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Also in contention is Berlin title Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush from Andreas Dresen.

Berlinale titles Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush from Andreas Dresen and We Might As Well Be Dead from Natalia Sinelnikova are among the nine titles in the running for Germany’s submission for the 95th Academy Awards.

Dresen’s comedy-drama screened in competition at this year’s Berlinale where it picked up a Silver Bear for best screenplay and Meltem Kaptan’s lead performance. The Match Factory handles international sales.

Sinelnikova’s social satire We Might As Well Be Dead opened Berlinale sidebar Perspective...

Fresh off their debut feature documentary “Davos,” Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann have lined up a number of new projects, among them an upcoming series for HBO Max and Zdf.

Produced by Berlin-based Komplizen Film (“Tony Erdmann“), “Fck My Heritage” (working title) is set in an elite boarding school and follows a group of students who decide to reject their inheritances and trigger a global social revolution.

Christian Schwochow is serving as showrunner on the series, which Hoesl and Niemann are co-writing with Heide Schwochow and Jana Burbach.

Hoesl has also completed the script for his next narrative feature, a satire about an Austrian billionaire family with a penchant for hunting, which Ulrich Seidl is producing.

Elites and their wealth and power have been at the core of the Austrian filmmaker’s past works, including “Soldier Jane” and “Winwin” – both of which unspooled at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where...

Reciprocating an exchange which saw Series Mania 2019 Co-Pro Pitching winner “Capturing Big Mouth” participate at this year’s Berlin CoPro Series, German project “Transitniki” will make the return trip to Lille next month, having been selected by Series Mania representatives in Berlin.

From Germany’s Rohfilm Factory, “Transitniki” is set in 1985, behind the Iron Curtain, and tracks groups of thrill-seeking young East Germans, feeling trapped in their own country, who find a way to enter the Soviet Union illegally using transit visas. There, they are able to satiate their desires for travel and adventure in Russia’s untamed wilds.

The series is written by an experienced trio of TV screenwriters in Heide Schwochow, Constantin Lieb and Christian Mackrodt. There is no one creator, no showrunner and no head writer. In fact, when producer Karsten Stöter was putting his writers’ room together, some told him his democratic methodology for screenwriting would never work.

The poroject is based on the classic Siegfried Lenz’s novel.

Wild Bunch has boarded German director Christian Schwochow’s adaptation of Siegfried Lenz’s classic novel The German Lesson (Deutschstunde) which begins shooting in North Rhine-Westphalia in March.

Schwochow, who has oscillated between TV and feature productions throughout his career, is at the Berlinale this year with his buzzed-about high-finance thriller TV series Bad Banks (pictured) which premieres in the festival’s TV sidebar.

One of the classic novels of post-Second World War German literature, The German Lesson explores human behaviour under a dictatorship through the tale of a young man who defies his police officer father to save the expressionist paintings of a neighbour from destruction during the Nazi reign.

Network Movie Film is producing alongside Senator Film with the support of Zdf. The picture sees Schwochow collaborate again with his mother Heide Schwochow who wrote the screenplays for three of his previous feature films: November...

Nine-person Foreign Language jury selects Cannes hit from director Maren Ade.

Germany has selected Cannes hit Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade as its submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Ade’s well-sold comedy about a father who tries to reconnect with his adult daughter stars Sandra Huller and Peter Simonischek.

The film, considered by many to be a strong contender to make the final shortlist, is a production by Komplizen Film, in co-production with the Austrian coop 99 Filmproduktion, knm (Monaco) and Missing Link Films.

The decision was taken by an independent jury appointed by German Films, comprising Karsten Stöter, Katharina Rinderle, Julia Weber, Jasna Vavra, Christoph Preßmar, Dunja Bialas, Felicitas Darschin, Sven Burgemeister and Heide Schwochow.

The nine-person jury said of its decision: “Toni Erdmann stood out among the eight submitted films with its resolute artistic signature. A bold and stylistically confident cinematic display of character on the pulse of the times. Maren Ade manages...

Independent production and distribution company Main Street Films (which recently had a domestic success with the male stripper doc "La Bare") will theatrically release Christian Schwochow’s acclaimed spy drama "West" across the U.S. on November 7. Set during the Berlin Wall-era, the film’s release date will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. "West" was also one of the films shortlisted to be Germany’s candidate for the Foreign Language Academy Award.

The film was also part of the Kino! Fetival of German Films, which we covered back in June. Read More Here

"'West' is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall-era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Craig Chang, Chairman of Main Street Films.

“This is a very personal film for me,” said Christian Schwochow, director. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator. Releasing "West" during the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is very special, especially after having the opportunity to collaborate with my mother, who wrote the screenplay.”

Winning the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and the Best Actress award for Jôrdis Triebel at the 2014 German Film Awards, West is based on Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire and adapted by the director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner, Heide Schwochow.

Set during the late 1970s, three years after Nelly Senff’s boyfriend Wassilij’s apparent death, she decides to escape from behind the Berlin Wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij’s mysterious disappearance. Fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.

"West" stars Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel, and Jacky Ido (who is currently the lead actor in Luc Besson's TV series Taxi Brooklyn), and is produced by ö Filmproduktion’s Katrin Schlösser, zero one film’s Thomas Kufus, and Terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel. Helge Sasse of Senator Film Produktion, Barbara Buhl of Wdr, Stefanie Groß of Swr, Cooky Ziesche of rbb, and Georg Steinert of Arte are co-producers.

Take a look at this exclusive trailer courtesy of Main Street Films

About Main Street Films

Established in 2007, Main Street Films is an independent film entertainment company and has emerged as one of the industry's most exciting production, acquisition, and distribution driven ensembles. On the distribution side, Main Street Films focuses on creating and distributing high quality films across multiple genres for diverse audiences within the entertainment space. Opening later this year is the critically acclaimed The Turning starring Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, based on Tim Winton’s award-winning collection of short stories.

Main Street Films will theatrically release Christian Schwochow’s spy drama and German foreign-language Oscar submission West in the Us on November 7.

The film takes place during the Berlin Wall era and the release commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9.

“West is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang.

“West is a very personal film for me,” said Schwochow. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator.

The director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner Heide Schwochow adapted the screenplay from Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire...

Refugee Nelly in pursuit of 12 stamps: "The reality was that people either came out of the camps after one or two weeks."

I met with director Christian Schwochow in the lobby of the Malton Hotel, a couple of days before West (Westen), starring Jördis Triebel with Tristan Göbel, Alexander Scheer, Jacky Ido and Carlo Ljubek, opened this year's edition of Kino! Festival of German Films in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Over coffee, I found out that Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three from 1961, starring James Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive, and Christian Petzold's Romy Schneider costume research for Barbara cannot even start to compete with a candy wrapper as inspiration for an East German boy. See Stephanie Soechtig's vital documentary Fed Up. I was reminded that Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu were a successful comedy team and that the stigma of day care...

German director Christian Schwochow will present his film West and participate in a Q&A on the opening night gala of Kino! Festival Of German Films in New York on June 12.

West won the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and is based on Julia Franck’s novel Lagerfeuer.

Heide Schwochow adapted the Berlin Wall-era mystery starring Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel and Jacky Ido.

Ö Filmproduktion’s Karin Schlösser produced with zero one film’s Thomas Kufus and terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel.

Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang and president Harrison Kordestani plan to release the film theatrically later this year.

Beta sells other territories on the film based on Noah Gordon’s trilogy of books.

The Physician’s producers Wolf Bauer and Nico Hofmann have indicated that they may take on the other two books of Noah Gordon’s trilogy, of which The Physician is the first part: Matters Of Choice and Shaman.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily ahead of the world premiere of The Physician in Berlin on Monday evening, Bauer explained: “We have discussed this with Noah Gordon and would have access [to the properties].”

“But we won’t have this discussion before the film has reached 3m admissions in Germany and Spain,” said Bauer, who is currently reading Shaman for the seventh time.

Moreover, the producers would have freedom in casting since Shaman is set in the 19th century some 800 years after the events in The Physician.

Hofmann revealed that, as part of the film’s financing from broadcaster Ard Degeto, a longer...