‘Popeye,’ ‘Contestant,’ ‘Mother’ Among Cannes Cinefondation Atelier Titles

Kirsten Tan’s “Popeye,” Carlos Osuna’s “The Contestant” and Alberto Morais’ “The Mother” are three of 15 films selected for the Cannes Festival’s 2015 Cinefondation Atelier, a showcase of up-and-coming talent worldwide.

Launched in 2005, and now looking toward its 11th edition, the Atelier, a co-production and financing forum, runs May 15-21 at the Cannes Film Festival, where the 15 projects’ directors and producers will meet with potential co-production partners and sales agents.

A drive to foster the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers, the Atelier has seen an extraordinary success rate: Of the 156 projects presented at the Atelier in Cannes, 103 have been made and released. A further 40 are in pre-production.

The 2014 TorinoFilmLab top winner, and sparking buzz ever since, “Popeye,” from Singapore’s Kirsten Tan, is an unusual buddy movie: It turns on an ageing man who meets his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. The duo set off to return to the farm of their youth.

Announced at last year’s Cannes as a Colombia (Malta)-Mexico (FilmTank)-Chile (Forastero) co-pro, “The Contestant” (pictured), about a retiring 24-year-old who becomes the hero of street protests, underscores “the importance of social resentment as a potential force for change,” said director Osuna, who made an auspicious debut with “Fat, Bald, Short Man.”

Presented at June’s Small is Biutiful in Paris, “The Mother” marks Spaniard Alberto Morais’ follow-up to “Los chicos del Puerto.” It tracks 14-year-old Miguel, who battles at all costs to be reunited with his feckless single mother and not be sent back to a center for minors.

Some projects at Atelier are more personal works. Moving between fiction and documentary, and with significant dance elements, “Lands of Loneliness,” from Spain’s Meritxell Colell, for example, charts a woman’s return to her village roots.

Most Atelier movies, however – and this has largely been the tone of the recent editions – paint a troubled portrait of a contemporary or recent world ravaged by factors such as fanaticism, repression, unemployment, drug abuse, forced immigration or broken families.

Brazilian Paula Un Mi Kim’s debut, “Butterfly Diaries” is a ’90s-set Sao Paolo coming of age tale of drugs, MTV and underage pregnancy, “The Road to Mandalay” an illegal immigrants’ tale from Taiwan-based Burmese-Chinese Midi Z (“Ice Poison”).

“Comte des blessures,” the feature debut of France’s Morgan Simon, and a Paris-set youth drama, was a 2014 Prix Junior Screenplay Grand Jury Prize winner. Also seen at the TorinoFilmLab, “Pari,” from Greece’s Siamak Etemad, centers on a devout Muslim’s search for her son in Athens; it becomes her journey toward freedom. Presented to an upbeat reaction at Karlovy Vary’s Pitch & Feedback forum, “Out” unspools as an Eastern Europe road-movie co-produced out of Hungary and Slovakia and helmed by Hungary’s Gyorgy Kristof.

Culture clash film “Hilal, Feza and Other Planets” will be directed by Kutlug Ataman, one of the Atelier’s relative veterans, whose “The Lamb” played the 2014 Berlinale’s Panorama. Structured as a Portugal-Angola co-pro, Joao Viana’s “Our Madness” centers on the daughter of Amilcar Cabral, a founding father of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde.

Also in the mix: Italian Laura Luchetti’s “Twin Flower,” which is set up at Giuseppe Gallo’s Picture Show; Romanian Ionut Pitirescu’s “Borders”; “The Tree,” from South Africa’s Louw Venter; and “Soundless Dance,” directed by Sri Lanka’s Pradeepan Raveendran.

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