Exactly What It Seems is a Belarusian sci-fi drama and dark satire that reimagines the immigrant nightmare: what if the home you fled from pulled you back, literally? Written and directed by Darya Zhuk (Crystal Swan, Karlovy Vary 2018), the film follows Nadia and Fedor, a Belarusian couple struggling to assimilate in the US, who are mysteriously teleported back to their authoritarian homeland by a quantum technology experiment gone wrong. Trapped in the woods of Belarus and hunted by police, they must navigate trauma, love, and memory to find a way home - not to a place, but to each other. A surreal reflection on exile, nostalgia, and identity, Exactly What It Seems merges speculative fiction with emotional realism and absurdist humour in the spirit of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Lobster.

Zhuk, a Harvard and Columbia graduate, and the first Belarusian filmmaker in 22 years to represent the country at the Academy Awards with her debut Crystal Swan, teams up with co-writer Tatsiana Zamirovskaya, a celebrated Belarusian sci-fi author living in exile. Together, they craft a story deeply rooted in the contemporary immigrant experience, infused with political urgency and lyrical absurdity.

A four-country coproduction between TurnstyleTV (USA), Apple Film Production (Poland), Allfilm (Estonia), and Topkapi Films (the Netherlands), Exactly What It Seems boasts an estimated budget of 1,350,000 EUR, with 1,150,000 EUR already secured. Backed by the Hubert Bals Fund, the Estonian Film Institute, NFF+HBF Co-Production Scheme, and the Polish Film Institute, the project is seeking coproducers, gap financing, sales, distribution, and festival partners. Filming is planned for March 2026 near Warsaw, with postproduction in Estonia.

Producer:
TurnstyleTV (USA)
Darya Zhuk: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Allfilm OÜ (allfilm.ee,Estonia)
Volia Chajkouskaya: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Credits:
Director: Darya Zhuk
Scriptwriters: Darya Zhuk, Tatsiana Zamirovskaya
Producers: Darya Zhuk, Veta Krechetova, Dariusz Jablonski, Izabela Wojcik, Volia Chajkouskaya, Ivo Felt, Max de Wolf

Helmet is a Polish neo-noir drama about loneliness, intimacy, and quiet rebellion in a world ruled by algorithms. Written and directed by Roman Przylipiak, the film follows Adam, a food courier who never removes his motorcycle helmet, and Ewa, a woman living in sterile isolation. Their fragile connection becomes a tender act of defiance against a dehumanised system that treats people as products and emotions as liabilities. Set in a nocturnal, dystopian Warsaw, Helmet explores how love and empathy survive amid urban alienation and digital control.

Przylipiak, a graduate of the Łódź Film School and the Wajda School, has gained recognition for his acclaimed shorts Jerry (2017, Clermont-Ferrand, Gdynia, Warsaw) and Far Beyond the Heliopause (2017, Merida FF, Yach FF, Screen & Sound Festival). Known for his visually poetic storytelling, he now brings his distinct aesthetic and emotional intensity to his feature debut.

Produced by House Media Company (Poland) and led by Aneta Dobies, Helmet has an estimated budget of 1,400,000 EUR, with 70,000 EUR already secured. The creative team includes cinematographer Patryk Kin (Norwegian Dream, 2023), production designer Katarzyna Jędrzejczyk (Broad Peak, Corpus Christi), and composer Mikołaj Stroiński (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). The project seeks coproducers and sales partners to join ahead of its planned shoot in late summer 2027.

Producer:
House Media Company (Poland)
Aneta Dobies: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Credits:
Director: Roman Przylipiak
Scriptwriter: Roman Przylipiak
Producer: Aneta Dobies

I’ll Wait for You Last Summer is a German/Swedish drama about love, memory, and the quiet ache of middle age. Written and directed by Tonia Noyabrova (Do You Love Me?, Berlinale Panorama 2023), the film follows Lara, a 45-year-old Ukrainian émigré living an orderly suburban life in Munich, who impulsively travels to Berlin after discovering that her first love, Alik, now a war photographer, is visiting the city. Over four days together, they navigate nostalgia, laughter, and silence, confronting the question of whether love can be reclaimed once life has already happened. A film about rediscovery, I’ll Wait for You Last Summer captures the poetry of time passing and the bittersweet realisation that even fleeting love can awaken the will to live again.

Noyabrova, one of Ukraine’s most acclaimed contemporary filmmakers, brings her trademark blend of intimacy, humour, and melancholy to this tender, emotionally charged story. Known for Hero of My Time (Odesa IFF Best Director 2018) and Do You Love Me?, winner of multiple Golden Dzyga Awards and Best Film at Off Camera Krakow, she crafts cinema rooted in emotional truth and lived experience.

Produced by Sommerhaus Filmproduktion (Germany) and Common Ground Pictures (Sweden), with producers Sophie Cocco, Jochen Laube, Fabian Maubach, and Jonas Kellagher, the project has an estimated budget of 2,110,000 EUR and is currently seeking coproducers and sales partners. The team plans to begin production in fall 2026, developing an international coproduction structure with a potential third partner country.

Producer:
Sommerhaus Filmproduktion GmbH (Germany)
Sophie Cocco: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Credits:
Director: Tonia Noyabrova
Scriptwriter: Tonia Noyabrova
Producers: Sophie Cocco, Jochen Laube, Fabian Maubach, Jonas Kellagher

Lava Love is a Greek/Icelandic supernatural drama about an impossible romance that burns as fiercely as the earth itself. Written and directed by Steve Krikris (The Waiter, Thessaloniki 2019), the film follows Max, a 17-year-old boy vacationing at a thermal resort in 1985, who falls for Lea, a centuries-old vampire longing to feel human again. Their forbidden bond evolves from first love to eternal curse, stretching across decades and continents until they reunite at an erupting Icelandic volcano, where love and destruction become indistinguishable. Blending sensuality, myth, and melancholy, Lava Love is a hypnotic journey through time, obsession, and rebirth, a love story written in ash and fire.

Krikris, a San Francisco Art Institute graduate and Artistic Director of the International Film Festival of Patmos, brings his precise visual language and dark romanticism to this haunting second feature. His debut The Waiter (Netflix, 2019) screened at over 40 festivals, earning 11 awards and four Hellenic Film Academy Awards. For Lava Love, he collaborates again with editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis and cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, both frequent partners of Yorgos Lanthimos. Shot on 16mm, the film’s tone fuses nostalgic intimacy with supernatural intensity, using Greece’s coastal towns and Iceland’s volcanoes as emotional mirrors of its characters.

Produced by Filmiki Productions (Greece) and Zik Zak Filmworks (Iceland), with producers Stelios Mavrodontis, Nicholas Alavanos, and Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, the project has an estimated budget of 1,400,000 EUR, with 330,000 EUR already secured. Supported by the Greek Film Center, Creative Europe - MEDIA, and the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre, the film seeks coproducers, financiers, sales, and distributors ahead of principal photography in September 2026.

Producer:
Filmiki Productions (Greece)
Stelios Mavrodontis: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Credits:
Director: Steve Krikris
Scriptwriter: Steve Krikris
Producers: Stelios Mavrodontis, Nicholas Alavanos, Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson

Purgatory is a Slovenian/Austrian/Greek psychological drama that begins with a chilling mystery: a video tape found inside a bear’s stomach reveals a family tearing itself apart in a remote forest cabin. Written by Iza Strehar and directed by Žiga Virc (Houston, We Have a Problem!, Tribeca 2016), the film unfolds as a claustrophobic family reunion turns violent, blurring the line between human nature and the wild. As old traumas erupt, the boundaries between hunter and prey dissolve, and the forest itself becomes both witness and judge. Purgatory is a visceral meditation on grief, patriarchy, and ecological imbalance, told through an eerie blend of realism, psychological tension, and found footage.

Virc, known for his daring hybrid storytelling and acclaimed docufiction work, brings a tactile cinematic approach to this feature, combining handheld naturalism, VHS textures, and immersive soundscapes to trap the viewer inside the characters’ emotional and physical wilderness. His films, from A New Home (Toronto 2016) to Shooting Blanks (2023), explore power, identity, and the human instinct for survival. Strehar, a Berlinale Talents alumna and multi-award-winning screenwriter (Bitch - A Derogatory Term for a Woman, Woman of God), coproduces through her company Lilit, continuing her focus on gender, power, and moral paradoxes.

Produced by Lilit (Slovenia), Zwinger Film (Austria), and Asphalt (Greece), with producers Iza Strehar, ŽigaVirc, Rok Biček, and Minos Nikolakakis, Purgatory has an estimated budget of 1,171,300 EUR, with 175,000 EUR already secured. Supported by the Slovenian Film Centre and RTV Slovenia, the team is seeking coproducers (especially from Germany or France), sales, distributors, and VOD partners. Production is slated for spring 2027, targeting a 2027/28 festival premiere.

Producer:
Lilit (Slovenia)
Iza Strehar: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Credits:
Director: ŽigaVirc
Scriptwriter: Iza Strehar
Producers: Iza Strehar, ŽigaVirc, Rok Biček, Minos Nikolakakis