Aquarela is a special gift to the planet. Kossakovsky’s visual symphony of colours and water aims to remind humanity of the essence and beauty of water to sustain everything on the planet.

Victor Kossakovsky, first received international attention in 1993 with his film Belovy which won him many awards at major international film festivals. Kossakovsky started his career in 1978 as an assistant cameraman, directing assistant and editor at the Leningrad Studio of Documentaries. All his films have won Kossakovsky many international awards and prizes. His last film “Vivan Las Antipodas!”, has also won him international awards, it was premiered at Venice Film festival in 2011 and has been shown in more than 80 international Festivals. We are thrilled to be working with him.

We are co-producing with MAJADE and the Scottish Documentary Institute and are also being supported by Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yanes of Entredos. We look forward to moving this beautiful project forward.

Watch this space for future news.

This project is being supported by Creative Scotland.

Congratulations to our hardworking, committed team and our funders BBC Scotland and Creative Scotland.

Here is a link to all the projects in competition:

http://www.celticmediafestival.co.uk/shortlist

Our film won best factual at last night’s BAFTA Scotland new talent ceremony.

This award is the result of a great effort by a team who understood why it was so important to make this film. Against all the odds, and at times they were stacked against us, we came through demonstrating an invaluable expression of commitment, understanding, tolerance and the real meaning of diversity in our society.

We are immensely proud and grateful to all those who supported it! We are all winners!

Here is a list of the award winners last night! Congratulations to all!

http://www.bafta.org/scotland/news/new-talent-awards-2013-winners-announced,3696,BA.html

Trailer for Everybody’s Child can be seen here:

http://everybodyschildfilm.com/

Congratulations to Garry and all our team for all their great work on this project!

Congratulations also to all the projects in the competition.

Here is a link to the projects shortlisted:

http://www.celticmediafestival.co.uk/shortlist

We announced in the New Year the starting of two new projects:

AQUARELA and ‘15 IN GAZA‘.

We are delighted that Creative Scotland has agreed development investment for AQUARELA, a beautiful, daring and poetic documentary by renowned documentary maker Victor Kossakovsky to remind the planet of the meaning of water and our solid dependence on its existence.  We are feeling humbled and honoured as well as terribly excited by this magnificent project, which will start emerging this spring. Follow us on Aconite Productions Facebook (facebook.com/aconitedocs) and Twitter account (@aconitedocs) for further details of the development. This project is a coproduction with ma.ja.de. (Germany) and our close allies at The Scottish Documentary Institute.

’15 IN GAZA’ is our collaboration with Palestinian director Wesam Mousa, commissioned by Al Jazeera English. The film follows, Shorouq, a soon to be 15 year old girl  from Gaza who struggles with the meaning of compulsory womanhood in her culture while her community faces the struggle and legacy left by war. It is a simple, touching, human story that puts us in touch with the meaning of ‘adulhood’ and the paradoxes associated with it. Production starts at the end of February. We have been very busy organizing the production in this complex territory. You can find further information about these projects in our productions page: http://www.aconiteproductions.co.uk/productions/

Garry Fraser’s ‘Everybody’s Child’ has been completed. We organized a private screening of this film last December with our friends and supporters and the response was overwhelming. We are very pleased with Garry’s work and are now ready to launch the film into the world and let it travel to Festivals and screens around the world.  Follow the film on its website: everybodyschildfilm.com

We will keep you all posted on future developments and keep an eye (or two) on this space.  Now we need to get on with our busy schedule.

We started to trade last year with the launch of Everybody’s Child by Garry Fraser. This film was recently completed and we hope it will start travelling and be known to the world in early 2013. The TV version of this film ‘My Lives and Times’ was broadcast on BBC 2 last July and nominated for a Creative Diversity Network award for best Nations and Regions TV program last November.

So Christmas has indeed arrived with the announcement of two new projects for 2013:

’15 in Gaza’… by Palestinian director Wesam Mousa has just been commissioned by Aljazeera and we will enter into production in February 2013.

‘Aquarela’… a daring, challenging and ambitious concept by the almighty documentary maker Victor Kossakovsky, will start developing in early 2013. Ma.ja.de and Scottish Documentary Institute are already supporting this project. We are thrilled to embarking on this new journey.

We have enjoyed all of our challenges, have continued to build our pool of friends and supporters and are ready to carry all our goodwill, great energy and passion into the New Year.  We wish to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have worked with us, encouraged and trusted us throughout this year.

Wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2013!

This film has been commissioned by Aljazeera English

It is an intimate portrait of Shorouq, an intelligent, socially engaging girl who lives in Gaza and who soon will be celebrating her 15th birthday. In her community this means compulsory womanhood, being ready for marriage, wearing the hijab, no more playing with friends in the street. Shorouq is an active girl, artistic and intelligent, she excels at school, she is involved with the school radio station and wants to help re-build her community.

Shorouq is not ready to face womanhood while war rages around her.

We are aiming to start filming in February and to have this film ready in early summer.

The awards ceremony “will celebrate content that embraces onscreen diversity, outstanding breakthrough individual talent as well as off-air and behind the scenes activity across the broadcasting industry”.

The event is taking place this Thursday 15th of November at the Hackney Empire in London and is being anchored by BBC news presenter Jane Hill.

We are honoured to have been nominated as the spirit and intention of this award is pretty much in line what Aconite’s mission:

http://www.creativediversitynetwork.org/awards.php