Fresh off the world premiere of Cannes Camera d’Or winner César Díaz’s Bérénice Béjo-starring “Mexico 86” in Locarno’s Piazza Grande, France’s Tripode Productions has come on board to co-produce the upcoming feature “Uptight Ass,” from writer-director Matija Gluščević and co-writer Dušan Zorić. The duo’s last collaboration, “Have You Seen This Woman?,” played at Venice Critics’ Week in 2022.

The film, which will be presented at the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Co-Production Market, follows a self-centered and emotionally closed-off middle-aged teacher who, faced with his father’s illness, must embark on a probing journey of his own to retrieve the love and vulnerability he has buried deep inside.

“Uptight Ass” is produced by Čarna Vučinić for Naked, the Belgrade-based production company she co-founded with Gluščević and Zorić, in co-production with Tripode’s Guillaume Dreyfus and Tena Gojić of Croatian outfit Dinaridi Film.

In a director’s note,...