Synopsis
In a future Europe scarred by segregation, a physically impaired investigator applies her alchemist methods to track down missing persons and ultimately restores hope in peaceful unity.
Director’s vision
NO MAN’S LAND brims with bizarre colours and odd camera angles. European performances infuse the movie with heaps of otherworldliness and a subtle sense of magic. TIDELAND by Terry Gilliam meets ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE by Jim Jarmusch.
The feature film project has been on quite the journey and with a pandemic shifting our lives into another direction I am now bringing it back to its roots. In 2018 and 2019 too many well-intended holes were torn into its subdued fantasy, which is why I am now deliberately including an early draft of the screenplay with this submission. The film is not about massive set pieces but about the seething darkness underneath. There is poetry and genre in it. And I intend to bring it back to that. Our short film SHADOW PLAYERS is a testament to that.
Budget
Director’s biography
Mel Piper is a visionary with a passion for poetic genre content and strong female characters. According to BlueCat, her work covers “terrain much too often neglected in contemporary film.” In 2021, her short film SHADOW PLAYERS was selected for festivals in the US, Italy, Finland, Iceland, Argentina, Brazil, and the U.K. Her screenplay accolades include ScreenCraft finalist, Stowe Story Lab Final Draft Fellowship finalist, two-time WeScreenplay Diverse Voices semifinalist and BlueCat quarter-finalist. With her writing-directing work she was selected for the European Genre Forum 2018, Reykjavík Talent Lab 2019 and the Works in Progress at Brussels Genre Film Market 2020. Operetta-fed by Silesian grandparents, Piper grew up in a German fairytale forest, studied drama in New York City and film studies in London, and is currently based in Hamburg.
mel@atticocean.com
