projects to fruition. » — Anne-Cécile Rolland, Région Bretagne #LIMPartner
« Cinema is a powerful storytelling tool – in today’s age of deep political and ecological concern – plugged into our dreams and nightmares, that can contribute to restore our ability to create meaning for now and for future generations. » — Antoine Le Bos #LIM Artistic Director

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* LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest(France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre – LKC, the Norwegian Film Institute – NFI, Region Bretagne (France), as well as Screen Scotland (UK), and Focal (Switzerland).

Despite the complicated times filmmakers are going through, LIM | Less is More, the European development programme for limited budget feature films, received a pretty consistent amount of strong feature film projects from all over the world (around 350 applications from more than 70 countries). And even new countries applied: Armenia, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, South Korea, Mali, Peru, Uganda, Uruguay, etc.

Massimiliano Nardulli, LIM’s Head of Talent, is relieved: “The context being so heavily troubled, we were afraid the writers would be affected in the way they project themselves with new projects. But it’s not the case. LIM’s goal, today more than ever, is to highlight projects with a quest for human substance in a disturbed landscape, projects powered by a strong quest for meaning. And it seems the sixteen projects selected this year, first as well as second feature films, are a very consistent display of how a new generation of filmmakers grab the world with full hands.”

“As if the context of so many confinements also creates a kind of wake up call”, continues Antoine Le Bos, LIM’s Artistic Director. “During last year’s workshops, some of the projects had to gather a new momentum, couldn’t keep on talking about our world in the same manner. Very clearly today, you can’t write films thinking the world revolves around yourself. You have to talk to humans, trapped on the same boat. It has become urgent!”.

This year, the selection is overwhelmingly dominated by women filmmakers. Sign of the changing times, 10 projects out of 16 are carried by women! And among the new countries selected: South Africa, Czech Republic, Vietnam and Uganda give a new taste to LIM2021.

Another specificity of 2021 is the variety of cinematographic styles and approaches selected, including people coming from a strong background in Theatre, Visual Arts or Documentary. We will be taken close to the polar circle with the Sámi of Norway, in the heart of a Gipsy community in Romania, or with a Pokot tribe in Kenya. We will be discovering a cult in Czech Republic, sex addiction in Lithuania, or Celtic fables in Brittany. From Scotland to Poland and Macedonia, or from Denmark to Vietnam and Portugal, we will experience love triangles, Baroque eroticism and troubled bodies.

In the same movement, LIM has selected 12 Development angels that will be taking part in the adventure. From Brazil to Latvia, and from Ukraine to Wales, a very exciting selection of creative producers, development execs or film professionals about to become Script Consultants will be coached in their approach of story-editing, working side by side with the tutors, as well as receiving dedicated training.

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest(France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre – LKC, the Norwegian Film Institute – NFI, as well as Region Bretagne (France) and Screen Scotland (UK).

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LIM2021 Selection
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LIM | Less is More is a training and coaching programme supported by Creative Europe, dedicated to script development for 1st to 3rd feature film projects. Each year 16 Feature Film projects from all over the world are selected to boost their script development phase and to strengthen their ability to accelerate and deepen the writing process, starting from early stage. Propelled by Le Groupe Ouest’s methodological approach (winner of the two main awards in Sundance 2020) and by a very intense eight months process, LIM’s approach is built around the idea that the introduction of self-imposed limitations early in the writing process can generate an incredible creativity accelerator for filmmakers!

After only three editions, LIM’s approach proves to be efficient. Six very exciting films have been already shot and twelve are in pre-production, some of them about to be shot in the next weeks (Wolf, by Nathalie Bianchieri starting in a few days with Georges MacKay and Lily Rose Depp as main actors). Since 2019, LIM’s team also selects every year twelve Development angels to take part in LIM. In each of the three major workshops of LIM, four of these Rising Creative producers or development professionals are integrated in the development process inside the groups of writers. Under the guidance of LIM’s tutors/script-consultants, they are trained to new development techniques involving intense use of orality, video and creative development brainstorming.

The selection for LIM2020 has been even more complicated than past years, because of the raising quality of the projects submitted (460 applications from 80 countries in total). But what remains is sixteen exceptional voices of filmmakers and twelve Development angels from all over the world, that might become the voices we need to hear! Mixing filmmakers with a track-record and newcomers, LIM2020 selection displays an amazing variety of very intense filmmakers and human beings.

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre – LKC, the Norwegian Film Institute – NFI, the North Macedonian Film Agency as well as Brittany Region (France) and Screen Scotland.

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LIM2020 Selection

ANTONOPOULOS Konstantinos & CAMPI Luigi
Glory B
Greece & Italy
1st feature film

ARMELLA Carlos
The Living
Mexico
3rd feature film

BAGASHOV Hanis
Aisha
North Macedonia
1st feature film

BURSAC Luka
Below thirty hills
Serbia
3rd feature film

CELESTIN Joséfa
Aurora’s Skies
France & UK (Scotland)
1st feature film

DEANE Brian
Heather
Ireland
1st feature film

DUSABEJAMBO Marie-Clementine
Benimana (Children of God!)
Rwanda
1st feature film

ENGER Gunhild
Desert Love
Norway
1st feature film

GUELLATY Amel
Tunis-Djerba
Tunisia
1st feature film

HUGHES Nathan
Mourning Glory
UK (Wales)
1st feature film

JAROSZUK Grzegorz
Book of questions
Poland
3rd feature film

KLOCHKO Myro
A million reasons to daydream
Ukraine
1st feature film

MACHARD Thierry
Tre Cavalli
France (Brittany)
1st feature film

SANSOUR Larissa & LIND Soren
Heirloom
Palestine & Denmark
1st feature film

SKALSKI Rafal & WALCZAK Michal
Night in the Kindergarten
Poland
1st feature film

TRUKANAS Jonas & KAVTARADZE Marija
Devils’ Den
Lithuania
1st feature film

LIM2020 Development angels
BABUN Tamara – Croatia
BIELAK Anna – Poland
CHARLES Ciarán – Ireland
CHILLÓN Eva – Spain
CÖLLE Daniela – Slovakia & Germany
DIRŽIŪTĖ Aistė – Lithuania
GOULART Clarisse – Brazil
KRISTIANSEN Magnus – Norway
QUESSON Colette – France (Brittany)
SCHOONEKNAEP Ilse – Belgium (Flanders)
TAYLOR Benjamin – UK (Scotland)
ZABEZSINSZKIJ Eva – Hungary

For those among you who will be in Berlin, would like to invite you at our LIM2020 Gathering during the Berlinale, on Monday, February 24th at 3 pm.

The gathering will include:
Presentation of LIM’s recent evolutions,
among which the launching of the StoryTANK.
2020 Selection announcement: unveiling of LIM fourth year’s selection of 16 feature projects from Europe and beyond, as well as 12 Development angels.
Unveiling of the first images of films coming out soon from LIM’s previous years.
Drinks & Exchanges with LIM’s team.

The gathering will take place at BKA Theater, Mehringdamm 34, 10961 Berlin. If you could confirm your intention to participate by completing the form, it would help.

Looking forward seeing you in Berlin.

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, the North Macedonian Film Agency as well as Brittany Region (France).

Extended deadline: 5 November 2019 – NOON

“Limitation fosters creativity”

In the surroundings of Krakow in the Malopolska Region (Poland), the third edition of LIM | Less is More – the European development programme for limited budget feature films, has just welcomed the 1st programme workshop and its selected filmmakers, writers and producers for 2019.

18 filmmakers from 16 countries and 4 development angels from 4 countries have been coached by 5 tutors, Pierre Hodgson (UK), Razvan Radulescu (Romania), Claire Barré (France), Yann Apperry (US/France) and Antoine Le Bos (France).

LIM team has developped a unique approach, using budget limitations as a trigger for more in-depth storytelling and creative filmmaking, using Orson Welles’ words as a motto:

« The enemy of art is the absence of limitations »

LIM | Less is More is divided into 3 stages of residency, 3 one week workshops, organised in three different parts of Europe, away from big cities: workshop 1 in Malpolska Region, Poland (March 5 to 10), workshop 2 in Transilvania, Romania (June 7 to 13), including an Industry event in Cluj-Napoca (TIFF) and workshop 3 (October 10-17).

During this first workshop, the focus for all participants has been put on finding the very core and soul of each film project, as well as defining the pillars of its narrative strategy.

For more information about 2019’s selection click here.

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, as well as the Film Agency of the Republic of North Macedonia.

For those among you who will be in Berlin, we would like to invite you at our LIM 2019 Gathering during Berlinale, on Sunday, February 10th. The gathering will include:

• 3 to 4 pm
  – Presentation of LIM’s new perspectives
  – 2019 selection announcement: unveiling of this year’s selection of 16 feature projects from Europe and beyond, as well as 12 « Development angels »
  – Unveiling of the first images of films coming out soon from LIM’s previous years
• 4 to 5 pm
  Drinks & Exchanges with LIM’s team

The gathering will take place at BKA Theater – Berliner Kabarett Anstalt – Mehringdamm 34. Please confirm your intention to participate by completing the Google form following this link:-).

Looking forward to see you in Berlin.

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, as well as the Macedonian Film Agency.

Deadline 31st October 2018

“When limitation is a strength”

If you’re writing your first, second or third feature,
If you’re ready to accept working within a limited budget in order to gain creative freedom,
If you believe that brainstorming with script consultants and other filmmakers from all around the world, on top of a mountain in Transylvania or in a remote fishing village on Brittany’s coast can strengthen your screenplay,
then, LIM is for you!

LIM offers a new generation of filmmakers, already aknowledged for their short films, first features, or achievements in visual arts or theater, the opportunity of designing their own route into limited budget feature film production.

In addition to actual script development, the scheme involves meeting potential producers or coproducers and financial partners.

Pierre Hodgson, script consultant in LIM:
« One of the things we try to do at LIM is to make sure that the projects are as close as possible to each filmmaker and we impose on them as little as possible. At the same time, it is our job to ensure that scripts come out of LIM as narratively efficient as possible in order that they preserve their unique quality in the face of a founding system. »
Antoine Le Bos, LIM’s Artistic Director about participants of LIM 2018:
« The excitement of playing with limitations, the constant acceleration of ideas and feedbacks, how they can feed each other from each other, have an amazing result in terms of making the projects develop quickly, and maybe in a more intense way. I am amazed by how they are excited to also help the other projects as much as helping their own. That is very beautiful. »

LIM’s second year involved 16 projects from 16 countries, and proved the incredible added value of combining forces to maximize narrative power in the service of creative freedom.

LIM consists of 3 workshops in 3 different European countries between March and October 2019. Between these workshops, regular deadlines and online sessions insure a process of regular exchange and follow up over the 9 months period.

+ More details on the application process

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France), developed with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania), in partnership with the Lithuanian Film Centre, the Norwegian Film Institute, as well as the Macedonian Film Agency.

The 2nd edition of LIM l Less is More, the European platform for project development of limited budget feature films, steps into its next stage, with two important events, both organised in the framework of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Romania: LIM will be introduced to TIFF guests during an open presentation and the 16 selected projects will be showcased to TIFF’s Industry guests during a public pitching session followed by one-to-one meetings.

For those among you who will be in Cluj-Napoca, we would like to invite you at LIM 2018 events:
On Friday 1 June 2018 // 15:00 — 16:00
at TIFF Lounge, Unirii Square
LIM presentation: let’s talk about limited budget feature films!
Conceiving development specifically for limited budget production, and transforming it into a stimulus for more creativity and in-depth storytelling.
On Saturday 2 June 2018
at the Hotel Platinia, Conference Hall, Calea Mănăștur 2-6
// 10:00 — 13:30
Projects public presentation
// 15:00 — 19:00
One-to-one meetings with the Industry

Looking forward to seeing you at TIFF in Cluj-Napoca!

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Our website: lim-lessismore.eu
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).
The project is co-financed by Administraţia Fondului Cultural Naţional and Centrul Național al Cinematografiei.

In the coastal village of Plounéour-Brignogan-Plages in Brittany (France), the second edition of LIM | Less is More – the European development programme for limited budget feature films, has just welcomed its selected filmmakers, writers and producers for 2018.

19 filmmakers from 15 countries and 10 producers and story editors from 9 countries will be coached by 5 tutors, Marcel Beaulieu (Canada), Pierre Hodgson (UK), Miguel Machalski (Argentina), Monica Rattazzi (Italy, Morocco), and Antoine Le Bos (France), during this one year programme dedicated to limited budget screenwriting and project development. The group of script development tutors will be completed in the next workshops by limited budget specialists (line-producers, 1st AD, continuity…).
For more information about 2018’s selection click here.

LIM team has developped a unique approach, using budget limitations as a trigger for more in-depth storytelling and creative filmmaking, using Orson Welles’ words as a motto:

« The enemy of art is the absence of limitations »

LIM | Less is More is divided into 3 stages of residency, 3 one week workshops, organised in three different parts of Europe, away from big cities: workshop 1 in Brittany, France (March 8 to 13), workshop 2 in Transilvania, Romania (June), including an Industry event in Cluj-Napoca (TIFF) and workshop 3 in Malopolska, Poland (October).

During this first workshop, the focus for all partipants will be put on finding the very core and soul of each film project, as well as defining the pillars of its narrative strategy.

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Our website: lim-lessismore.eu
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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LIM | Less is More is supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, it is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).

“Limitations give you form”

“The more art is bound by limitations, the freer it is!”

Around these two sentences by Alfonso Cuaron and Igor Stravinsky, a new generation of filmmakers is gaining momentum!

After LIM’s successful launch last year (290 applications coming from 59 nationalities), this new edition confirms the growing need for a new approach towards limited budget films: 350 applicants, from 65 countries sent their projects for LIM 2018, out of which sixteen projects and ten emerging story-editors, creative producers or development executives were selected.

LIM Final Jury was composed of Massimiliano Nardulli (LIM Head of Talent, Italy), Antoine Le Bos (Artistic Director, France), Ana Agopian (Control N, Romania), Frans Lefever (Flanders, Belgium), Robert Balinsky (Polish Film Institute, Poland) and Anna Ciennik (Les Arcs European Film Festival, France).

LIM | Less is More is structured around three one-week workshops in residency in small villages in three different parts of Europe: in 2018, Workshop 1 in Brittany / France (March), Workshop 2 in Transilvania / Romania (June) and Workshop 3 in Malopolaska / Poland (October). The development work will be supervised by five international script-consultants: Marcel Beaulieu (Canada), Pierre Hogdson (UK), Monica Rattazzi (Morocco / Italy), Miguel Machalski (Argentina) and Antoine Le Bos (France). For the third workshop, the script-consultants team will be completed by specialists of limited budget.

LIM’s goal is also to gather European professionals working around limited budget fiction feature film, thus triggering co-productions, new funding, distribution and broadcasting opportunities. LIM will organise a Meeting Event during Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), end of may in Cluj-Napoca, Romania at the beginning of the second workshop. This event will allow all selected filmmakers to present their projects to European producers and film-professionals.

The 16 selected filmmakers for 2018

Shirley BRUNO (Haïti) — Just Come // Been to
Panagiotis CHARAMIS (Greece) — Avanos
Octav CHELARU (Romania) — Balaur
Alina GRIGORE (Romania) — The bears and the bees
Andy HERZOG (Switzerland) — Blackpool
Arun Deo JOSHI (Nepal) — Hori
Stéfan LE LAY & Blandine JET (Brittany, France) — Survie
Miguel LOPEZ BERAZA (Spain) & Nayeem MAHBUB (Bangladesh) — Creatures
Lina LUZYTE (Lithuania) — So Much Water So Close to Home
Sameh MORSY (Egypt) — Aya
Amanda NELL EU (Malaysia) — Tiger Stripes
Giulio RIZZO (Italy) — 13-bis
Vera SJUNNESSON (Sweden) — Bathtub
Mark TOWERS (UK) — The Gael
Volkan ÜCE (Belgium) — The Song Breaker
Daria WOSZEK (Poland) & Aleksandra SWIERK — Mary-go-round (Maryjki)

The 10 selected creative producers or story-editors for 2018

Eamonn CLEARY — Ireland
Anthea DEVOTTA — India
Thomas GUENTCH — Brittany, France
Andraz JERIC — Slovenia
Selin KARLI — Turkey
Jessica LOVELAND — UK
Helene MITJAVILE — France
Maaike NEVE — Netherlands
Glykeria PATRAMANI — Greece
Ana Maria PIRVAN — Romania

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).

Dear friends, partners and collegues,

We hope you’re starting 2018 with the best stamina possible, and we wish you an outstanding year!

For those among you who will be in Berlin, we would like to invite you at our LIM 2018 Gathering during Berlinale, on Monday, February 19th. The gathering will include:

• 9 am
  Breakfast
• 9.30 am
  LIM 2018 presentation, 2018 selection announcement, and LIM Industry event presentation
  – Unveiling of this year’s selection of 16 feature projects from Europe and beyond, as well as 10 producers, story-editors and development executives
  – Presentation of LIM 2018 Meeting event in Cluj-Napoca (during Transilvania International Film Festival in June) aimed at projects presentation, as well as strengthening international collaborations, coproductions, distribution and networking around limited budget feature filmmaking
• 10 to 11.30 am Individual Meetings with LIM’s team (to be planned in advance with team-members below), for potential partners as well as writers, directors or producers wanting to apply for next year’s sessions
• 11.30 am
  LIM partners Meeting

LIM 2018 Gathering will take place at KunstKooperative Berlin, Oranienstrasse 163, 10969 Berlin.
Please, confirm your intention to participate by completing the Google form following this link.

Looking forward to see you in Berlin.

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).

“Created by filmmakers for filmmakers”

If you’re writing your first, second or third feature, LIM is for you.
If you’re ready to accept working within a limited budget in exchange for greater creative freedom, LIM is for you.
If you believe that brainstorming with script consultants and other filmmakers from all around the world, on top of a mountain in Transylvania or in a remote fishing village on Brittany’s coast can strengthen your screenplay, LIM is for you.

LIM offers a new generation of filmmakers, already aknowledged for their short films or first features, the opportunity of designing their own route into limited budget feature film production. The scheme is also open to artists coming from theatre, documentary and visual arts.

In addition to actual script development, the scheme involves meeting potential producers or coproducers and financial partners.

Pierre Hodgson, script consultant in LIM: « One of the things we try to do at LIM is to make sure that the projects are as close as possible to each filmmaker and we impose, and the system imposes on them as little as possible.
At the same time, it is our job to ensure that scripts come out of LIM as narratively efficient as possible in order that they preserve their unique quality in the face of a founding system. That is important because it means that the films will stay as different as possible and keep on surprising audiences. »

Antoine Le Bos, LIM’s Artistic Director: « Through limitations you dig vertically into a story. Limitation is a tool that focuses a project on what is most essential. That is character, plot, location, style. Without constraints, it is often hard to concentrate on what matters most and find your form. »

LIM’s first year involved 16 projects from 15 countries, and proved the incredible added value of combining forces to maximize narrative power in the service of creative freedom.

LIM consists of 3 workshops in 3 different European countries between March and October 2018. In the intervals, regular deadlines and online sessions insure a process of regular exchange and follow up over the 9 months period.

More details on the application process for the next edition of LIM – Less is More can be found here.
Deadline 30th October 2017

Keep track on all LIM’s news and developments:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limprogramme/

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Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM is led by Le Groupe Ouest (France) and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).

How to make cinema creative, exciting and borderless?
This was the question raised during the international launch of LIM | Less is More, the European platform for project development of limited budget feature films. Organised during the 16th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Romania, the official launch of the programme gathered a large number of industry professionals, whose common goal is to discover the path into developing projects in an era when using the constraints of a limited budget can push creativity and storytelling.

Iulia Rugină (Romanian director), Antoine Le Bos (LIM Artistic Director), Massimiliano Nardulli (LIM Head of Talents) and Olivier Thery-Lapiney (French producer), in their roles as hosts of the launch, offered some of the potential key-answers and perspectives towards the limited budget filmmaking, based on their own experience in this field.

“LIM uses the constraints of a limited budget to push creativity and storytelling towards regaining a voice we can hear. We want to use the power of limitation as a tool to gain intensity, as a tool to gain purpose and power and to recapture audiences”, explains Antoine Le Bos, its creator.

As part of TIFF Industry Programme, LIM introduced the 16 selected projects of LIM’s first edition to a large number of producers. Using the tool of a video pitch instead of a live pitch – an exercise called “Tell Me” representing a short description of the project, shot by the authors on their webcams – LIM offered the chance of a first successful meeting between young filmmakers and producers, opening the door for future collaborations.

After the 2 days event in Cluj-Napoca, the group continued its training experience following the strong concept behind LIM’s structure: a set of 3 workshops organised in amazing isolated locations, away from the buzz of the urban life, focused on their writing process and nothing else.

In October, they will all be ready to access programme phase number 3, in France. In Le Groupe Ouest’s home village, on Brittany’s wild north coast, projects will enter the final stretch. Surrounded by passionate filmmakers whose wish is to offer them the most energetic and inspiring experience, this gifted group of talents will walk forward on their path as emerging filmmakers in the limited budget cinema field.

Check our photo album to taste the spirit of LIM, here.

The first edition of LIM l Less is More, the European platform for project development of limited budget feature films, steps into its next stage, with two important events, both organised in Romania: the second LIM workshop and the public presentation of the 16 selected projects, in front of specialised audience, during the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF).

LIM – Less is More is divided into 3 stages of residency, 3 one week workshops, organised in three European countries: Workshop 1 in Flemish Belgium (March 5 to 11), Workshop 2 in Transylvania, Romania (June 6 to 14) and Workshop 3 in Brittany, France (October 1 to 8). The script development process is coordinated by 4 experienced script consultants (screenwriters, themselves): Leonardo Stagliano (Italy), Pierre Hogdson (UK, France), Marcel Beaulieu (Canada) and Antoine Le Bos (France). The group of tutors will be completed by limited budget specialists.

LIM Workshop 2 will welcome the 21 participants in Baisorii Mountain Resort, in a special location, isolated from the world and the craziness of the big cities – Hotel Alpin Baisoara. The LIM group will go deep in working on their stories during the second training workshop offered by the LIM experts and will continue to dig in the narrative structures of their limited budget film projects. The participants will have the chance to digest the feedback received during the first workshop, as well as during the rewriting sessions, which have happened since March. The purpose of the second LIM workshop is to find the basic structure of the stories and to creatively the budget limitations within their scripts.

The second LIM Workshop also includes a special event organised in Cluj-Napoca, during the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). On June 10, the participants will have the chance to present their projects in front of producers and film professionals present in Cluj, during the special Industry Programme Days at TIFF. One of the purposes of LIM is to generate the creation of a European network made of professionals working with the limitations of limited budget cinema and to then generate co-productions and new ways of financing and distribution.

In order to keep track of the development of the LIM Programme, please follow us on:

Pentru a fi la curent cu desfășurarea LIM 2017 vă invităm să ne urmăriți:

• our website: lim-lessismore.eu
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LimProgramme/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimProgramme

Supported by Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme of the European Union, LIM, the European platform for project development of limited budget feature films, is led by Le Groupe Ouest and developed in partnership with Control N (Romania), Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds – VAF (Belgium), Krakow Festival Office – KBF (Poland), and the Transilvania International Film Festival – TIFF (Romania).

The project is co-financed by Administraţia Fondului Cultural Naţional and Centrul Național al Cinematografiei.

Does a limited budget necessarily put a brake on filmmakers’ creativity? Or does it push the power of their storytelling towards something new, something edgy and completely different than all their previous work? A limited budget can represent the needed push for the writer’s mind and lead him to amazing stories, scripts and films.
And this is exactly what LIM aims to achieve.

LIM – Less is More, the European platform for project development of limited budget feature films will push forward a new generation of gifted filmmakers who want to work through the prism of limited budget feature film production.
LIM’s successful launch this year shows that there is a growing need for a new approach towards limited budget films: 290 applications coming from 59 nationalities out of which 16 projects (all first feature films) and 4 emerging European producers were selected.
The aim of LIM is to help writers and writer-directors to fully integrate the cost constraint from the beginning of the script development process. The program is aimed at helping feature projects whose final costs will be between 100.000 and 500.000 EUR.
The LIM Jury composed of 6 members from 6 countries around Europe – Massimiliano Nardulli (Head of Selection, Italy), Antoine Le Bos (Artistic Director, France), Oana Rasuceanu (Control N / Romania), Siebe Dumon (VAF / Belgium), Natalia Woda (KBF / Poland) and Vassili Silovic (LIM Director, Slovenia) – selected the finalists out of 45 projects and 8 producers shortlisted.

LIM – Less is More is structured around 3 one-week workshops in residency in small villages in three different parts of Europe: Workshop 1 in Flanders / Belgium (March, 5 – 11), Workshop 2 in Transilvania / Romania (June, 5 – 13) and Workshop 3 in Brittany / France (October, 1 – 8). The development work for LIM’s first edition will be supervised by 4 very experienced script-consultants (all of them being writers in activity): Leonardo Stagliano (Italy), Pierre Hogdson (UK/France), Marcel Beaulieu (Canada) and Antoine Le Bos (France). The team of tutors will be completed, as well, by limited budget specialists.

LIM’s goal is also to generate the creation of a European network of professionals working around limited and very limited budget fiction feature film, thus triggering both co-productions, new funding, distribution and broadcasting opportunities.
Therefore, LIM will organize a major event during Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. This event will allow all selected participants to present their projects to European producers and film-professionals.

The 2017 LIM selected projects & filmmakers are:
Nathalie Biancheri — Wolf (Italy)
Simao Cayatte — Sandra (Portugal)
Pieter Coudyzer — Banvard (Belgium)
Taisia Deeva — Not Here. Not Us. (Russia)
Dina Duma — Sister (Macedonia)
Svetozar Georgiev & Ivaylo Minov — Electricity (Bulgaria)
Karolis Kaupinis — Corcovado Borealis (Lithuania)
Kim Lysgaard Andersen & Tine Mosegaard — All about me – and everyone else (Denmark)
Marianela Maldonado — The Belly of the Whale (Venezuela)
Kabir Mehta — Showdots (India)
Dan Radu Mihai — Anselinii (Romania)
Mauricio Osaki — The paths of my father (Brazil)
Tomasz Sliwinski — Animus (Poland)
Rory Stewart — Organs in the grass (Scottland)
Giil Taws — Tro Fañch (France)
Leo Van Dijl — Stéphanie (Belgium)

The 2017 LIM selected film producers are:
Jelena Miseljic — Montenegro
Frédéric Prémel — France
Gabi Suciu — Romania
Aneta Zagorska — Poland