Also amongst the 36 projects selected for Rotterdam’s 29th co-production market CineMart, which was announced earlier today (Kenyan Hawa Essuman's feature project Djin being the other title I profiled this morning), is the second feature by Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza, whose first film, Grey Matter (aka Matière Grise), made its debut at the 2011 installment of the Tribeca Film Festival here in New York City, and, as I announced in another post last week, was selected for the touring Global Lens 2012 series.
Kivu's Rotterdam CineMart 2012 project, selected from 465 entries, is titled Jomo, and will be one of 36 projects presented to 850 potential co-financiers during the event, which takes place from January 29 to February 1, 2012.
Jomo is said to be about young homosexual men in Kenya struggling with a suppressive and religiously suffocating atmosphere, and the absence of any backing from the law.
Jomo was also supported by the Hubert Bals Fund for script and project development, so it has quite the pedigree and is well on its way to attracting production financing.
Another title to add to my 2012/2013 watchlist.
I haven't yet seen Kivu's feature debut Grey Matter, but plan to when the touring 2012 Global Lens series makes a stop in New York City, my backyard, where the series will run from January 12th through the 28th.
Here's a trailer for Grey Matter, which
centers on a young filmmaker whose grant falls through a few days before production, and he chooses to hide the bad news from his team while continuing preparations on the film without financing or equipment, as reality blurs fiction and scenes from the script suddenly begin to materialize: