Friday, September 19-----

One of the key events of the Independent Film Week in New York, organized by the IFP/Independent Feature Project this past week, is the No Borders International Co-Production Market. Now in its 14th year, No Borders is the only international co-production market in the U.S., connecting U.S. and international narrative projects at the script stage with financiers and buyers.

"No Borders has become one of the great success stories of IFP's first 30 years," said Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP. "Since 2004, we've had 151 projects take part in 1,688 financing meetings. The impact of the program has grown dramatically since inception."

The Market is set up as a series of one-on-one pitches. Filmmakers with some track record and some cash already raised, attempt to set up meetings with local and visiting distributors, financiers, television companies, to flag their projects. Although most meetings are rather short, an aggressive producer can come away with some significant leads towards further financing in the weeks and months ahead.

No Borders' alumni include some of the most acclaimed independent films of the past decade including Courtney Hunt's Frozen River, Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden's Half Nelson, Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace, Miranda July's Me And You and Everyone We Know, Eran Riklis' Lemon Tree, Sam Garbarski's Irina Palm and the upcoming Weinstein/Miramax release of Stephen Frears' Cheri.
 

Among the highlights of this year's crop of projects are:  
• Howl - A biopic of revolutionary beat poet Allen Ginsberg starring James Franco, Mary-Louise Parker, and David Duchovny; written and directed by Academy Award® winners Epstein and Friedman; executive produced by Gus Van Sant.

• Khumba - No Borders' first fully animated project, KHUMBA, is set in South Africa and tells the story of a half-striped zebra who is first ousted and then saves his herd.

• Crawling at Night - A grief-stricken Japanese ice-carver mourning the death of his only child makes an unexpected connection with a struggling cabaret singer played by Maria Bello.

• Men - Alan Cumming and Lukas Haas star in a contemporary American adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's classic La Ronde directed by Broadway helmer Chris Ashley (Xanadu)

• Lou - John Hurt stars as a man with Alzheimer's disease who builds an unexpected relationship with his granddaughter.

• The Nightingale - A highly-charged contemporary political thriller set in present day Iran directed by Mark Bamford (Cape of Good Hope).

Half of No Borders' participants are from the U.S. and the other half comes from the IFP's eight international partners including established funding bodies (TelefilmCanada, UK Film Council, Germany's Filmstiftung NRW, Australia's FilmVictoria and NSWFilm and TelevisionOffice, the New Zealand Film Commission, and the National Film and Video Foundation in South Africa) and support organizations (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen/ACE, CineMart, Pusan Promotion Plan/PPP, and the Sundance Institute).

For the second year, the UK Film Council is sending established independent producers Mia Bays (2006 Academy Award® winner for Six Shooter - live action short), Mark Herbert (2008 BAFTA winner for This Is England) and Gabriel Range to take No Borders meetings for a number of projects on their slates.

No matter what happens as a results of these networking encounters, both the producer and the industry professional come away with a number of contacts that merit follow up and, possibly, hopefully, economic support.

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor