Notícias

Big names, high concepts, and crowd-pleasing thrills are the order of the day at this year’s European Film Market, where commercial fare is dominating over the usual arthouse prestige plays, reflecting an industry uncertain of the future of the theatrical business in the post-covid world. Action, horror, and comedy are leading the charge, with star-driven projects like Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog (Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike), Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, A$AP Rocky), and Ernest Dickerson’s untitled hitman thriller (Samuel L. Jackson, Daveed Diggs) among the titles generating early buzz.

Genre filmmakers are also stepping up in a big way, with The Raid’s Iko Uwais launching a new production/sales outfit in Berlin for his brand of martial-arts madness, and horror entries like Bad Boy — starring Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart — and the body-horror thriller...

An auteur-actor pairing to nearly match last week’s word of Johnnie To and Tony Leung comes via Variety, who tell us Ulrike Ottinger will direct Isabelle Huppert in The Blood Countess, a vampire feature based on the infamous Elizabeth Báthory from a script by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek (The Piano Teacher). Lars Eidinger (Irma Vep), Thomas Schubert (Afire), and Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else) will co-star; sales start at the European Film Market imminently.

The Blood Countess is described by “immersive and delightfully eccentric vampire mystery” that unfolds as “a highly visual, narrative scavenger hunt.” Here’s sales agent Magnify’s official synopsis

“[Madame Báthory] and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists,...

Isabelle Huppert is starring as the notorious Countess Elizabeth Báthory in the upcoming vampire mystery feature The Blood Countess, which is set to launch sales next week at EFM, Variety reports today.

The Blood Countess is directed by Ulrike Ottinger, who co-wrote the screenplay with the Nobel Prize in Literature winner Elfriede Jelinek.

The film follows Elizabeth Báthory as “She and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists, a police inspector, and more lively characters in this twisted and humorous vampire tale.”

For the uninitiated, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries,...

Magnify has boarded “The Blood Countess,” a vampire mystery movie starring Isabelle Huppert as Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer.

Directed by renowned German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, the movie is inspired by the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory. The screenplay was penned by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner and acclaimed author of “The Piano Teacher.”

Huppert stars in the film opposite Birgit Minichmayr (“Daughters”), Lars Eidinger (“Dying”), Thomas Schubert (“Afire”) and André Jung (“The Forger”).

“The Blood Countess” is one of the hottest European projects to head to the EFM next week where Magnify’s sales team, led by Lorna Lee Torres, will be introducing the movie to buyers.

Huppert plays the Countess Elizabeth Báthory (aka ‘The Blood Countess’), as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld. “She and her devoted maid...

A who’s who of German on-screen talent, including actors Daniel Brühl, Jella Haase, Birgit Minichmayr, Jürgen Vogel and Sonja Heiss, have signed an open letter protesting Wednesday’s vote in the German parliament that saw an anti-immigration policy passed with the support of the far-right AfD party.

A proposal from the conservative Cdu party to introduce new measures, including permanent border controls at Germany’s borders with its European Union neighbors, a de-facto entry ban for anyone without valid documentation, and immediate detention for individuals facing deportation, narrowly passed the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, on Wednesday but only with the support of the AfD. The proposals still have to be put to a formal vote before becoming law.

The conservatives and all other parties in the Bundestag had pledged not to work with the AfD, which is widely considered to support extremist and anti-democrat positions. The pledge is colloquially...

Palme d’Or winning director Ruben Östlund’s next film The Entertainment System Is Down has been awarded €500,000 in production support from Berlin-Brandenburg’s regional film fund.

It is one of 30 feature films and series projects, from directors such as David Wnendt and Ulrike Ottinger, to share more than €7.2m in Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb)’s latest funding round.

Phlippe Bober’s Berlin-based Essential Filmproduktion received the €500,000 for Östlund’s second English-language production The Entertainment System Is Down, starring Daniel Brühl, Kirsten Dunst and Keanu Reeves. The long gestating project is set on a long-haul flight whose inflight entertainment system breaks down.

It has been over a dozen years in the making. We can confirm that Isabelle Huppert has indeed remained on board, so has Sophie Rois, and they will be surrounded by Birgit Minichmayr (of Everyone Else fame) and Huppert’s About Joan co-star in Lars Eidinger in Ulrike Ottinger’s long-gestating The Blood Countess. At eighty-two years young, the German filmmaker has been receiving some much needed pre-production coin support as of late and just landed another round of coin via German funding bodies Film und Medienstiftung Nrw, Fff Bayern and Hessen Film & Medien. Tilda Swinton, Udo Kier and Irm Hermann (who passed away in 2020) were once mentioned way back in 2010.…...

Three German regional film funds - Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, Fff Bayern and Hessen Film & Medien - have allocated more than €12m to new film and TV series projects in their latest funding sessions.

The fifth and final season of Babylon Berlin, scheduled to start production this autumn, received the largest sum of €2m from the funding committee of Düsseldorf-based Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw.

In total, the fund distributed €5.3m to 12 projects including Coin Film’s production of writer-director Jutta Brückner’s drama The Assistant, starring Corinna Harfouch and Sandra Hüller; Heimatfilm and Amour Fou’s co-production of Ulrike Ottinger...

Jessica Hausner on the references to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby: “The idea behind Hotel [starring Franziska Weisz] was to use all those classical horror film elements on purpose, to put them together but to not lift the secret.”

In the second instalment with Jessica Hausner on three of her feature films before her latest, the bewitching Club Zero (European Film Award Best Original Score to Markus Binder), we move the conversation to Hotel, starring Franziska Weisz with Birgit Minichmayr (Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon) and Lovely Rita with Barbara Osika as Rita, Wolfgang Kostal and Karina Brandlmayer as her parents, and Peter Fiala as her man of interest. The two films have the costumes, as always, designed by Tanja Hausner, cinematography by Martin Gschlacht, sound design by Erik Mischijew (Maren Ade’s multiple European Film...

Berlin-based Pluto Film Distribution Network has taken on world sales for Josef Hader’s Andrea Gets A Divorce which world premieres in the Panorama section at the Berlinale this month.

Andrea Gets A Divorce sees leading Austrian actor and comedian Hader go behind the camera again after his debut film, the satire Wild Mouse, premiered in competition in Berlin in 2017.

Andrea Gets A Divorce centres on a policewoman who commits a hit-and-run after her drunken soon-to-be ex-husband runs out in front of her car. She later discovers someone else has accepted responsibility, a teacher and recovered alcoholic.

Hader stars alongside Birgit Minichmayr,...

The Berlinale has announced the full line-ups of its Panorama, Forum and Generation sidebars for the 74th edition running from February 15 to 24. (scroll down for full list)

Panorama will showcase 31 titles including one series and 25 world premieres.

Highlights include Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin’s Crossing, his first feature since 2019 Cannes breakout And Then We Danced, which opens the selection.

The drama revolves around a retired teacher whose search for her long-lost niece Tekla takes her to Istanbul where she becomes acquainted with a trans rights lawyer.

Other buzzy titles set for a world premiere include André Téchiné’s My New Friends, starring Isabelle Huppert as a solitary police officer, and and Myriam El Hajj’s documentary Diaries From Lebanon, following three people as they navigate their country on the brink of revolution.

A number of Sundance titles will also be making a Panorama splash including Nathan Silver’s Between The Temples,...

Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, a Scotland-set drama starring Saoirse Ronan, will have its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, screening in Berlin’s Panorama section.

The drama is adapted from Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir about a recovering alcoholic — played by four-time Oscar nominee Ronan — who returns to her home on the windswept wilderness of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Fingscheidt made her debut with System Crasher at the 2019 Berlinale. Her English-language follow-up was 2021’s The Unforgivable, a Netflix drama starring Sandra Bullock.

The Outrun is among the first 11 titles picked by Panorama for its 2024 lineup.

Other Panorama highlights include Andrea Gets a Divorce, an Austrian drama from famed actor and comedian Josef Hader, starring Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else) as policewoman Andrea trying to escape the confines of her provincial town; Paradises of Diane from Swiss directing duo Carmen Jaquier and Jan Gassmann, about the antihero Diane, who...

Films starring Saoirse Ronan and Justice Smith are set for Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section.

Panorama announced its first 11 titles on Thursday, seven of which are world premieres. The lineup includes Nora Fingscheidt’s “The Outrun,” which stars Ronan as an antihero who must embark on a journey to find herself. “After years of excess in London, she seeks silence and self-reflection in her Scottish homeland,” the film’s logline reads.

Directed by Jane Schoenbrun, “I Saw the TV Glow” — which stars Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine and Danielle Deadwyler, among others — is also part of the program. In a press release, the festival called the film “one of the most idiosyncratic and fascinating works of the year, effortlessly crossing boundaries of genre, gender and trauma in this eye- and soul-opening trip.”

The annual Panorama Audience Award will be presented on Feb. 25. Berlin Film Festival is set to take place beginning Feb.

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled the first titles set for the 2024 edition of its Panorama sidebar section. Scroll down for the full list of titles announced today.

The lineup includes eleven titles, seven of which are world premieres. A total of 16 countries have been involved in their production. The fest said the topics connecting the titles are rebellion and antiheroes.

Among the set is Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, centered around antihero Rona, played by Saoirse Ronan, who has to go on a long journey to find herself: after years of excess in London, she seeks silence and self-reflection in her Scottish homeland. The film also stars Paapa Essiedu.

Danielle Deadwyler stars in I Saw the TV Glow from Jane Schoenbrun. The pic follows a teenager called Owen who is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night...

The Berlinale Forum, the Berlin Film Festival’s avant-garde sidebar, has announced the first 8 films confirmed for its 2024 line-up.

The 8 films come from 8 different countries, reflecting the Forum’s global reach and a broader push towards greater diversity in it’s line-up. New Forum head Barbara Wurm, who took over running the Forum section in October, highlighted how her program selection team was “diverse with respect to age, ethnicity and cinematic focus.”

One focus of the selection is on cinema coming from regions outside the centers of the Western film industry. “We are looking for worldly films beyond self-referentiality – but those that get involved,” says Wurm. “By being open and resolute in dealing with cinematic forms, we want to bridge the gap between the real worlds we live in and a cinema aware of its public impact.”

The announced titles include the Indian drama The Adamant Girl from director Vinothraj Ps,...

It’s entirely possible that Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala would have waited it out for another Park City showing – Sundance launched the tandem’s third feature The Lodge back in 2019. Following their docu debut Kern (2012) and Goodnight Mommy (2014), The Devil’s Bath (aka Des Teufels Bad) went into production in January of last year — so this has been in post for a chunk of time. This film based on women, religion and ritual murders this is based on an unknown chapter of European history and stars Birgit Minichmayr, Maria Hofstätter, David Scheid, Camilla Schielin and Anja Plaschg.…...

Shudder and IFC Midnight are launching microbudget Skinamarink on a not-so-micro 629 screens, giving the viral horror pic a major push after a well-received premiere back at Fantasia-fest that just kept snowballing with strong reviews and social media love.

“I was over the moon. For a horror filmmaker in Canada, [Fantasia] is like getting a Cannes screening,” says first-time filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball about the leadup to this weekend’s buzzy specialty opening. He shot the 15k feature at his parents’ home in Edmonton, Canada.

In it, two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. “I’d had a nightmare when I was little. I was in my parents’ house, my parents were missing, and there was a monster. And lots of people have shared this exact same dream,” Ball tells Deadline.

"What do you have to lose?" "More than you can imagine." Film Movement has debuted the US trailer for a German-Austrian film titled Chess Story, based on the classic novel of the same name by Stefan Zweig. Set in Vienna in 1938, Dr. Josef Bartok is preparing to flee to America with his wife Anna when he is arrested by the Gestapo. He refuses to cooperate and is locked in solitary confinement. Just as his mind is beginning to crack, Bartok happens upon a book of famous chess games. To withstand the torture of isolation, Bartok disappears into the world of chess, maintaining his sanity only by memorizing every move. When it flashes forward to a transatlantic crossing on which he is a passenger, it seems as though Bartok has finally found freedom. But recounting his story, it's clear his encounters with both the Gestapo and with the royal game itself have not stopped haunting him.

With his work the basis for such great cinematic works as Letter from an Unknown Woman and Only Yesterday, the latest adaptation of a Stefan Zwieg novel comes with Chess Story, a German drama directed by Phillip Stolzl. Ahead of a January 13th theatrical release beginning at Quad Cinema, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the new trailer.

Based on Zweig’s final novella The Royal Game, the film stars Oliver Masucci, Albrecht Schuch (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else), and Rolf Lassgård (A Man Called Ove).

Set in Vienna, 1938, Austria is occupied by the Nazis. Just as Dr. Josef Bartok is about to flee to America with his wife Anna, he is arrested and taken to Hotel Metropol, the Gestapo headquarters. As a notary to the aristocracy, he is tasked with helping the local Gestapo leader gain access to their private bank accounts. After refusing to cooperate, Bartok is put in solitary confinement.

Exclusive livestreams and premieres on Stage+ in December 2022 include:

Max Richter’s Voices Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Oboist Albrecht Mayer and soprano Hera Hyesang Park in a special Christmas celebration Andris Nelsons conducting Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

December 8th, 2022 – Deutsche Grammophon’s new Stage+ platform – a ground-breaking classical music subscription service, offering livestreams, a huge video archive and new audio releases all in one place – presents its first livestream and more exclusive premieres this December. Full details below:

Premiere: 11.12.2022, 19:00 (GMT)

Repeat: 29.11.2022, 01:00 & 29.11.2022, 11:00 (GMT)

Reflektor Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg

Max Richter: Voices

Voices is a homage to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a hopeful and optimistic work for “negative orchestra”, choir, electronics, soprano, violin and piano, in which Max Richter aimed to create a space in which musicians and the audience could engage with the “inspirational...

German director Oliver Hirschbiegel, whose movie “Downfall” was nominated for an Oscar, shot his latest film “The Painter” in only four days. The docu-fiction, which screens Saturday at IDFA, is a collaboration with German artist Albert Oehlen, who is played by Teutonic thesp Ben Becker (“Comedian Harmonists). Now Hirschbiegel and Oehlen are working together on a film about Vincent van Gogh, he tells Variety.

“The Painter,” whose sales rights are being handled by Picture Tree International, follows the artist (Becker) completing a painting for much of its 94-minute run time. Becker creates on camera what Oehlen is doing behind it to show the process of the artist at work.

“It’s a genre-bending film and a first,” says Hirschbiegel, who boarded the project after Oehlen asked him for advice about equipment. “You are watching a painting starting from scratch and being completed. This hasn’t really been done before in film history.

Cologne-based The Match Factory, one of the world’s leading arthouse sales agencies, is at Mia Market in Rome with two German features and one upcoming Italian project, following a busy summer with 20 premieres between Cannes and Toronto.

Nana Neul, best known for her film “My Friend From Faro,” is back with an entertaining German-Italian-Greek feature “Daughters,” starring Birgit Minichmayr, Alexandra Maria Lara and Josef Bierbichler. Produced by Germany’s Heimatfilm and distributed by Warner Bros Germany, the comedy hit German cinemas last week and has its international market premiere at Mia on Friday. The international festival premiere will follow soon.

Andreas Kleinert’s “Dear Thomas” is an authentic portrait of Thomas Brasch, one of the most talked about German authors of the last 50 years. The film stars the German actor Albrecht Schuch from “System Crasher,” “Berlin Alexanderplatz” and “Fabian: Going to the Dogs.” It celebrated its world premiere in...

Eldar Grigorian adapted screenplay from Stefan Zweig’s autobiographical book The Royal Game.

Film Movement has picked up all North American rights from Studiocanal to Philipp Stölzl’s upcoming wartime drama Chess Story, which will be released internationally as The Royal Game.

Eldar Grigorian adapted the screenplay from Stefan Zweig’s novella of the same name about Dr. Josef Bartok, a lawyer who recalls on a cruise his prior torture and imprisonment by the Nazis in Vienna.

After Austria is taken over by the Germans in 1938, Bartok and his wife attempt to flee before he is captured and interrogated by the Gestapo,...

Money can buy outside help, opportunity and material possessions, but not happiness in “My Wonderful Wanda,” a punchy satire from Swiss auteur Bettina Oberli (“Late Bloomers”). Taking a wry but empathetic approach to the phenomenon of care migration, Oberli and her co-writer Cooky Ziesche focus on the changing relationship between one privileged Swiss family and their financially fragile Polish home-care worker over nine months. Naturalistically shot and structured as three chapters and an epilogue, it’s an engaging, mostly well-acted tale, full of surprising twists, even if some seem a bit too on the nose. Opening in theaters and virtual cinemas on April 23, this Zeitgeist Films release should segue from international film festival favorite to modest art-house hit.

Attractive, capable, 30-something single mother Wanda arrives in Switzerland on a bus packed with Polish women who work for rich families eager to outsource the mundane tasks of everyday life. Like Wanda,...

"It's a proof of love." Zeitgeist Films has released a new official US trailer for a Swiss indie drama titled My Wonderful Wanda, which was initially part of the Tribeca Film Festival line-up earlier this year (before it was cancelled). The film is the latest from Swiss filmmaker Bettina Oberli, and is still seeking international distribution. Agnieszka Grochowska stars as the titular Wanda, a Polish immigrant working as a carer in Switzerland. She works as a nurse for the aging patriarch of the wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor family. When she surprisingly becomes pregnant, family secrets come to light and arrangements are soon made to try and appease everyone in this biting family drama. Sounds like a more serious Swiss version of Knives Out. Also starring Gottfried Breitfuss, André Jung, Marthe Keller, Birgit Minichmayr, Bruno Rajski, Iwo Rajski, & Anatole Taubman. This looks like a very complex, poignant drama about family and honesty. Here's...

Passion River Films and 8 Above are teaming on the U.S. release of The Disrupted, the feature documentary debut of Sarah Colt, the Emmy-winning director of PBS’ American Experience docs about Walt Disney and Henry Ford, as well as The Polio Crusade and the Native American series We Shall Remain.

The Disrupted, a look at rising income inequality in the U.S. that follows a farmer, a factory worker and an Uber driver, is now set to hit 20 virtual cinemas on September 25, followed by a digital bow October 13.

“No matter what race, ethnicity, sex, or creed you come from, the subjects from The Disrupted represent all of us who have ever needed to make our own living in America,” Passion River’s Mat Levy said. “There has never been a more crucial and timely film about the compound struggles we are all facing to achieve the ‘American Dream.’ We are...

The dramatic road movie will star Birgit Minichmayr and Alexandra Maria Lara. German filmmaker Nana Neul, known for To Faro (My Friend from Faro) and Silent Summer, is readying a new film. Based on German author Lucy Fricke’s successful novel of the same name, Töchter (lit. “Daughters”) is currently in production and will centre on Betty and Martha, two women pushing 40, who set off from Germany to accompany their dying father to Switzerland. There, he is to fulfil his last wish: that of committing assisted suicide in a special institute. Their journey leads them through Italy and Greece. Töchter will star Birgit Minichmayr and Alexandra Maria Lara in the lead roles, while Josef Bierbichler, Giorgio Colangeli and Andreas Konstantinou are also among the cast of the upcoming dramatic road movie. Filming took place in Germany earlier this year and continued in...

In today’s Global Bulletin, the Zurich festival opens with “My Wonderful Wanda,” Philip Garrel, Tsai Ming-liang and Hong Sang-soo are contenders at San Sebastian, a new talent agency launches with “The Crown” actor Emma Corrin, WaZabi picks up Toronto title “Beans,” and the U.K. celebrates returning to cinemas.

Bettina Oberli’s “My Wonderful Wanda” will open the 16th Zurich film festival on Sept. 24, the first time the event is opening with a film by a female director.

The film was supposed to bow at Tribeca, until the coronavirus pandemic forced its postponement to 2021. Consequently, it will have its world premiere at Zurich.

“My Wonderful Wanda” tells the story of Polish-born Wanda who looks after patriarch and post-stroke patient Josef at his lakeside family villa. The work is poorly paid, but Wanda needs the money to support her own family back in Poland. As a live-in caregiver, she gains...

Bettina Oberli’s film would have played at Tribeca, which was cancelled in April.

The Zurich Film Festival is to open with the world premiere of Bettina Oberli’s My Wonderful Wanda, marking the first time a female-directed feature has opened the event.

The Swiss tragi-comedy was originally set to debut at Tribeca in April but those plans were abandoned when the festival was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and has subsequently been cancelled.

It will now open the 16th Zff, which is pressing ahead as a physical event and due to run September 24 to October 4.

The film centres on Wanda,...

"Don't leave me to those lunatics." The Match Factory has released an official promo trailer for a Swiss indie drama titled My Wonderful Wanda, which was part of the Tribeca Film Festival line-up earlier this year. The film is the latest from Swiss filmmaker Bettina Oberli, and is still seeking international distribution. Agnieszka Grochowska stars as the titular Wanda, a Polish immigrant working as a carer in Switzerland. She nurses the aging patriarch of the wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor family. When an unexpected complication arises, family secrets come to light and arrangements are made to try and appease everyone in this biting family drama. Sounds like a more serious Swiss version of Knives Out. Also starring Gottfried Breitfuss, André Jung, Marthe Keller, Birgit Minichmayr, Bruno Rajski, Iwo Rajski, & Anatole Taubman. This looks like an emotionally resonant drama about how money warps minds, especially family members. Here's the first promo trailer (+ poster) for Bettina Oberli's My Wonderful Wanda,...

My Wonderful Wanda The Match Box Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Bettina Oberli Screenwriter: Cooky Ziesche, Bettina Oberli Cast: Agnieszka Grochowska, Marthe Keller, Birgit Minichmayr, Jacob Matschenz, André Jung, Anatole Taubman Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 4/15/20 Opens: Tbd at Tribeca Film Festival in […]

The post My Wonderful Wanda Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Exclusive: Here’s a positive one for the Euro film industry – shooting has resumed on Tochter (English translation Daughter), a co-production between significant producers from Germany, Greece and Italy.

The project is being heralded as the first post-covid international co-pro to get back underway in Europe, a fact confirmed by two major bodies Eave (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) and Ace (Association des Cinémathèques Européennes).

Pic is based on German author Lucy Fricke’s best-selling novel of the same title and is being directed by Nana Neul (To Faro). Producers include Bettina Brokemper of Heimatfilm, whose credits span Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built and Eran Riklis’ Dancing Arabs. Warner Bros Germany is a co-producer and will handle the local release.

Also onboard are Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovrakis of Greek outfit Heretic, who won the European Film Academy prize for co-production in 2018 and have produced pics including festival hit Son Of Sofia.

The film, entitled Schachnovelle, will star Oliver Masucci in the lead role, alongside Albrecht Schuch, Birgit Minichmayr, Rolf Lassgard and Samuel Finzi. Best known for having directed the alpine drama North Face, as well as commercially successful adaptations of Winnetou novels and music videos featuring the likes of Madonna and Rammstein, German filmmaker Philipp Stölzl is now working on a reinterpretation of Stefan Zweig’s literary classic The Royal Game. Schachnovelle tells the story of lawyer Bartok, who, while on a cruise, recalls being imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis in Vienna. In 1938, Bartok gets arrested and taken to the Gestapo’s headquarters before he can flee to the USA with his wife. Because he refuses to cooperate with the Nazi officials and provide information about accounts that he manages, Bartok is sent into solitary confinement. A chess book helps him survive in captivity and overcome the mental suffering inflicted on.

The line-up includes new TV projects from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Gurinder Chadha and Gregg Araki.

Canneseries, the annual TV festival running alongside the Miptv content market in Cannes, has unveiled the competition line-up for its second edition (April 5-10).

The first two epsidoes from 10 new international series will screen in the main competition.

Titles include Channing Powell’s London-set psychological thriller The Feed for Amazon and Liberty Global. David Thewlis stars in the dystopian tale as the inventor of a brain implant that allows people to share thoughts and emotions alongside Guy Burnet, Michelle Fairley and Nina Toussaint-White as his family members.

Netflix movies may still be question mark in terms of being allowed in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival in May, but the streaming giant will be present at Cannes Series. The Cannes television festival will mark its second year next month with Netflix going up against rival Amazon in the competition section. The full lineup includes series from Israel, Norway, Spain, and Belgium.

Netflix’s competition entry is the German series “How to Sell Drugs Online Fast,” from writers Philipp Käßbohrer and Matthias Murmann. Amazon is heading to Cannes Series with “The Feed,” a London-set drama created by Channing Powell and based on the novel Nick Clark Windo. “The Feed” stars “Game of Thrones” favorite Michelle Fairley opposite David Thewlis in a story about a piece of technology that allows people to instantly share thoughts and emotions. The tech falls into the wrong hands and becomes a murderous weapon.

Cannes Series has revealed the lineup, jury and masterclasses for its second edition, which takes place alongside the Mip TV market on the French Riviera.

Among ten series in competition at the TV festival are Netflix’s German show How To Sell Drugs Online and Amazon’s UK series The Feed with Michelle Fairley and David Thewlis. Out of competition shows include Starz’ Now Apocalypse and Russel T Davies’ Years And Years. Scroll down for the lineup in full.

The competition jury will be presided over by Dark show-runner Baran bo Odar with members comprising actor, director and author Stephen Fry (Gosford Park), actors Miriam Leone (Non Uccidere) and Emma Mackey (Sex Education), actor and director Katheryn Winnick (Vikings) and composer Rob (The Bureau). David Cross and Jude Law are among those with projects in the short form competition.

Among those set to give masterclasses will be Game Of Thrones...

Cherry Blossoms and Demons (Kirschblüten & Dämonen)

German director Doris Dörrie follows up her celebrated 2008 film Cherry Blossoms with a sequel of sorts, Cherry Blossoms and Demons (Kirschblüten & Dämonen), reuniting the cast members of her earlier German-Tokyo melodrama, including the great Hannelore Elsner, Birgit Minichmayr, Elmar Wepper, Golo Euler, Aya Irizuki, Floriane Daniel, Felix Eitner, Sophie Ragall, and the celebrated Japanese actress Kiki Kirin (most recently of Koreeda’s Shoplifters). The project (which has also been listed as the title Demons for Tea) is produced by Anita Schneider and Viola Jäger of Olga Films in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Arte.…...

Famed for her turbulent lifestyle and intense on-and-off relationship with legendary French actor Alain Delon, Austrian actress Romy Schneider became a sensation at home when she was still in her teens by starring in a series of films about Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the hugely successful Austrian Sissi trilogy. She later moved to France where she made some of the most successful films of her career with some of the most acclaimed directors of the 60s and 70s including Luchino Visconti, René Clément and many more.

A year before her untimely death at the age of 43 and whilst at a detox clinic in the seaside town of Quiberon, Brittany, Schneider posed for exclusive photos and gave a deeply alarming and honest interview to a German journalist about her state of mind. In her new film 3 Days In Quiberon, director Emily Atef (The Stranger in Me) offers a beautifully...

Emily Atef’s chamber piece takes best film, best director and best actress amongst others.

Emily Atef’s 3 Days in Quiberon was the big winner at this year’s German Film Awards in Berlin at the weekend, taking home seven Lolas from ten nominations.

The Rohfilm Factory production received the Golden Lola for best film – with a cash prize of €500,000 - as well as statuettes for director Atef, lead actress Marie Bäumer, supporting actors Birgit Minichmayr and Robert Gwisdek, DoP Thomas W. Kiennast, and composers Christoph M. Kaiser and Julian Maas.

The chamber piece - about German-French star Romy Schneider...

Christian Petzold, Emily Atef, Lance Daly join Berlinale.

Source: Great Point Media

‘Damsel’

Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 15 - 25). Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.

Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.

Joining the main competition are Barbara and Phoenix director Christian Petzold’s new drama Transit, a contemporary reworking of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about refugees attempting to flee through Marseille after the Nazi invasion of France in 1940. The film stars Frantz breakout Paula Beer.

Also new to competition is David and Nathan Zellner’s Damsel, the western about a Us businessman who travels to join his fiancée...

Christian Petzold, Emily Atef, Lance Daly join Berlinale.

Source: Great Point Media

‘Damsel’

Another ten films have joined the Competition of the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Three more have also been selected for the programme of the Berlinale Special.

Joining the eight Competition films and two Berlinale Special titles are 13 productions from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong - China, Iran, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Paraguay, People’s Republic of China, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA.

Additional films for both categories are due to be revealed soon. Films announced today are:

Competition

3 Tage in Quiberon (3 Days in Quiberon)

Germany / Austria / France

By Emily Atef (Molly’s Way, The Stranger In Me)

With Marie Bäumer, Birgit Minichmayr, Charly Hübner, Robert Gwisdek, Denis Lavant

World premiere

Black 47

Ireland / Luxembourg

By Lance Daly (Kisses, The Good Doctor)

With Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, [link...

Discovering that your loved one has been cheating on you is scary. Confronting them while in the throes of a reality-distorting dream, where weeks pass in an instant and animals talk, is a little worse. This is the shamefully distilled premise of the surreal, unpredictable Animals (Tiere), which screened this week at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.

A basic look at the film’s synopsis and motifs suggests a psychological thriller about infidelity—not exactly a new concept in cinema. Our protagonists, author Anna and her charming but devious husband Nick, move to a remote house in Switzerland for a getaway, but things soon start going wrong. Anna’s perception of time distorts as she seeks proof of Nick’s affair. Lies become dangerous. A locked door in their rented house might be hiding something. And since when did cats speak French? Are we being gaslighted along with Anna,...

What is the temporal geography of pain and regret? If we remove ourselves from the physical space where something bad happened, do we distance ourselves from the pain? Or is that pain carried within, embuing each space a person enters? Greg Zglinski's Animals is a surreal dream/nightmare that looks at the pain of infidelity, the delicate matter of regaining/refinding trust and love, and the spaces which we occupy in our pleasure and pain. Anna (Birgit Minichmayr), a children's book author, and Nick (Philipp Hochmair), a celebrity chef, are taking a six-month break in the Swiss countryside; in part, to get over Nick's affair with their neighbour Andrea, and allow Anna to get back to work on her novel. An car accident on the way to their...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

One of the definitive joys of covering the Berlinale is combing through the vast program of its sidebar sections. Featuring literally hundreds of movies this side of the glamorous competition, it’s often where programmers get to be creative and screen some of the best-kept secrets of the festival. The queer-licious Panorama section won us over with such titles as God’s Own Country, Close-Knit and Skins. Meanwhile, the more experimental-leaning Forum section served up the expected oddities including Somniloquies and Animals, a trippy mindf*ck from Switzerland/Austria.

The setup seems straightforward enough: Nick (Philipp Hochmair) is a chef, about to take six months off to travel the Swiss countryside and collect regional recipes with wife Anna (Birgit Minichmayr), a children’s book author suffering from a case of jealousy and possibly also writer’s block. On the eve of their departure, Nick brings home a good-looking acquaintance...

The Missing Picture producer Catherine Dussart to head documentary jury.Scroll down for titles in competition

The juries for the 11th Zurich Film Festival (Sept 24-Oct 4) have been unveiled.

Elizabeth Karlsen, producer of Todd Haynes’ Carol, will head the international feature film jury, which will comprise ‘71 director Yann Demange; French producer Rosa Attab; German actress Maria Furtwängler; and German director Katja von Garnier.

The international documentary film jury will be presided over by Catherine Dussart, the French producer of Rithy Panh’s Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture, which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes 2013.

The doc jury includes French director Abbas Fahdel, Belgian editor Joelle Alexis, German director Alexander Nanau and UK director/producer Havana Marking.

The Focus: Switzerland, Germany, Austria jury will be headed by German producer Nico Hofmann (The Physician), also co-ceo of Ufa Group.

The jury comprises German writer/director Anika Decker, German actor Alexander Fehling, Austrian actress...

True story of the notorious killer and poet also set to screen at Toronto.

The 22nd Oldenburg International Film Festival (Sept 16-20) is to open with Elisabeth Scharang’s true life drama Jack.

The screen adaptation based on the life of the notorious killer and poet Jack Unterweger will open the festival as a German premiere

Austrian director Scharang’s second fiction feature after 2011 Holocaust drama In Another Lifetime charts the true story of Unterweger, a convicted murderer whose road to redemption, while imprisoned, was to write stories and poems.

The film stars Johannes Krisch in the leading role opposite Birgit Minichmayr and Corinna Harfouch, the film’s talent will attend the gala premiere.

Jack is a production of Epo and its worldwide sales are handled by Picture Tree International.

Following its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival (Aug 5-15), Jack will receive its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20).

'Downfall' movie: Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler 'Downfall' movie: Overlong and overwrought World War II drama lifted by several memorable performances Oliver Hirschbiegel's German box office hit Downfall / Der Untergang is a generally engrossing psychological-historical drama whose emotional charge is diluted by excessive length, an overabundance of characters, and a tendency to emphasize the more obvious aspects of the narrative. Several key performances – including Bruno Ganz's now iconic Adolf Hitler – help to lift Downfall above the level of myriad other World War II movies. Nazi Germany literally goes under In Downfall, which by the end of 2004 had been seen by more than 4.5 million German moviegoers, Nazi Germany is about to lose the war. In his underground bunker, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) grows increasingly out of touch with reality as he sees his dream of Deutschland über alles go kaput. Some of those under his command are equally incapable of thinking coherently.

Speaking at the Odessa Film Festival the producer of Sergey Mokritsky’s war drama Unbroken said that the project had now completed principal photography.

20th Century Fox and Universal are among the Us majors ¨in talks¨ to take on worldwide distribution for Sergey Mokritsky’s € 3.7m biopic/war drama Unbroken.

Speaking at this week’s Works in Progress showcase at the Odessa Film Industry Office, producer Egor Olesov of Kiev-based Kinorob said that the Ukrainian-Russian co-production - which had previously previously gone under the working title of The Battle Of Sevastopol - completed principal photography in Kiev on last Tuesday (July 15).

Expected to be a blockbuster success in Ukraine, the film recounts the story of student Lyudmila Pavilchenko who was a legendary sniper during the Second World War with 309 shots to her credit and later became friends with the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

In an interview with Russia’s Ria-Novosti , producer Natalia Mokritskaya said that the film...

Exclusive: Veteran UK producer Patrick Cassavetti has boarded Marat Alykulov’s black comedy Lenin?!.

Cassavetti, producer on Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas - agreed to become executive producer on the Kyrgyzstani project following talks in Cannes last month.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily at this year’s Moscow Business Square (Mbs), producer Joanna Bence of Curb Denizen Productions said that Cassavetti will also offer new ‘perks’ to the ‘Help Bury Lenin?!’ crowdfunding campaign by giving burgeoning filmmakers the chance to receive personal feedback on their past or upcoming productions.

Bence also revealed that German-born, London-based DoP Stephan Bookas - who has worked on Maleficent and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy - is confirmed as cinematographer for the project, which was pitched at the Mbs’s co-production forum last year after having been presented at Busan’s Asian Project Market and Connecting Cottbus in autumn 2012.

Together with Curb Denizen producer partner [link=nm...

In 2009, the best film in Competition at the Berlinale was Maren Ade's Everyone Else (Fwiw, it came away with 1.5 Silver Bears, the 1 for Best Actress Birgit Minichmayr, the .5 for tying with Adrián Biniez's Gigante for the Jury Grand Prix; the Golden Bear that year went to Claudia Llosa's The Milk of Sorrow). Three years on (!), the trio that made Everyone Else worth talking up to this day (see, for example, Kevin B Lee's new video essay on a key scene at Fandor; see, too, Mike D'Angelo on the same scene a year ago at the Av Club) is back in Competition, albeit in three different films. Lars Eidinger has drawn the shortest straw, taking on the lead in Hans-Christian Schmid's rather dismal Home for the Weekend. Minichmayr's fared better opposite Jürgen Vogel in Matthias Glasner's new film, though I seriously doubt many of us will...