Movies

“Delegation,” a coming-of-age film about an Israeli school trip to Holocaust memorial sites in Poland, has debuted its trailer (below). Israeli writer-director Asaf Saban’s film world premiered at Berlinale Sunday in the Generation 14plus section. Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales is handling international sales. In the film, three Israeli high-school friends take part in

Madrid-based Aquí y Allí Films, one of Spain’s most successful auteur movie production houses, is joining forces with popular Spanish actor turned writer-director Daniel Guzmán (“Nothing in Return,” “Canallas”) to produce drama thriller “La deuda.” Backed by Spain’s pay TV giant Movistar+ and public broadcaster RTVE, “La deuda” will be produced by Aquí y Allí’s

Though the world watched — often in silence — as a decade-long civil war tore Syria apart, exiled filmmakers Talal Derki (“Of Fathers and Sons”) and Heba Khaled say an equally brutal but less visible war is still raging. In “Under the Sky of Damascus,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama strand of the

For Indian filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh, world premiering her Iran documentary “And, Towards Happy Alleys” at the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand is the culmination of a journey that began in 2015. Singh completed a masters degree in film studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and went on to pursue a PhD on The Exiled Filmmaker

The Berlinale Special section of the Berlin Film Festival is a showcase for movies that are intelligent, but less arty than those in the main competition or festival sidebars. And in showcasing mainstream non-English-language films the section is also a springboard for performers who may be big news at home, but who are little-known outside

To set a 100-minute drama entirely inside the confines of a single apartment — and to have just a solitary character performing for the camera — might not seem like the most obvious template for an edge-of-your-seat thriller. But when that character is played by a versatile actor with the range of multi-Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe,

Breaking into the world of filmmaking is never an easy prospect.   And when you are a queer filmmaker who wants to focus on LGBTQ subjects, and lives in a traditional, Catholic, former Soviet Eastern European country, the bar to success is set pretty high.  Romas Zabarauskas’ career proves that with grit, determination — and,

The powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake that recently struck the Turkish-Syrian border, becoming the deadliest disaster in the region’s modern history, is not reverberating much at the Berlin Film Festival. At least not according to the co-chiefs of Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. “The festival’s opening ceremony started with Ukraine, ended with Ukraine and touched

Croatia’s 4Film has joined France’s Ciné Sud Promotion and Italy’s Kineofilm on Italian director Rodolfo Bisatti’s next feature film, “On Life,” starring Andree Ruth Shammah and Paolo Bonacelli. Bisatti, who co-wrote and helmed the acclaimed 2020 drama “To the Unknown God,” will direct “On Life” from a screenplay he his writing with actress-producer Laura Pellicciari.

One of Japan’s most commercially successful and highly acclaimed animators, Shinkai Makoto has been called a successor to anime titan Miyazaki Hayao. Known for his mix of photo-realistic visuals and gorgeously realized fantasies, Shinkai surpassed the master when his 2016 smash “Your Name” became the highest-earning Japanese film of all time worldwide, beating Miyazaki’s 2001

Hit Tamil-language romantic comedy “Love Today” will be remade in the Hindi-language by Phantom Studios in association with its original producers AGS Entertainment. Directed by Pradeep Ranganathan, the Tamil film features Ranganathan in his acting debut, Sathyaraj, Raadhika Sarathkumar, Yogi Babu, Raveena Ravi and Ivana in lead roles. The film followed two young lovers who

A pair of Oscar bellwether ceremonies took place this weekend, heralding uncertainty and unpredictability to an awards season where no one agrees on what contenders will end up taking home Academy Awards. The DGA Awards, which has historically matched up best with the eventual winner of best director, chose the “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

“Elvis” star Austin Butler has paid tribute to Lisa Marie Presley following his BAFTA win for Best Actor on Sunday evening. “It’s been a really unimaginably tragic time, you know, and grief is a long process,” Butler said in the winners’ press room following his win. “And so my heart and my love was with

Giacomo Abbruzzese’s debut feature is a hazily seductive, frequently dreamlike study of life in the French Foreign Legion, fixated on masculine bodies in synchronized and sometimes violently clashing motion. It is also called “Disco Boy.” You almost certainly wouldn’t choose that subject, tone and title for a film if you didn’t want viewers’ minds to

In an awkward mix-up, Carey Mulligan’s name was accidentally read out as the winner for Best Supporting Actress instead of the actual winner, Kerry Condon, at the BAFTA Awards on Sunday evening. The error happened as “CODA” actor Troy Kotsur, who won Best Supporting Actor at last year’s ceremony, introduced the nominees alongside a sign

Disney’s box office domination has started early in 2023. Six weeks into the new year, the studio has already cleared $1 billion globally, with ticket sales at $1.283 billion to date. It can take other major studios up to 12 months to hit that benchmark. Thanks to the combined turnout for “Avatar: The Way of

Quick, what do the following movies have in common? The cheesy middle-aged rom-com “Ticket to Paradise,” the curmudgeon-finds-his-heart-of-gold drama “A Man Called Otto,” and “80 for Brady,” a road comedy about four octogenarians girl-tripping their way to the 2017 Super Bowl. All three are built around those once larger-than-life entities known as movie stars (Julia

“All Quiet on the Western Front” dominated the BAFTA Awards in London on Sunday night with a record-breaking seven wins, including for Best Director, Best Film and Best Film Not in the English Language. The tally means the World War One epic now holds the record for a film not in the English language. The

One wonders what Ingeborg Bachmann — the celebrated Austrian poet, author, linguist and thinker who became a darling of the midcentury, continental European literary set — would make of the staunchly old-fashioned Margarethe von Trotta biopic that now bears her name. She might be happy to be portrayed by Vicky Krieps — who among us

DANGER ZONE Director: Vita Maria Drygas Producer: Vita Żelakeviciute Production companies: Drygas Film Production Sales: Dogwoof Documentary is a journey to places devastated by military conflicts, seen through the eyes of thrill-seeking tourists. DELEGATION (Generation 14plus) Director: Asaf Saban Cast: Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, Alma Dishy Producers: Agnieszka Dziedzic, Yoav

Luc Besson’s ”Dogman,” starring Caleb Landry Jones, wowed buyers at the Berlin’s European Film Market, where it was screened for select buyers. “We hosted only one private screening of the completed film and buyers were stunned, they all came out saying that it was Luc Besson’s best film to date, his most mature movie and

Following in the footsteps of its Nordic neighbors, Finland is fast becoming a destination of choice for foreign co-productions, not least thanks to its up-front cash-back tax incentive introduced in 2017. Despite a slight drop in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, figures show a 40%-plus growth of the audiovisual industry in the past five

New and boosted tax breaks, plus state-of-the-art facilities and a lean, skilled crew base are drawing a growing number of productions to Scandinavia, a region whose content continues to be in high demand both locally and globally. Denmark remains the exception and does not offer tax incentives or rebates for film and TV production. In

While Sweden’s Ruben Östlund grabbed some Oscar nominations and took home Cannes’ Palmed’Or last year, two other Scandinavian filmmakers basked in the international spotlight following their Cannes competition premieres: Ali Abbasi with “Holy Spider” and Tarik Saleh with “Cairo Conspiracy” (previously titled “Boy From Heaven”). Abbasi, an Iranian-born Danish helmer, and Saleh, a Swedish director

In the Alex Gibney documentary “Boom! Boom: The World vs. Boris Becker,” the then-active tennis player recalls a 1980s conversation with a tabloid newspaper editor who told him that only three subjects were guaranteed to get the German public’s attention: Adolf Hitler, German reunification and Boris Becker. Released from prison in the U.K. in December,

DR Sales has boarded “Always Be Closing,” a drama series about the dynamics, dominance, and discrimination within the telemarketing industry. The youth-skewing series will premiere on DRTV, the Danish broadcaster’s streaming service, on Feb. 24. “Always Be Closing” is created by Frederik Dirks Gottlieb, Kasper Lundberg, and Andrea Moyo, who themselves were part of the

The U.K.’s MetFilm Sales has closed a raft of deals on Becky Hunter’s debut feature documentary “Fashioned Reimagined” at Berlin’s ongoing European Film Market (EFM). The film has sold to Sky (U.K, Germany, Italy) NonStop Entertainment (Scandinavia, Baltics), Avrotros (Netherlands), Flag Co. (Japan), LevelFilm (Canada), Spain (Movistar) and Israel (DBS). “Fashion Reimagined” follows fashion designer

Editors at Penguin’s children’s imprint Puffin have taken a red pencil to the works of iconic, but divisive British writer Roald Dahl, known for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” among many others. An extensive report by U.K. newspaper The Telegraph says “language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been

Matt Damon revealed he was in the “early stages” on a project about Ukraine during the press conference for “Kiss the Future” at the Berlin Film Festival. Damon is a producer on the documentary which chronicles the struggle of Sarajevo citizens during the Bosnian War. World premiering in the Berlinale Special section, the politically minded

The Doha Film Institute has recruited an impressive mix of film directors and talents comprising Christopher Hampton, David Parfitt, Jacqueline West, Lynne Ramsay, and Michael Winterbottom who will hold master classes and act as mentors during its upcoming Qumra Arab industry incubator. The event, which is back in person after a two-year hiatus, will run