07-04-2010

Liza, The Fox-Fairy going to Atelier

By Dániel Deák
    Accomplished short film and commercial director Károly Ujj-Mészáros' first feauture film, Liza the Fox-Fairy now in pre-production. has been invited to Cannes Film Festival's sixth Cinefondation Atelier.

    Károly Ujj-Mészáros won the Best Short Film award at the 40th Hungarian Film Week and is one of the busiest Hungarian commercial directors (www.umkaroly.com). He worked on the script of Liza, The Fox-Fairy, a magical comedy for three years. The story is about a nurse, Liza, who is obsessed in the Japanese culture. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore, akin to European fairies: intelligent beings possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Liza tries to find her mate using the forces of Fox-Fairy.

    The script participated at last year's CineLink forum in Sarajevo, where a German company joined the production. The president of the jury of CineLink was Georges Goldenstern, president of Atelier. In Cannes producer István Major and Károly Ujj-Mészáros of Film Team will be looking for a third co-prodution partner.

    The film won 20,000 euro to shoot the demo, and is now waiting on Hungarian funding The estimated budget of the project is 1.5 million euros. The shooting will begin in spring 2011.

    The last Hungarian participant at Atelier was Benedek Fliegauf with his script Womb, which is in the last phase of its post-production now.