Filmmaker Mostafa Sarwar Farooki recently signed a deal with German producer Christoph Thoke for his upcoming feature film “Television”. Christoph — who is most notable for producing Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s (Dardenne brothers) art-house feature “Lorna’s Silence” in 2008 — will join a list of local producers including the director himself and Star Cineplex for the film.
Farooki said that he believes the deal will be a boost to ambitious local filmmakers who want to reach out to the global audience.
However, because of certain limitations the filmmaker refused to disclose the particular arrangement he and Thoke agreed upon.
It should be mentioned that “Television” received the Asian Cinema Fund award for script development at the last Pusan Film Festival. It was also selected as an official project of Pusan Promotion Plan 2010 [recently renamed as Asian Project Market] and Film Bazaar India 2010.
Christoph Thoke has primarily worked as on-air promotion producer for German broadcaster RTL 2 and German-French broadcaster Arte. His other producing credits included “Little Senegal”, an official entry from Algeria, in the Best Foreign Language Film category, at the 72nd Academy Awards; “Buffalo Boy”, official entry from Vietnam at the 78th Academy Awards and “Wedding Chest”, official entry from Kyrgyzstan at the 79th Academy Awards.
In total, movies produced by Thoke have been invited to about 500 festivals and garnered more than 100 awards around the globe.
“Television” will be Farooki’s fourth feature film. The film will highlight rural characters rather than urbanites — Farooki’s preferred theme so far. The filmmaker also informed that shooting would likely begin in a couple of months.
-With The Daily Star input