Month: February 2020

Director Vadim Perelman and frequent Berlinale film star Lars Eidinger on Saturday championed their new Holocaust-set “Persian Lessons” as a timely, very German tale of how that dark history is closer to us than it seems, made uniquely possible by the fact that most of the film’s production team is not German. The film’s world

History is a fanged presence in Romanian director Radu Jude’s recent films. Since 2015’s “Aferim!,” in both fiction and nonfiction formats, culminating in the heady tangle of the two approaches that was 2018’s remarkable “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians,” Jude has interrogated various incidents and epochs in his

TrustNordisk has close several territory deals on “The Other Lamb,” Malgorzata Szumowska’s English-language debut, which competed at last year’s San Sebastian and played at Toronto. Tackling patriarchy in a bold way, the Irish psychological drama revolves around a cult, called the Flock, and is told through the eyes of 15-year-old Selah, played by British up-and-comer

While the Cannes Film Festival is basking in the glory of having world premiered Bong Joon-Ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite,” along with many other Oscar contenders, the fate of its presidency is up in the air. Pierre Lescure, who took over from Gilles Jacob in 2015 as Cannes president, and is running for a third term, was

BERLIN — If there’s one thing that marks the Berlinale apart from most of the world’s biggest festivals, it’s the warmth  and sophistication of the relation between visiting filmmakers and the Berlin Festival’s huge festival-going public. This year’s Panorama opening, marked by the world premiere of Argentine Clarisa Navas’ queer drama “One in a Thousand,”

The idea for “Mogul Mowgli” first began in 2017 when British actor, rapper and activist Riz Ahmed met Bassam Tariq, a producer and independent filmmaker, between trips to New York. Almost three years later, the pair is debuting “Mogul Mowgli” in Berlin’s Panorama. The film, which Tariq directed and co-wrote with Ahmed, who also stars,

Bobbi Salvör Menuez (HBO’s “Euphoria,” “Under the Silver Lake”) is in talks to join an international cast for “Lipstick on the Glass,” the English-language debut of acclaimed Polish director Kuba Czekaj (“Baby Bump”), Variety has learned exclusively. Pic will star Agnieszka Podsiadlik (“Mug”), who previously collaborated with Czekaj on Berlin player “The Erlprince.” The international

Critics’ Week, the strand dedicated to first and second films which runs along side the Cannes Film Festival, will be hosted in a revamped venue starting this year for the 59th edition. The Miramar theater, where films and shorts selected for Critics’ Week are being screened, is being completely remodelled by the city of Cannes,

Oscilloscope has swooped for U.S. rights to a feature documentary on mysterious fashion designer Martin Margiela from doc specialist Dogwoof. The elusive Belgian designer, considered the “Banksy of fashion” because he never appears in public, is known for rising in the ranks from Jean Paul Gaultier’s assistant to creative director at Hermes and ultimately to an

February 22, 2020 12:18AM PT A New York City teenager fights to provide for her two sisters by realizing her music video dreams in Sam de Jong’s intense coming-of-age drama. Slick Woods plays the titular streetwise 18-year-old New Yorker in “Goldie,” a character who’s constantly running toward, or away, from things — a life of

For the better part of a decade, observers of Japan’s conservative film industry have predicted that its repeatedly utilized formula would begin to fail. That is to say, audiences would tire of the continued churn of films adapted from legacy content, such as manga and television programs. It hasn’t happened. Not only that, one could

There’s more to Korean entertainment than “Parasite,” BTS and “Gangnam Style.” Notably, an animation sector that is responsible for keeping the long-running U.S. hit “The Simpsons” tooned up, but rarely gets the credit. Independent production company Redrover is in Berlin on a mission to re-establish itself as a leading player in the cartoon industry, where

“Beyond the Raging Sea,” an extreme sea adventure documentary aimed at raising awareness of the global refugee crisis, is set for a wide theatrical release across the MENA region via Arab marketing and distribution company Mad Solutions and Middle East exhibitor Vox Cinemas. The deal between the two companies and the International Emerging Film Talent

One of the hippest, most international Scandinavian companies, the Copenhagen-based Snowglobe, is the 5-year-old banner behind “Wildland,” the female-powered crime film set to world premiere at the Berlinale. Starring Sidse Babett Knudsen (“Borgen”) as a mafia ringleader and introducing Sandra Guldberg Kampp, “Wildland” was written by Ingeborg Topsoe (“The Charmer”) and directed by Jeanette Nordahl.

Though hiring a foreigner to run a national institution such as the Berlinale in Germany is rather rare, it’s been happening to other Italians lately. Carlo Chatrian at Berlin is the most prominent case. But there are several more. In 2018, Italy’s Paolo Moretti, who now heads the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, became the first non-French

Amsterdam-based NL Film and Hupe Film in Cologne have boarded Jo Baier’s upcoming Nazi war criminal horror thriller “Life Through a Dead Man’s Eyes.” The companies join co-producers Films in Motion (FIM), the Berlin-based shingle run by American producer René Asch, and Angelika Mohr’s Morefilms in Munich, which is also handling world sales. German thesps

Paris and Los Angeles-based Federation Entertainment has acquired the TV format and remake rights to Alejandro Amenábar’s debut feature, “Thesis.” It’s a prime example of the value of key older movie titles from standout younger foreign-language auteurs. Producer of “The Bureau,” “Marseille,” “Bad Banks” and “Hostages,” Federation Entertainment will produce a drama series based on

Charades, the Paris-based sales company behind the Oscar-nominated “I Lost My Body” and “Mirai,” has closed a raft of deals on high-profile animated features, including “Little Nicholas” and “Marona’s Fantastic Tale.” Anca Damian’s “Marona’s Fantastic Tale,” which world premiered in competition at last year’s Annecy Film Festival and was nominated at the European Film Awards,

February 21, 2020 5:36PM PT Marco Berger adopts thriller elements to mixed effect in this well-played story of a blackmailed gay teen, astutely treating coercion as the problem rather than sexual activity among adolescents. Director-writer Marco Berger has been playing with same-sex seduction since his debut, “Plan B,” frequently pitching one confident gay man against