Hugofilm has joined Sommerhaus Filmproduktion as the Swiss producer on Michèle Flury‘s feature debut “Pas Ta Maman,” which won the Locarno Pro Market Breakout Award at last year’s Locarno Festival and returns to participate in this year’s Match Me! Forum at the Swiss fest.
The project previously participated at Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development and Alphapanda, winning the Market Breakout Award at the latter. For her short film work, Flury won the Best Swiss Newcomer Award at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022 and the Young Director Award at the basel Film Awards earlier this year.
“Pas Ta Maman” is the story of Mandy, a 24-year-old nanny who works for diplomats on the Mediterranean coast. Facing frequent sexual abuse from the husband and unable to find an ally among those around her, Mandy seeks bloody revenge.
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According to the film’s German producer, “‘Pas Ta Maman’ is a brutal yet playful tale that uses contrasting genres to explore a current and important topic, abuse against women and what it means to be sexualized, victimized and to fight back.”
Founded in 2015 by Jochen Laube and Fabian Maubach, Sommerhaus Filmproduktion’s credits include Burhan Qurbani’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” which won five German Film Awards and a European Film Award; Katharina Eyssen’s Netflix series “The Empress,” which won best drama series at the 2023 International Emmy Awards; and Caroline link’s “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,” which sold more than a million admissions and won Best Children’s Film at the German Film Prize in 2019.
Hugofilm Features was founded in 1999 and has produced more than 50 features since, including “Vitus,” which won best feature at the 2007 Swiss Film Prize and was selected as the country’s submission to that year’s international feature Oscar race. More recently, the company’s 2022 feature “A Piece of Sky” premiered in competition at the Berlinale.
Sommerhaus producer Felix Schreiber, who will be at Match Me! to discuss the company’s slate of projects in development, said of Flury’s debut feature project, “After her Locarno win with her short film ‘Heartbeat,’ Michèle Flury has once more opted for a story fromthe perspective of a young woman. Again, the mood is atmospheric and sensual, but this time louder, morerelentless, and full of energy and zeitgeist.
“Michèle’s powerful and electrifying story revolves around class differences and the abuse of power, sexual curiosity and sexualized violence, and finally, rape and murder. With ‘Pas Ta Maman,’ Michèle has created a gripping psychological drama that will challenge, enthrall, and inspire its cinema audience as much as it did us,” he finished.
According to Schreiber, the team behind “Pas Ta Maman” will seek a theatrical distributor but also wants to find a platform that can help distribute the film as widely as possible after it has finished its theatrical run.
He says that when working with platforms, “You have the chance to reach your audience, especially a young one, on a much broader scale. When they tell unique, authentic, and relevant stories from their perspective and their generation, these films must be seen. And for your film to have the relevance we all aim for, it needs to be viewed not only by this generation but also by a broader audience. Therefore, despite my passion for cinema, which I support and fight for, the overall audience unfortunately can’t solely be found in cinemas.”
“Pas Ta Maman” is finishing development now and plans on shooting in 2025 or early 2026, depending on future partnerships.
