FORUM: Children’s & youth film project pitching session

The Floor Is Lava

Production company: ESSE Production House, MaGiKa Film, Takfilm Sp. Z. o.o.
Genre: Drama, teens
Countries: Ukraine, Poland
Estimated run time (min): 90
Director: Kateryna Gornostai
Producers: Natalia Libet, Vitaliy Sheremetiev, Viktoria Khomenko, Gennadiy Kofman, Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Kuba Kosma
Stage of the project: Development
Estimated date of the project: 01/08/2020
Looking for: Co-production, Sales agents, Festivals, Funding, Other – feedback
Target audience: 14+

Logline

At a school with ruthless discipline, “wild” things – love and sensuality – are growing. The 16-year-old Masha, at a difficult time in puberty, wants to go beyond the boundaries of the world and back again.

About the director

Kateryna Gornostai graduated from the School of Documentary Film and Theatre in Moscow. After returning to Kyiv, Kateryna started developing educational film programmes and her own documentary and fiction films. In 2016, she curated a documentary programme at the “86” Festival of Film and Urbanism in Ukraine. She is currently working as an associate teacher for the master’s course Documentary and Factual TV at Kyiv-Mohyla School of Journalism. Among her seven short and medium-length films to date, AWAY (2015, fiction, 11 min) won Best Ukrainian Film at Wiz-Art Film Festival, Best Acting at Odessa International Film festival in 2015, and Best Ukrainian Short at Molodist IFF 2015. Her documentary “Maidan is Everywhere” (37 min) won the Andriy Matrosov Award at the Docudays UA Festival 2015. Her latest fiction short film “Lilac” (30 min) received a Special Jury Mention and the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Ukrainian Short Film at Odessa International Film festival in 2017.

About the production company

ESSE Production House is the first full-service film production company in Ukraine. Since 1991, the company has delivered more than 800 commercials, industrial and music videos as well as numerous TV series and feature films. The company’s work has been recognized by various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Film, Live Action for “The Door” (2010) by Juanita Wilson, for which ESSE provided production services in Ukraine. Upcoming features include the Lithuanian-Ukrainian-French co-production “Stasis” by Mantas Kvedaravicius.