02 Dec IEFTA Awards €3,000 at the Torino FilmLab Event 2024
At this year’s TorinoFilmLab, the International Emerging Film Talent Association (IEFTA) proudly presented its €3000 Award (funded by IEFTF) to filmmakers Karla Lulić (Director) and Jelena Mađarić (Producer) for their compelling project Dear Insects and Other Creepy Stories (Croatia). This darkly intriguing film explores the eerie lives of tenants in a crumbling socialist building during a relentless heatwave.
IEFTA is thrilled to support this imaginative project and its talented creators on their journey. Congratulations to Karla and Jelena!
Karla Lulić
DIRECTOR
Karla Lulić is a screenwriter, director, and producer from Croatia with a master’s degree in film and TV production from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Her previous short films In the Name of Strawberry the Chocolate and the Holy Spirit, Following… and Split Ends screened at 40+ world festivals around the world. She is currently developing her debut feature film, Mirror of Nightingales, a TV series Dear Insects and Other Creepy Stories, a TV series for a young audience Chasing the Clouds and a feature film She Butterfly.
Jelena Mađarić
PRODUCER
Jelena Mađarić is producer from Croatia, she has BA in Public Relations and MA in communication. She is currently developing her debut feature film Mirror of Nightingales, directed by Karla Lulić. She is also producing a TV series Dear Insects and Other Creepy Stories and a feature film She Butterfly. As a screenwriter she is working on a TV series for young audiences called Chasing the Clouds.
Dear Insects and Other Creepy Stories
Synopsis
A worn-down socialist building in the suburbs, heat wave 40+ degrees. In seven apartments, seven creepy stories, all connected by Miro, the janitor. He seems creepy, but he is just a lonely old guy. Every day he wakes up with a broken heart. His wife replaced him with soap operas. One day a cockroach enters the building. Miro is determined to hunt it down. Can Miro become her knight in shining armor once more?
Meanwhile, we follow tenants and how losing their purpose makes them spiral into madness.
Little girl Klara wants a doll, a greenish doll she saw on TV in a documentary about Chernobyl. She wants that doll! She needs that doll! And she will get that doll. A dying woman Anja,has 30 day sto live. She becomes obsessed with a red dress but it is sold out. Her neighbor has the dress, and Anja becomes her stalker. Granny Katica only cares about saving her fresh fish from rotting as her fridge broke down. She dies frozen with the fish. To make his parent proud, loser Marko buys “All my life insurance policy” without reading the small print. His parents decide to kill him, to cash in on his life.
Miro is now seeing cockroaches everywhere, falling into madness while they multiply, multiply, multiply... and multiply. Will the cockroaches take over the building?