20/04/2017 - The German filmmaker is due to receive a production grant at the Tribeca Film Festival

Thorsten Klein (Lost Place [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) is the first German writer-director to receive a grant from the prestigious TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund – this backing is intended to help him with his new film project, Adventures of a Mathematician [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. The Tribeca Film Institute and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation support innovative and compelling film projects in which science or scientists play a central role. Former winners of this prestigious award include The Imitation Game [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile] and The Man Who Knew Infinity [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Besides a $75,000 grant, the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund will provide Klein with professional guidance, and will support his innovative and fresh take on science, mathematics and technology.

Adventures of a Mathematician tells the heartwarming, true story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the USA in the 1930s. At the same time as having to deal with the difficult losses of family and friends, he was also helping to create both the hydrogen bomb and the first computer. Award-winning Polish actor Jakub Gierszal (Lasting [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jacek Borcuch
film profile], Suicide Room [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jakub Gierszal - Shooting S…
interview: Jan Komasa
film profile]) will play the title role in this German-Polish-Canadian co-production that is set to be shot in 2018.

The project has already received support from the German-Polish Film Fund, which is operated by the MDM, the Polish Film Institute, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Federal Film Board (FFA). Producers Lena Vurma (Dragonfly Films, Germany), Joanna Szymanska (Shipsboy, Poland) and Mary Young Leckie (Solo Productions, Canada) are attending the Tribeca Film Festival in New York with Klein, where they will receive the award on 22 April.

Further winners of the 2017 TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund grants include the comedy neo-noir anthology series Invisible Islands by writer-director Emily Lobsenz and the drama One Man Dies a Million Times by writer-director Jessica Oreck.