Lola (Valerie Pachner) wakes with a start. She has what we’ll soon learn is an uncharacteristic smudge of mascara beneath her too-bright, too-awake eyes. But then this is the Lola of later, not the woman to whom Marie Kreutzer’s nervy, nuanced drama “The Ground Beneath My Feet” first introduces us — not the ambitious, high-performance
Movies
February 9, 2019 7:41AM PT Revolutionary playwright Bertolt Brecht gets the standard-issue TV biopic treatment in this two-parter saved only by ‘Reds’-style interviews. Buried within Heinrich Breloer’s superficial and plodding two-part TV movie about Bertolt Brecht are old and new interviews with the playwright’s collaborators that hold a fascination light years away from the fictionalized
Anyone trying to do justice to the jaw-dropping scenery of Western Norway could do worse than Preikestolen, the iconic rock face that soars high above the Lysefjord gorge. Known as Pulpit Rock, the dramatic formation is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. It’s also known to movie buffs as the setting for the pulse-pounding
February 9, 2019 7:10AM PT In Berlin to promote his latest film, Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland insisted that Liam Neeson is “not a racist” in response to the recent brouhaha around comments made by the star of Moland’s Lionsgate thriller “Cold Pursuit.” “He is a very honest, he is a very decent, grounded man,”
Berlin Film Festival director Dieter Kosslick on Saturday signed the gender-parity pledge aimed at achieving an even gender ratio in the organization’s top management, something Berlin has already well surpassed. Opening the Gender, Genre and Big Budgets event hosted by Women in Film and Television Germany and the Dortmund Cologne Intl. Women’s Film Festival, Kosslick
Brendan Fraser is certainly a busy actor. After a string of recent buzzy television performances (“The Affair,” “Trust” and “Condor”) and a role in “Doom Patrol,” an upcoming series for DC Universe. His latest feature film, “Line of Descent,” launches sales at the European Film Market via Storyboard Media. The Dehli-set crime thriller is written
February 9, 2019 1:30AM PT New search-engine website Telescope launches in Berlin this week with the mission of helping American audiences find online the kind of foreign titles pitched at the Berlin Film Festival and its related European Film Market. “In the U.S., American films receive a lot more attention than international films – we
February 9, 2019 1:11AM PT Gerard Butler (“London Has Fallen”, “The Phantom of the Opera”) is in negotiations to play the lead role in the disaster thriller “Greenland” about one family’s fight for survival in the face of a cataclysmic natural disaster. STXinternational is handling international distribution and pitching the film at the Berlin Film Festival’s European
February 9, 2019 12:24AM PT Beniamino Barrese aims the camera at his former-supermodel mother — and she ducks — in this discomfitingly invasive documentary portrait. In the age of Instagram, it may be hard for many to grasp that others might still treasure their privacy, to the point of actually loathing the camera. Beniamino Barrese’s
Italy’s Nexo Digital has teamed up with the Anne Frank Fonds foundation to produce a high-end documentary that tries to imagine what Anne Frank’s life would have been like if she had survived the Holocaust. Shooting started in January, which marks the 90th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birthday. Nexo is kicking off pre-sales at the
Jacqueline Zünd’s Swiss documentary “Where We Belong” world premieres as part of this year’s Generation Kplus selection at the Berlinale, a section dedicated to kids and family content, although the film’s selection in that particular category came as a surprise to the filmmaker. Herself a single parent, Zünd’s documentary tells, from a kids’ POV, the
BERLIN — Towards beginning of the decade, Guido Rud’s FilmSharks brought onto Berlin’s European Film Market “Rodencia and the Princess Tooth 3D,” Peru’s first 3D movie, helmed by David Bisbano. An ebullient about a clod-footed mouse-come-sorcerer’s apprentice who sets off to find a magical princess’ tooth and defeat a horde of invading rats, “Rodencia” went
February 8, 2019 10:18PM PT Cutting Edge Group has signed a slate financing deal with Steve Richards’ Endurance Media for music rights on Endurance’s next three films, starting with Angelina Jolie’s “Come Away.” The film, which also stars David Oyelowo, is a prequel story. It’s set before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became
How do you follow “Operation Mekong” and “Operation Red Sea,” two of China’s biggest hit films in recent years? For Dante Lam, who directed those two movies, it’s not by further cranking up the body count or delivering yet more on-screen patriotism. Instead, he and producer Candy Leung are now working on one of the
For Jakob and Jonas Weydemann, “Systemsprenger” (“System Crasher”), a social drama about a troubled young girl caught in the revolving door of Germany’s child welfare services, is exactly the kind of film the sibling producer duo is keen to make. Nora Fingscheidt’s feature film debut, which screens in competition in Berlin, explores the difficult and
Noomi Rapace has boarded Valdimar Jóhannsson’s supernatural drama “Lamb,” which New Europe Film Sales is selling at Berlin’s European Film Market. The pic marks Rapace’s return to Scandinavian moviemaking following Hollywood movies like Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” with Michael Fassbender, and
Hollywood talent agents have given a downbeat reaction to their first meeting with the Writers Guild of America to discuss the guild’s proposals to revamp key rules for agents. The meeting took place on Tuesday — two months before the current agreement expires. During the past year, the WGA has been pressuring Hollywood’s agencies to
In today’s film news roundup, a Joni Mitchell documentary generates solid business and indie films “Cristina” and “Dreamcatcher” are moving ahead. BOX OFFICE Trafalgar Releasing is reporting a strong box office of $568,000 at 414 North American locations for its one-night screening on Feb. 7 of “The Music Center Presents Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration.”
February 8, 2019 5:47PM PT Keeping up its buying spree, Amazon Studios has acquired Kristen Stewart’s independent political thriller “Against All Enemies.” The deal was closed Friday at the Berlin Film Festival with UTA Independent Film Group negotiating with Amazon on behalf of the filmmaking team and financiers. Amazon Studios was the most active buyer
Ana de Armas says she’s still trying to find the right words to describe her latest project, a cinematic collaboration with Italian liqueur brand Campari that has catapulted the Cuban-born actress into a conversation about diversity, creativity, and taking risks. “I don’t think I can even describe the feeling,” De Armas says of becoming the
The Newport Beach Film Festival U.K. Honors evening celebrated its fifth anniversary on Thursday with several honorees and the presentation of Variety’s 10 Brits to Watch at the Langham Hotel in London. The star-studded celebration marks the kickoff of BAFTA Awards weekend and included icon award honors for Julian Fellowes, Lesley Manville, and John Lloyd. Artists
February 8, 2019 4:41PM PT Following stops in Paris, New York, and Rio, the ‘Cities of Love’ series finds its way to Berlin, where a global mix of talent invent stories that could have taken place anywhere. If you truly love Berlin, and belong to the film industry, chances are you’re there right now attending
February 8, 2019 4:24PM PT Alexander Payne has found his next feature, as the “Sideways” and “The Descendants” filmmaker is attached to direct the comedic horror-thriller “” with Gary Sanchez Productions. Will Tracy and Seth Reiss penned the script with Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, and Betsy Koch producing under the Gary Sanchez banner. The pic
As debate continues to rage over Liam Neeson’s racially-charged remarks, many in Hollywood are wondering anxiously what the fallout might mean for his upcoming films and the future of his career. Some observers even think the interview could permanently damage his career. After he shared this week that, decades ago, a close friend revealed she was
Albert Finney was not yet 50 when he earned his third Oscar nomination playing a volatile ball of ego and insecurity in Ronald Harwood’s brilliant backstage drama “The Dresser.” At one point, the character — a high-maintenance Shakespearean stage actor slowly collapsing in upon himself like some kind of dying sun — bellows, “I can’t
February 8, 2019 2:57PM PT Warner Bros. is developing “The Trench” as a spinoff horror movie to its mega-hit “Aquaman.” The studio has hired Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald to write a script centered on the Trench, the deadly amphibious creatures who attacked Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard) in the movie. The project
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” is dominating North American moviegoing but opening well below forecasts with about $40 million at 4,303 sites this weekend, early estimates showed Friday. Paramount Pictures’ launch of the comedy “What Men Want” will lead the rest of the pack with about $20 million at 2,912 locations, in line
At the very end of Wang Quan’an’s enchanting seventh feature, a droll title appears: “Based on True Stories.” It’s amusing because it’s unnecessary; this is the kind of cinema that makes its stories true by telling them, that puts eccentric, real, cyclical life — calf births and lamb slaughters — before its camera and generously
Three women trapped by circumstances and thrown together by fate set out on a cross-country journey of self-discovery in South African director Jenna Bass’ contemporary Western, “Flatland,” which opens the Panorama section of this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Bass returns to Berlin a year after taking part in the Generations program with the satirical thriller
Israel filmmaker Yuval Adler created a stir with his 2013 film “Bethlehem,” a war drama about an Israeli secret service officer and his young Palestinian informant. Next up is “The Operative,” a thriller in which Diane Kruger stars as a woman recruited by the Mossad to work undercover in Iran. The film plays in competition