La Résidence de la Cinéfondation welcomes from today, October 1st, and until February 15th 2009, 6 new residents to support the writing of, and help them prepare, their first or second feature film.

Gilles Jacob and his jury have chosen one female and five male directors from a selection of over 160 candidates.

-        Anna Faur (Hungarian, 30) proposes, with Anyones (second feature), 4 portraits of women from different generations and social backgrounds, but who share the same concerns about their bodies and the feeling of being lost in this world.

-          Babak Amini (Iranian, 30), in Oil (first feature) examines the reactions of a soldier asked by the Iranian government to guard an oil well that is discovered in a Kurdish village on the Iraki border.

-          Aaron Fernandez (Mexican, 35) tells, in Les Heures Mortes (second feature), of the daily life of a young man, a motel employee, and his fascination for one of the female clients who regularly visits the place with her lover.

-          Alejandro Landes (Colombian, 27), in Porfidio (second feature), follows the journey of a man who is paralyzed by a bullet during a police raid, abandoned by his wife, and who has been waiting for social aid for 14 years.

-          Seng Tat Liew (Malaysian, 28) describes, in In What City Does it Live? (second feature), the reactions of villagers who go to help Pak Awang move an abandoned house towards the inside of the village so he can give it to his daughter as a wedding present.

-          Robin Weng (Chinese, 26), in Red Spider Lily  (second feature), follows the journey of Nanyangzai, a demob soldier from the special armed forces, who is recruited in Japan by a gang boss who promises him easy money.

La Résidence de la Cinéfondation has had very encouraging results: 75% of the projects it has supported since its creation in 2000 have been shot and, for the most part, distributed.

These positive results have also been accompanied by interest from international festivals: this year, no less than a dozen films from the Résidence were invited to the festivals of Cannes, Locarno, New York or Toronto.
Among them were: Kornél Mundruczò (Hungary), in competition at Cannes with Delta; Pablo Aguero (Argentina), who presented Salamandra at Cannes and at Toronto; and Antonio Campos (United States), whose Afterschool was selected for Un Certain Regard, was also shown at Deauville and New York, and is due to be released in theatres this Wednesday.

> More details about the 6 new residents.