Coproduction Office is proud to announce Cannes selections at the Directors’ Fortnight this year: PLAY, by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, BLUE BIRD by upcoming Belgian director Gust Van Den Berghe as well as the short film BORO IN THE BOX directed by French Director Bertrand Mandico. After his “impressively naturalistic and spontaneous” INVOLUNTARY (Leslie Felperin, Variety) already in Cannes in 2008, the Swede Ruben Östlund will be back this year with his new opus PLAY, an astute and humorous observation based on an unusual robbery trick known as the “brother trick”. PLAY is based on the true story of a group of Swedish black boys aged 12-14 who robbed other children on about 70 occasions in central Gothenburg, Sweden. The thieves did not at any point have to resort to physical violence or threats to achieve their goal. Inspired by real cases, the film deliberately plays with our prejudices and our expectations that it’s all going to end bad. PLAY is also a continuation of the innovative findings of the short film INCIDENT BY A BANK, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival in 2010.

BLUE BIRD is the second selection at the Directors’ Fortnight of the promising 25 years old Belgian director Gust Van den Berghe. Last year, Van den Berghe’s first feature film LITTLE BABY JESUS OF FLANDR - an original adaptation of Felix Timmermanns story played by actors with Down syndrome - was warmly welcomed by the press and the public alike. In BLUE BIRD, the director adapts the famous play L’OISEAU BLEU by Maurice Maeterlinck (written in 1908, Maeterlinck furtheron won the literature Nobel prize in 1911) and transports its setting in the African landscape of Togo, we follow Bafiokadié and his sister Téné, two African children who one morning leave their village looking for their lost blue bird. But they find much more along their way: they encounter their deceased grand-parents, they fight the soul of the forest, and learn from the Chief of Pleasure. Everyone tells them a story about life and death. At the end of their long journey, the brother and sister enter the Kingdom of the Future and meet yetto- be born children. Delighted with this discovery, they eventually return home.

The French short film BORO IN THE BOX is a fantasmatic portrait of Walerian Borowczyk, a provocateur and avant-garde filmmaker, from his epic conception to his celluloidal death. Boroin- his-box discovers a viscous world of trite and earthy adventures, from Poland to Paris, a universe of «birds» full of eroticism, violence and obscenity, but above all, a world seen from the camera obscura perspective. Eclectic director Bertrand Mandico directed many multi awardwinning short films, diptych Polaroid and photographs, which could be called “still films” and is currently developing his first feature film THE MAN WHO HIDES IN THE FOREST. PLAY is a Swedish - French - Danish coproduction between Plattform Produktion (Sweden), Parisienne de Production (France) and Coproduction Office (Denmark). BLUE BIRD was produced by Belgian production company Minds Meet. Coproduction Office is handling the world sales of both films.

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