Meltse Van Coillie
Writer-director
Flanders, Belgium
Meltse Van Coillie (1992) is a Belgian director with a background in documentary filmmaking. In 2018 she graduated from KASK, School of Arts in Ghent with the hybrid short film ELEPHANTFISH. This graduation film screened at numerous international film festivals and received a Wildcard from the Flemish Film Fund. The awarded production budget resulted in a second short, ZONDER MEER, which had its international premiere at Berlinale in 2021. Afterwards, it travelled the international festival circuit and received many awards, including the Grand Prix at Encounters. Currently she is developing another short called NOCTURNUS, shot during the polar night in Greenland in January 2022. Set in the same arena, she is writing her first feature film: TORPOR.
Project
Torpor
Olivia (27) is accompanying a scientific expedition crew in the Arctic. As a polar bear guard, it is her job to be on the lookout for possible threats. But this distances her from the team of scientists, who are out to unravel a mysterious phenomenon hidden between the snowy hills: the very first case of human hibernation. When the setting sun heralds the beginning of a monthlong polar night, the local villagers fall into a deep slumber.
For centuries, hibernating has been their way of surviving the cold season. But this year, Kathrin (52) and her colleagues are here to figure out what the inner mechanisms of this deep slumber are. When they discover a seemingly shared subconsciousness amongst the synchronously breathing hibernators, Olivia is confronted with what she has been lacking all along: a true sense of connection. In a motherly urge to protect these vulnerable souls, the young guard loses sight of what could harm them the most: her own waking presence.
