Lucky Girl continues its strong festival-market momentum after winning the Atlas Prize at the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
By Joseph Jonathan
TorinoFilmLab has announced the winners of its 2025 Meeting Event, awarding more than €440,000 in prizes to emerging film and series projects from around the world. Among the highlights of this year’s edition — held from November 20 to 22 in Turin — was the recognition of Lucky Girl, a France–Senegal co-production by filmmaker Linda Lô, which secured one of the coveted €50,000 TFL Production Awards.
Lucky Girl continues its strong festival-market momentum after winning the Atlas Prize at the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, a key development platform supporting African and Arab filmmakers. Produced by Didar Domehri, the project follows four-year-old Lili and her brothers, who are left on their own in Bordeaux after their flamboyant mother unexpectedly returns to Gabon without them. The story blends childhood vulnerability with themes of abandonment, identity, and migration, a narrative sensibility that has positioned the film as one of the most anticipated emerging African titles.
This year’s TFL Production Awards were granted to four feature film projects in advanced development. The winning projects were selected from ten FeatureLab finalists by a jury, including Thania Dimitrakopoulou (The Match Factory); filmmaker, Mo Harawe; Toronto International Film Festival programmer, Dorota Lech; and Lucky Red founder, Andrea Occhipinti.
Beyond the FeatureLab section, awards were presented across TorinoFilmLab’s multiple programmes, spanning ScriptLab, ComedyLab, SeriesLab, Boost It Lab, and several partner-supported initiatives.
In total, the 18th TFL Meeting Event hosted more than 400 industry professionals from 46 countries, concluding a year-long development cycle in which 113 filmmakers and producers worked on 48 projects — including 39 feature films and nine TV series — under the guidance of TorinoFilmLab tutors.
TFL Meeting Event 2025 – Full List of Winners
TFL Production Awards (€50,000 each)
- La Canícula — dir. Rod Llaverías, prod. Wendy Espinal (Dominican Republic)
- Lucky Girl — dir. Linda Lô, prod. Didar Domehri (France–Senegal)
- The Passions of Angela Simmons — dir. Lucy Kerr, prod. Megan Pickrell (United States)
- Three Ages — dir. Jiajie Yu Yan, prod. César Esteban Alenda (Spain/China)
SeriesLab Development Awards
- Connection Lost — dir. Maja Costa, Melina Voss (Italy–Germany)
- Madre Mia — dir. Emmanuelle Kesch, Mauricio Cuffaro, Francisco Carrasco (Peru–Belgium–Argentina–Italy–Spain)
- Buffalo Johansson — dir. Lars Damoiseaux, prod. David Vermander (Belgium–Netherlands)
ComedyLab Award (€10,000)
- A Summer Tale — dir. Berthold Wahjudi (Germany)
TFL Co-Production Fund (€50,000)
- 9 Temples to Heaven — dir. Sompot Chidgasornpongse (Thailand) Co-producers: Kick the Machine Films (Thailand), E&W Films (Singapore), Petit Chaos (France)
Alumni Grants
- Nightsong — dir. Maya Da-Rin, prod. Juliette Lepoutre (Brazil–France)
- Soon We Will All Be History Here — dir. Saeed Taji Farouky, with Maria Caruana Galizia (UK–Palestine–Malta)
Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (€20,000)
- History of Illness — dir. David Gašo (Croatia)
CNC Award
- Chosen City — dir. María Belén Poncio (Argentina)
- Hold Still — dir. Shalini Adnani, prod. Sara Bonakdar (UK–Chile)
ArteKino International Award
- Black Hairy Beast — dirs. Anna Hints & Tushar Prakash (Estonia–India)
Sub-Ti Award
- Culebra Cut — dir. Ana Elena Tejera & Tomás Cortés (Panama)
Sub-Ti Access Award
- The Passions of Angela Simmons — dir. Lucy Kerr & Megan Pickrell (United States)
IEFTA Award
- Hold Me (If You Want) — dir. Mounia Akl (Lebanon)
Post-Production Award 2025
- Cold Ashes Can Cause Forest Fires — by Ashmita Guha Neogi, prod. Avantika Singh Desbouvries / Salt for Sugar Films (India–France)
Greener Guest Award
Jonas Egert
TFL White Mirror Award
- Grasshopper — dir. Micah Magee (Denmark–United States)
Green Filming Awards
- Women Walking — by Kerren Lumer-Klabbers, Ingvil Sæther Berger, Emil Wahl (Denmark–Norway)
- To Leave, To Stay — by Danech San, Daniel Mattes (Cambodia–United States–Italy)
- Lucky Girl — dir. Linda Lô, prod. Didar Domehri (France–Senegal)