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Subversive Irish breakout pic Kneecap and Sasha Nathwani’s gentle yet ambitious debut Last Swim are among the titles that have nabbed mentions on the new talent longlists at this year’s British Independent Film Awards.

Both Kneecap and Last Swim pop up on the Douglas Hickox Best Debut Director Award longlist. Other nominees include Hoard, directed by Luna Carmoon, and Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, which debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

All four films also feature on the best screenplay longlist alongside Christopher Andrews’s Bring Them Down starring Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott. Other pics on the screenplay longlist include The Ceremony by Jack King and Jed Hart’s Restless.

Overall, the longlists include 31 British features, with 20 fiction and 11 documentary features across four debut filmmaking categories. Within that, there are 13 first-time fiction feature directors, 16 first-time feature documentary directors, 11 first-time writers, and 19 breakthrough producers.

The final...

Filmmakers from Bring Them Down, The Ceremony and Tuesday feature prominently on the filmmaker new talent longlists for the 2024 British Independent Film Awards (Bifas).

Bring Them Down’s Christopher Andrews is longlisted for the Douglas Hickox Award for best debut director and the best debut screenwriter award, while the film’s debut producer Jacob Swan Hyam is longlisted for breakthrough producer.

Scroll down for the filmmaker New Talent longlists

The Ceremony repeats that trio for writer-director Jack King and producers Hollie Bryan and Lucy Meer; as does Tuesday for writer-director Daina O Pusic and producer Helen Gladders.

Four filmmaker new...

Based out of Chile and Los Angeles, Quijote Films, behind Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Fipresci Prize winner “The Settlers,” and France’s Les Valseurs, behind Oscar-nominated “,” have tied down a powerful alliance of international partners on “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” the first feature of 2018 Cannes Cinéfondation top winner Diego Céspedes.

Quijote Films’ biggest budgeted title to date, said its head Giancarlo Nasi, “The Mysterious Gaze” goes into production on May 20.

An LGBTQ-themed drama, “The Mysterious Gaze” is set in a mining town where a strange illness is said to be transmitted between men who fall in love with each other.

Produced by Quijote Films and France’s Les Valseurs, “The Mysterious Gaze” has now added new partners in Germany’s Weydemann Bros Film and Wrong Men in Belgium. Further partners, Arte France Cinema and Irusoin, have already been announced.

Weydemann Bros has secured French-German mini traité funding to co-produce the film.

Falling Into Place, the debut feature of German filmmaker Aylin Tezel, has secured key deals ahead of its UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival tomorrow (Saturday March 2).

Following last week’s European Film Market, the film has sold to Australia and New Zealand (Palace Films), Spain (Syldavia Cinema), Switzerland (Royal Film) and former-Yugoslavia and Albania, plus international inflight rights (Karantanija).

German sales agency Global Screen is selling the title; Port au Prince Pictures conducted a German release in December. The film will have its US premiere at Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival on March 14.

Set in Scotland and London, Falling Into Place...

Dystopian drama Milk Teeth, which world premiered in the Big Screen competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and has its Nordic premiere tonight (January 31) at Göteborg Film Festival, is the debut feature of Swiss filmmaker Sophia Bösch.

Set in an isolated rural community, far from a world that may no longer exist, Milk Teeth follows a woman, Skalde, who has gained the respect of the community despite being born to an ‘outsider’ mother. But that respect is put at risk when she finds a mysterious girl in the local woods. It is an adaptation of Helene Bukowski’s 2021 novel and stars Mathilde Bundschuh,...

Sophia Bosch’s debut feature is a dystopian folklore drama.

LevelK has boarded sales rights on Sophia Bosch’s dystopian folklore drama Milk Teeth, ahead of the film’s world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The film will play in the Big Screen Competition ; it is the debut feature of Swiss filmmaker Bosch.

Set in an isolated rural community, Milk Teeth follows a woman who has gained the respect of the community despite being born to an ‘outsider’ mother; but that respect is put at risk when the woman finds a mysterious girl in the local woods.

Bosch says...

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest feature, Evil Does Not Exist, leads this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa) with four nods, including the gong for Best Film.

Hamaguchi’s nominations haul includes Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography for Yoshio Kitagawa. The film is Hamaguchi’s first film since his Oscar-winning Drive My Car and debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The pic follows Takumi and his daughter Hana, who live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. A plan to construct a glamping site near Takumi’s house, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature, threatens to endanger the ecological balance of the area and the local people’s way of life.

Also nominated in the Best Film category are Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden,...

“Tiger Stripes,” the debut feature of Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu, won the Grand Prize at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, the Cannes sidebar dedicated to first or second films. The prize was awarded by a jury presided over by Audrey Diwan, the Venice prizewinning director of “Happening.”

The French Touch Jury Award went to Belgian director Paloma Sermon-Daï’s “It’s Raining in the House,” a film about adolescence, while the Revelation prize from the Louis Roederer Foundation was handed out to Jovan Ginic, the actor of Vladimir Perisic’s “Lost Country.” The Sacd prize, meanwhile, went to “The Rapture” by Iris Kaltenbäck.

“Tiger Stripes” tells the story of Zaffan, a 12 year-old girl who discovers a terrifying secret about her body. Ostracized by her community, Zaffan fights back, learning that in order to be free she must embrace the body she feared, emerging as a proud, strong woman.

The film stars Zafreen Zairizal,...

Munich-based sales agency Global Screen has acquired romantic drama “Falling Into Place” for worldwide theatrical distribution. The English-language film is written and directed by Aylin Tezel, one of Germany’s leading young actors, and stars Tezel (“7500”) and Chris Fulton (“Bridgerton”).

The directorial debut is set in Scotland on the Isle of Skye and in London. It is an honest and poetic portrait of today’s 30-somethings caught between the fear of commitment and the desire for self-improvement. Like all great love stories, it is not just about the love between two individuals, but also about the dreams and anxieties of a whole generation.

Kira and Ian, two 30-somethings, meet all too briefly over a winter weekend on the Isle of Skye and form a sudden, deep, and surprising bond. Back in London, they try to move on with their separate lives – but both have to stop running from themselves...

Films Boutique, the Berlin-based company behind “Pacifiction” and “The Burdened,” has come on board three international movies slated for the Cannes Film Festival. These include a pair of films set for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, “Terrestrial Verses” and “The Buriti Flower,” as well as “Tiger Stripes” which will bow at Critics’ Week.

“Terrestrial Verses,” directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, is the sole Iranian film premiering in the Official Selection. The movie marks the first collaboration between these two critically acclaimed directors.

Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.

While the plot remains under wrap, the film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad.

Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene.

Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.

But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth.

Below, the Series Mania’s rich 2023 International Panorama:

“Apagón,” (“Offworld,” Spain)

One of Variety’s Best International TV Shows of 2022, a realistic, sophisticated disaster thriller from Movistar+ and Buendía Estudios...

Photo Credit: Natalie Seery

Sales agent and executive producer Protagonist Pictures today unveiled the first look at Academy Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan in director Nora Fingscheidt’s highly anticipated adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir The Outrun. Fingscheidt wrote the adaptation in collaboration with Liptrot. Protagonist Pictures is handling worldwide sales and is co-repping North American sales with CAA Media Finance.

Ronan stars as Rona, who fresh out of rehab, returns to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

The Outrun was optioned by Brock Media’s Sarah Brocklehurst, who is developing and producing alongside Ronan, Jack Lowden and Dominic Norris under their recently founded banner, Arcade Pictures. They are joined by co-producers Jonas Weydemann and...

Click here to read the full article.

Saoirse Ronan has gone green in this first look still from Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, in which the Oscar-nominee plays a recovering alcoholic fresh out of rehab.

Based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot (which Fingscheidt adapted in collaboration with Liptrot), the film is being sold worldwide by Protagonist Pictures, with CAA Media Finance co-repping for North America.

The Outrun sees Ronan stars as Rona, returns to the wild Orkney Islands after coming out of rehab and more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

Studiocanal will release the film in their territories of the U.K., France and Germany & Austria. Cineart will release the film in Benelux, and Filmcoopi and Cineworx will handle the film in Switzerland.

Prolific Indonesian producer KawanKawan Media, which has Makbul Mubarak’s “Autobiography” in competition at the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand, has a raft of projects on its slate.

The company, led by Yulia Evina Bhara, scored a hat trick of wins at Locarno over the last few years with Yosep Anggi Noen’s “The Science of Fictions” (2019), Carlo Francisco Manatad’s “Whether the Weather Is Fine” (2021) and Ming Jin Woo’s “Stone Turtle” (2022), and won an award at Cph:dox for Fanny Chotimah’s documentary “You and I” in 2020.

Noen’s “Gaspar,” which is set in the Javanese city Semarang in 2032 and is an adaptation of Sabda Armandio’s novel “24 Hours of Gaspar,” has just wrapped production. It stars Reza Rahadian, Shenina Cinnamon, Laura Basuki, Sal Priadi, Kristo Immanuel and Dewi Irawan.

Gaspar (Rahadian) is a dilettante detective working on a mass slaughter case involving the government, in which he...

Prolific Singapore-based production company Akanga Film Asia, led by producer Fran Borgia, has revealed a robust film slate, including several global co-productions.

Borgia and filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua teamed on 2018 film “A Land Imagined,” which reaped a rich haul of awards around the world, including top prizes at Locarno, Golden Horse, El Gouna, Pingyao, Singapore and Valladolid. They have now re-teamed on “Stranger Eyes,” which is selected at the ongoing Venice Production Bridge’s gap financing market.

The film follows master of surveillance Inspector Goh, who, as he keeps a close eye on a suspected credit card thief, is drawn into the suspect’s world and starts to see himself in the skin of the perpetrator. As it sets him to question the true meaning of his work, Goh is tasked to track down a serial voyeur on the loose who has been videotaping people’s most private moments.

“It...

Emmy nominee Paapa Essiedu (“I May Destroy You”) and BAFTA winner Stephen Dillane (“Alex Rider”) have joined Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”) on the cast of “The Outrun.”

The film is the feature adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s bestselling memoir “The Outrun,” adapted by Nora Fingscheidt, the multiple award winning director of “System Crasher.” Fingscheidt has written the adaptation in collaboration with Liptrot.

Ronan stars as Rona, who fresh out of rehab, returns to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

Protagonist Pictures has sold all international territories on the film, which is currently shooting on location in the Orkney Islands. Territories sold include Studiocanal for the U.K., France, Germany and Austria, Cineart for Benelux,...

TV-focused fund has boosted its coffers by €15m but distributors frustrated by allocation of cultural funds.

The German Motion Picture Fund (Gmpf), which supports the production of high-end TV and VoD series and films, is to receive an additional cash injection of €15m for 2022 to meet the demand from producers.

This brings Gmpf’s total 2022 budget to €90m, confirmed Claudia Roth, the state minister for culture and media, at a meeting of the German Producers Alliance in Berlin on Friday

The fund’s budget had already been increased at the beginning of March from an initial € 50m to €75m to...

Saoirse Ronan has joined the cast of ‘The Unforgivable’ director Nora Fingscheidt adaptation ‘The Outrun.’

Based on Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir, Ronan will play Rona, a woman fresh out of rehab who, after more than a decade away, returns to Scotland’s wild Orkney Islands and to the sheep farm of her childhood.

Also in news – Benedict Cumberbatch, Noah Jupe, Laura Dern join Sci-Fi drama ‘Morning’

Fingscheidt and Liptrot have adapted the book for the screen. Brock Media – who optioned The Outrun – will produce the film alongside Ronan, Jack Lowden and Dominic Norris under their new shingle Arcade Pictures together with Ignacio Salazar-Simpson and Ricardo Marco Budé of Mogambo. Jonas Weydemann and Jakob D. Weydemann of Germany’s Weydemann Bros. will co-produce together with BBC Film and Screen Scotland, which supported the project’s development. Protagonist is the executive producing and arranged financing.

“It was Amy’s voice that...

Saoirse Ronan is to star in and exec produce Nora Fingscheidt’s highly-anticipated adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun.

Protagonist Pictures is handling worldwide sales and will introduce at the European Film Market, co-repping North American sales with CAA Media Finance.

Ronan stars as Rona, who, fresh out of rehab, returns to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

Liptrot’s memoir was published around seven years ago and won a number of prizes.

Ronan said Liptrot’s voice drew her to the project. She praised her “unusual way of seeing things in a way that perhaps you only can when you’ve been to the darkest place you can go within yourself.”

The Unforgivable director Fingscheidt,...

Saoirse Ronan has been tapped as the lead in “The Outrun,” the memoir of alcoholism and nature from writer Amy Liptrot.

“The Unforgivable” helmer Nora Fingscheidt is set to direct.

In “The Outrun,” four-time Oscar nominee Ronan stars as recently-out-of-rehab Rona who heads for home in Scorland’s wild Orkney Islands after an absence of over a decade. There she “reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up.”

As Rona lingers in the Orkneys, she begins to piece together her childhood, memories of which “merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.”

Fingscheidt and Liptrot have co-written the adaptation.

Liptrot’s prize-winning book has been translated into more than a dozen languages, hit The Sunday Times’ top ten bestsellers list and sold over 110,000 copies in the U.K. It has been added to publisher Canongate’s “modern classics” list.

Ronan, who...

Saoirse Ronan is set to star in the next film from “The Unforgivable” director Nora Fingscheidt, a drama based on a memoir called “The Outrun.”

“The Outrun” is based on Amy Liptrot’s 2016 award-winning memoir of the same name, and the film will be introduced to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market.

Ronan will star in the film as Rona, a woman fresh out of rehab who returns to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her childhood merge with the more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.

Fingscheidt wrote the adaptation in collaboration with Liptrot.

“The Outrun” was optioned and has been developed by Sarah Brocklehurst’s Brock Media, which will produce the feature alongside Ronan, Jack Lowden and Dominic Norris under their recently founded banner Arcade Pictures.

Jury prizes returned this year following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Prize money totalling €125,000 was handed out to 10 films screening in this year’s Filmfest Hamburg (September 30-October 9), which saw jury prizes return following a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic.

On Friday evening (October 8) at Hamburg’s producer awards, the jury comprising producer Martina Haubrich and directors Julian Pörksen and Arman T. Riahi presented the producers award for German cinema productions, worth €25,000, to Jonas Weydemann of Weydemann Bros for Sabrina Sarabi’s No One’s With The Calves, which had been screened in the Grosse Freiheit section.

Sarabi...

The company made its name with Nora Fingscheidt’s ‘System Crasher’ in 2019.

Falling Into Place, the directorial debut of German actress Aylin Tezel, Damian John Harper’s Fresh, with Dark star Louis Hoffman and Sophia Bosch’s mother-daughter drama Milk Teeth are all on the anticipated new production slate of Weydemann Bros, the German production outfit behind 2019 local box office hit System Crasher.

Tezel is known for her recent performances in Almanya: Welcome To Germany and 7500. Falling Into Place is a love story that she has also written and will star when it shoots in 2022.

Berlin-based distributor Port Au Prince which released System Crasher,...

German project development event will showcase 28 projects from 34 countries.

The third edition of the European Work in Progress Cologne (Ewip) will unfold as a physical event in spite of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, its organisers have announced.

Running October 5 to 7 within the framework of the 30th Cologne Film Festival, the meeting will showcase 28 projects from 34 countries.

“The experiences in Cannes and other industry events in this corona year have shown that the direct exchange of people, despite numerous digital communication possibilities, cannot be replaced by anything,” commented Torsten Frehse, a board member of German independent distributors’ association Ag Verleih.

A total of €395,000 awarded to projects from Argentina, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Egypt, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal, Turkey and Venezuela.

Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund (Wcf) has awarded a combined €395,000 ($455,000) to 14 projects in its latest funding round.

The recipients hail from Argentina, Burkina Faso, Colombia, Egypt, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal, Turkey and Venezuela.

Selected directors that previously participated in Berlinale Talents include Amanda Nell EU (Tiger Stripes), Laura Citarella (Trenque Lauquen), Khavn de la Cruz (Love Is A Dog From Hell) and Katy Léna Ndiaye (Une Histoire Du Franc Cfa).

The latest funding round includes...

“System Crasher,” Nora Fingscheidt’s social drama about a troubled young girl, swept the 70th German Film Awards on Friday, winning a total of eight Lolas, including best film, director, actress and actor.

Forced to revamp this year’s ceremony due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the German Film Academy did away with its traditional gala event and instead produced a stripped-down show tailor-made for television that proved uniquely spontaneous, innovative and entertaining.

Hosted by actor Edin Hasanovic (“Skylines”), the show, broadcast live from Berlin and airing on Ard’s Das Erste, featured guest entertainers, actors and presenters in the studio as well as filmmakers, award winners and musicians taking part via video feed from their homes, including a musical performance by Gregory Porter from Los Angeles.

In addition to best film and director awards, “System Crasher” won Fingscheidt the screenplay Lola, best actress for Helena Zengel, supporting actress for...

Berlin-based Weydemann Bros. is expanding its international co-production activities with new projects from Argentina and Malaysia.

Argentinean director-producer team Celina Murga and Juan Villegas are partnering with Jakob and Jonas Weydemann on the upcoming relationship drama “El olor del pasto recien cortado” (“The Smell of Freshly Cut Grass”).

Directed by Murga and written and produced by Villegas, the film follows a married couple, Pablo and Natalia, both university professors, who each embark on entangled affairs with their respective students, Luciana and Gonzalo. Like two sides of the same coin, the first half of the film revolves around Pablo and Luciana, with the second half centering on Natalia and Gonzalo.

Dolores Fonzi is set play the lead role of Natalia.

Murga’s works include the 2014 Berlin competition player “The Third Side of the River,” which was exec produced Martin Scorsese, and 2008’s award-winning “A Week Alone,” which Murga co-wrote with Villegas.

German star Louis Hofmann is set to topline Damian John Harper’s upcoming drama “Fresh,” a German-language adaptation of Scottish writer Mark McNay’s novel of the same name.

Hofmann plays a young man who must emancipate himself from his tyrannical older brother.

Unlike the book, which is set in the outskirts of Glasgow, the film’s story takes place in a working-class neighborhood near Duisburg in western Germany’s Ruhr Valley region, known as the country’s rust belt.

Harper describes the tale as “a mosaic of a ticking bomb, brutal memories and trauma-induced daydreams.”

“Fresh” is produced by Weydemann Bros., the production company behind last year’s hit Berlinale screener “System Crasher” as well as Harper’s 2018 award-winning drama “In the Middle of the River,” about a troubled Iraq vet in New Mexico seeking to avenge his sister’s death.

Harper’s longtime production partners, Jakob and Jonas Weydemann,...

Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival has named the winners from its Industry@Tallinn and Baltic Event industry strands.

The events spotlight projects from the region but also international participants.

This year’s winners include Filip Syczynski’s The Great Match, the Polish feature from producers Anna Rozalska and Aleksandra Aleksander of Match & Spark, which scooped the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award worth $22,000.

In total, 18 projects were presented at the co-production showcase, with other winners including the Cannes Marché du Film Producers’ Network Award, which went to Carla Fotea, Romania, and Andreas Kask, Estonia. The prize will see the two rising producers given free accreditations to next year’s Cannes film festival.

In Tallinn’s work in progress showcase, which selected eight international projects and 10 from the Baltic region this year, Dace Pūc’s The Pit, the Latvian feature from producers Kristele Pudane, Elīna Zazerska, took the $11,000 post-production award.

The...

The European Film Academy has unveiled its nominations for the 32nd European Film Awards with the ceremony to be held December 7 in Berlin. Among the titles to figure in the races, three are tied with four mentions each including Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy, Pedro Almodovar’s Pain And Glory and Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor. The latter two are also the Oscar representatives from their respective Spain and Italy and give Sony Pictures Classics a combined eight nods at the EFAs.

While Polanski remains a controversial figure, there has been a divide between U.S. and Euro perspectives in the #MeToo era. His Dreyfus Affair drama, An Officer And A Spy, which also has Efa nominations for Director, Actor and Screenwriter, was one of the most contested titles at the Venice Film Festival where it debuted earlier this year. It went on to win the Grand Jury Prize there.

Industry@Tallinn and Baltic Event titles revealed.

The projects selected for Tallinn Black Nights’ industry showcase have been revealed, including a drama executive produced by Tim Roth and a new category for youth films.

Scroll down for full list of projects

This year’s Industry@Tallinn and Baltic Event will spotlight 18 films seeking sales agents or festivals for international premieres during works in progress sessions in the Estonian capital from November 26-27.

Both the Baltic Event, showcasing Baltic and Finnish projects, and International Works in Progress will compete for the same awards this year: the Post Production Award worth €10,000 and...

Filmmakers Dominik Graf, Emily Atef, Sol Bondy among many who signed petition calling for executive to resign.

Frankfurt-based regional film fund HessenFilm has fired CEO Hans Joachim Mendig over a controversial meeting pictured in an Instagram post in which the businessman is seen sitting down with far-right politician Jörg Meuthen.

The fund’s supervisory board voted unanimously at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday (24) to terminate Mendig’s employment with immediate effect.

The decision came after growing calls from the German film community for Mendig to step down after a local Frankfurt newspaper reported on the Instagram post dated July 24 by Meuthen,...

System Crasher, a social drama from director Nora Fingscheidt, has been chosen as Germany’s representative for the International Feature Film Award at the 92nd Oscars. An independent jury made the selection from a group of seven films that were submitted to German Films for consideration.

A Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize winner at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the debut feature also took honors at fests in Taipei and Transylvania. It had its U.S. premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival. The German theatrical release date is set for September 19.

The film centers on Benni, a delicate-looking nine-year-old girl with unbridled energy who is what child protection services call a “system crasher.” Be it foster family, group home or special-needs school, wherever Benni ends up, she is immediately expelled. Benni, however, has only one goal: to be able to live with her mother again, a woman who is...

Pictured: Peter Herrmann, chairman of German Films, Michael Weber of The Match Factory, and Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films.

Simone Baumann, the managing director of German Films, celebrated the many German co-productions screening in the Cannes Film Festival at the promotional agency’s cocktail party Saturday at Villa Rothschild in Cannes.

“Germany is one of the strongest and most attractive countries for co-productions, worldwide,” Baumann said. “There are 11 German-international co-productions in this year’s official selections here in Cannes at the festival, five of which are in Competition. That’s quite impressive and we are proud of this.”

The German co-productions in Competition were Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” Elia Suleiman’s “It Must Be Heaven,” Jessica Hausner’s “Little Joe,” Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor” and Corneliu Porumboiu’s “The Whistlers.” In Un Certain Regard, the Teutonic co-pros were Albert Serra’s “Liberté” and Karim Aïnouz...

Cannes–Variety honored its 10 Producers to Watch for 2019 at a brunch on Monday morning at Cannes’ Plage des Palmes.

Launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998, the annual event fetes 10 producers from the U.S. and the international film community who share a common commitment to bold, original, provocative storytelling.

The films produced by this year’s honorees have premiered on the Croisette and made waves in Sundance and Berlin, tackling challenging themes while offering a platform for diverse cinematic voices. Collectively they represent a dynamic community that is going to “regenerate, rejuvenate, revitalize cinema moving forward,” said Variety’s executive VP of content Steven Gaydos.

Katriel Schory, who is stepping down from the Israel Film Fund, was also honored with Variety’s Creative Impact Award. Under Schory’s stewardship of the fund, more than 300 feature-length films were produced in Israel, while the domestic audience grew from 100,000 to 1.5 million admissions per year.

Pictured: “Little Joe” director Jessica Hausner, Martin Gschlacht, one of the film’s producers, Kirsten Niehuus, with director-producer Cordula Kablitz-Post.

Berlin funding agency Medienboard’s managing director Kirsten Niehuus hosted a cocktail reception on Saturday at Grand Hotel in Cannes to celebrate the five films it funded that feature in the festival program.

The five films are competition titles “A Hidden Life” and “Little Joe”; Un Certain Regard films “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao” and “Liberté”; and Critics’ Week film “The Trap”.

Among the 350 guests were August Diehl, an actor in Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life”; Jessica Hausner, director of “Little Joe”; Albert Serra, director of “Liberté”; Karim Aïnouz, director of “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao”; and Carlo Chatrian, newly assigned artistic director of the Berlinale.

Other guests include Edward Berger, director of “Patrick Melrose,” “Deutschland 83” and “Jack”; Nurhan Sekerci-Porst, producer of Fatih Akin’s “In the Fade...

German production company Weydemann Bros. has unveiled two projects in the works, including an English-language drama written and directed by one of Germany’s most prolific young actresses.

Aylin Tezel is making her directorial debut with “Falling Into Place,” a love story set in Scotland and London that follows a romance between Kira and Ian, two 30-somethings who meet while on the run from themselves.

Tezel, a film and television actress who has starred in Ard’s hit “Tatort” crime drama franchise and Showtime’s “Homeland,” next appears in Patrick Vollrath’s upcoming airplane thriller “7500,” alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Producer Jakob Weydemann said the script, written by Tezel, offers a portrait of today’s restless generation as it struggles with such existential questions as: “How do we use the time that is given to us? Who do we share it with? And do we have to chase, escape or let...

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 timely social issue of children who fall through the system while at the same telling a human story about a little girl seeking only to be with her mother.

Since launching their company, Weydemann Bros., in 2012, the team has striven to make films that are socially relevant. While their works often deal with societal issues, they are not necessarily front and center.

Sarah Winkenstette’s forthcoming “Zu weit weg,” for example, is a children’s film about the friendship between a German boy who has to leave his village because it’s being...

The film won the main Works In Progress award at Les Arcs in December.

Beta Cinema has picked up international rights to German writer-director Nora Fingscheidt’s highly-anticipated feature debut System Crasher which will make its world premiere in Competition at the Berlinale next month.

The film stars Helena Zengel as an adorable but wild nine- year-old girl who has already become what child protection services call a ‘system crasher’, driving everyone around her to despair. It is produced by kineo Filmproduktion and Weydemann Bros. with Oma Inge Film and ZDFDas kleine Fernsehspiel unit,

Fingscheidt and producer Jonas Weydemann attended...

The Europe-wide, one of a kind workshop program Sofa - School of Film Agents - which supports international film professionals and mediators in the realization of film cultural projects will take place from August 15th – 24th, 2014 in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Breslau). Founded in 2013, the second edition of Sofa’s workshop-initiative will invite young "film agents“ from Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, Central Asia, the Baltic Republics and, for the first time, Greece to work together with experts on their projects with the goal of further developing the regional film culture and industries in their respective countries.

Within the framework of the Works in Progress« screenings at the 49th International Film Festival Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) – the most important film cultural event for the Sofa-relevant territories – Director, Nikolaj Nikitin introduced the eight participants to take part in the second edition of Sofa. "From innovative VoD solutions to a large-scale national cinema / theatrical digitialization project, to the founding of a regional film subsidy initiative: the breadth of these participating projects reflects - with impressive ideas - the film-structural challenges we are attempting to address in those respective regions“, states Nikitin.

In the presence of numerous Sofa partners and former participants, Nikitin presented the following eight participants of the second edition:

Anna Bielak, Poland : Aur! Magazine – Awesome / Unique / Radical!«. A high-quality cinema magazine in print for Poland. Dániel Deák, Hungary : Festivalised - Community Platform for Film Festival Guests«. A film festival advisory system which helps filmmakers to find the right festivals for their particular projects. Kestutis Drazdauskas, Lithuania : Front – Film Republic of Networked Theaters«. A cinema digitialization network for Lithuania. Cristian Hordila, Romania : Cluj City Film Fund. A film fund with which Cluj-Napoca intends to re-open its doors to the film world, re-creating a film production center around the city. Marija Stojanovic, Serbia : What I See - Program for Audience Development and Stimulation of Critical Approach in the Field of Audio-Visual Culture and Arts«. What we see is what we are: an educational film project for Serbia. Angeliki Vergou, Greece : Octapus - A delicious new way to watch Greek films«. A VOD-Platform for Greek films. Jakub Viktorín, Slovakia : Dds – Digital Database of Slovakia: Your Personal Online Library of All Film Content Slovakia can Provide. An internet-based database revolving around the film culture of Slovakia. Jonas Weydemann, Germany : »Directors Collection«. A b2b platform connecting producers/worldsales directly with national cinemas around Europe, providing a transparent system for licensor and licensee. From August 15th – 24th, 2014 the eight participants will work intensively on their projects with internationally experienced experts and mentors in the Polish city of Wroclaw (Breslau) - European Capital of Culture 2016. They will be supported by Sibylle Kurz (pitching expert, Frankfurt), Roberto Olla (Eurimages, Strasbourg), Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film, Lodz), Renaud Redien-Collot (Novancia Business School, Paris), Peter Rommel (Peter Rommel Film, Berlin), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund, Tel Aviv) among others.

The success of Sofa has been proven: numerous projects from the first edition of Sofa 2013 have already been able to be realized or are shortly before. For example, Leana Jaluske’s project "Doktok“ – a distribution initiative for Estonian documentary films – was able to be established with the help of Sofa. Melinda Boros is currently leading the „Tiff Studio Workshops“ in Cluj and Sonja Topalovic was recently able to rejoice over Eurimages funding for her interactive database "Fbo – Festival Box Office“.

Sofa – School of Film Agents is a joint project of the Filmplus gUG (Cologne) and the Fundacja Filmplus (Warsaw) together with the city of Wroclaw (Breslau) and the Polish Film Institute, funded by the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, the Federal Foreign Office, the International Visegrad Fund, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, The Creative Europe Desk Poland, The Alfred Toepfer Foundatio and Eave – European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs and supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut in Poland (Krakow), Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania and its Head Office in Germany, and with the support of the Film Commission Poland and the Wroclaw Film Commission.

The School of Film Agents 2014 will take place Aug 15-24 in Wroclaw and feature eight projects.

The School of Film Agents (Sofa) will have its second edition in Wroclaw from Aug 15-24, it was announced in Karlovy Vary on Monday [7].

Sofa is a workshop programme which supports international film professionals and mediators in the realisation of film cultural projects, initiated and started last year by Nikolai Nikitin [pictured], the Berlinale delegate for Eastern Europe.

Within the framework of Karlovy Vary’s Works in Progress, Nikitin introduced the eight participants from “Sofa-relevant terrtories”: Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, the Baltic countries and Greece.

“We are looking for projects that are about developing the film infrastructure of their country,” Nikitin told Screendaily. “If you look at France, Germany, UK, they are developed markets with lots of possibilities to finance, show, and archive your movie.

“Further to the east you go, there are less options to finance a film, usually...

Film revolving around Native American community, directed by Damian John Harper, to shoot early 2015.

Paris-based production company Les Films d’Ici 2 has boarded Us director Damian John Harper’s upcoming drama In the Middle of the Road.

The film, which is lead produced by German Jonas Weydemann is due to shoot in New Mexico in early 2015 and centres on a Native American, Iraqi War veteran’s difficult return to his family’s reservation where he stands up to an abusive grandfather.

It was among 12 projects presented at the Paris Coproduction Village last week.

“We’ve been in talks to work together for some time and we decided to make it official here,” said Weydemann, who produces under the Weydemann Bros. banner, the Cologne-based company he runs with his brother Jakob D.Weydemann.

Under the deal, Les Films d’ici 2 and Weydemann Bros are hoping to tap into the joint French-German mini-treaty fund backed by France’s National...

You hear it all the time: Quality a bit soft. Not a lot of Big Titles. Not a lot of Big News. But Americans were buying all the same, and to quote Screen International: “The current market is focused on smart money and smart deals, not volume of product”. Business at Afm was also solid though unspectacular. Moreover, the pre-buying of projects may be below the radar of this $3 billion business of international film buying and selling. TrustNordisk’s CEO Rikke Ennis says that 70% of their films are pre-sold. As you look at the upcoming Winter Rights Roundup due out in two weeks from SydneysBuzz.com/Reports, you will notice many of the films have been pre-buys this market and many films screening were already pre-sold during Afm in November.

And for all the complaints about Berlin, many sales agents set up private screenings before the market kicked off. What is that about?

Beki Probst, who has run the Efm since 1988, responded to the many media reports of a quieter market in an interview with ScreenDaily which sounds almost the same as the one she gave in 2009.

Quoting her current statement which I take the liberty of quoting here as it appears in Screen:

“I think that there was a good movement of business this year,” she said. In the opinion of Probst, there had been a muddying of the distinction between the Efm and the more general term of the ‘market’.

“Daphné Kapfer of Europa International representing 35 sales agents said that it was a very good Berlin, and Glen Basner of FilmNation commented that it was ‘the best Berlin’.

“Even Harvey Weinstein came just for 24 hours to sign a $7m check, and Aloft was bought by Sony Pictures Classics.

“It’s the players, and not the market, that is important. The players come here if they have the right line-up. All we can do is provide the best infrastructure, but what happens after that is up to them.”

"Sales agents were not sitting idle at their stands if one takes the example of one company in the Martin Gropius Bau: the CEO met with 90 buyers and the members of staff responsible for marketing had no less than 180 meetings in addition to ad-hoc discussions at events in the evenings."

Coproductions are the engine driving the business these days.

This year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market ended after two-and-a-half days with awards handed out to projects from Kazakhstan and Belgium.

The €6,000 Arte International Prize went to Kazakh film-maker Emir Baigazin’s planned second feature The Wounded Angel, the second part of a trilogy after his Silver Bear-winning Harmony Lessons. The €1.2m Almaty-based Kazakhfilm Jsc production has already attracted France’s Capricci Production as a co-producer and has backing in place from the Doha Film Institute and the Hubert Bals Fund.

The €10,000 Vff Talent Highlight Pitch Award was presented to Belgian director Bavo Defurne for his romantic dramedy Souvenir. The €2m co-production by Oostende-based Indeed Films with Belgium’s Frakas Productions and Germany’s Karibufilm already has backing from Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Cinefinance and public broadcaster Vrt/ Een.

India-Norway’s $55 million film to be directed by Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance)’s The Indian Bride is an exciting example of an unusual pairing of countries.

Bavaria and Senator’s joint venture Bavaria Pictures’ The Postcard Killers to be directed by Mexican director Everardo Gout shows the international expansion of talent.

The Hungary-Austria-Germany co-production of Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity, or U.K.-Lithuania action comedy Redirected being sold by Content brings unusual European partners together.

U.S. born Damian John Harper’s coproduction with the German producers, brothers Jakob and Jonas Weydemann, on Los Angeles will be followed by In the Middle of the River now being developed with Zdf’s Das Kleine Fernsehspiel unit.

Shoreline’s The Infinite Man produced with Australia’s Hedone Productions in association with Bonsai Films with investment from South Australia Film Corporation through its Filmlab funding initiative, development assistance from Screen Australia is also a new sort of pairing.

Film and Music Entertainment (F&Me), Bac Films, 20 Steps Productions and Bruemmer & Herzog’s The President is shooting in Tbilisi, Georgia and is being directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Italian-Canadian producer Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s Sights of Death starring Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen is directed by Allessandro Capone in Rome.

The Spain-u.K. co-production Second Origin is based on the best selling Catalan novel Mecanoscrit Del Segon Orgen.

The Golden Bear Winner Black Coal, Thin Ice is a Boneyard Entertainment (New York & Hong Kong) co-production with Boneyard Entertainment China (Bec), Omnijoi Media (Jiangsu, China), China Film co-production.

A sign of the times is the Swedish Film in Berlin advertisement which lists all Swedish co-productions:

In Competition: In Order of DisappearanceOut of Competition: NymphomaniacBerlinale Special: Someone You Love Generation Kplus: A Christmoose StoryPerspektive Deutsches Kino: Lamento

All are with European co-producers as is Antboy a Danish-German co-production.

One of my favorites is Gallows Hill, being sold by Im Global and already picked up by IFC for U.S. Starring Twilight actor Peter Facinelli, U.K. actress Sophia Myles, Nathalia Ramos and Colombian model and actress Carolina Guerra, it was entirely financed from within Colombia by television network Rcn’s affiliate Five 7 Media which produced with Peter Block's A Bigger Boat, David Higgins and Angelique Higgins' Launchpad Productions and Andrea Chung. The screenplay was written by Rich D’Ovidio ( The Call, Thir13en Ghosts) about a widower who takes his children on a trip to their mother’s Colombian hometown.

Another interesting combo is the Australian-Singapore co-production Canopy being sold by Odin’s Eye which was acquired by Kaleidoscope for U.K., by Kinosmith for Canada and Odin’s Eye itself for Australia. After its Tiff 2013 premiere, Monterrey acquired U.S. rights.

Cathedrals of Culture, was produced by Wim Wenders’ production company: Neue Road Movies in Germany and co-produced by Final Cut For Real (Denmark), Lotus Film (Austria), Mer Film (Norway), Les Films d'Ici 2 (France), Sundance Productions / RadicalMedia (U.S.), Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg In collaboration with Arte (Germany and France) and Wowow (Japan).

Grand Budapest Hotel is a co-production of Scott Rudin in U.S. and Studio Babelsburg in Germany.

Wouldn't you say there had to be an awful lot of business going on? If only the media knew where to look for it. Instead, they moan the same old tired tune, "Quality a bit soft. Not a lot of Big Titles. Not a lot of Big News". Oh well...

Efm Coproduction Market

Asian producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon, who was pitching the Hong Kong comedy Grooms by writer-director Arvin Chen at the Berlin Coproduction Market, announced that Germany’s augenschein filmproduktion will be a coproducer on Singaporean director Boo Junfeng’s second feature Apprentice. The film has already received backing from France’s World Cinema Support, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw of Germany and Germany's second network, Zdf’s Das kleine fernsehspiel unit. It also has Cinema Defacto as its French co-producer. Junfeng’s first film, Sandcastle, was screened at the Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2010.

Cologne-based augenschein, who produced Maximilian Leo’s My Brother’s Keeper, the opening film of this year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino and is handled internationally by Media Luna, is currently in post-production on Romanian filmmaker Florin Serban’s Box, his second feature after the 2010 Berlinale Competition film If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle.

Argentinian filmmaker Santiago Mitre whose debut The Student established him as one of the brightest and most courted young directors in Latin America was in the Co-production Market with his untitled second feature which France’s Full House connected to along with Argentina’s Union de los Rio, Argentine broadcast network Telefe, Ignacio Viale and the ubiquitous Lita Stantic.

Full House was also at the Coproduction Market with Peter Webber’s Fresh about a young thief learning the art of pickpocketing in Bogota, Colombia. It will be co-produced with Rcn affiliate Five 7 Media and 4Direcciones in Colombia and by Webber himself.

Raymond van der Kaaij, the producer of Tamar van den Dop’s Panorama title Supernova, is now financing Sundance winner Ernesto Contreras’ next feature I Dream In Another Language. The Spanish-English language project will be produced with Mexico-based Agencia Sha, and it is now casting the American lead according to producer van der Kaaij of Revolver Amsterdam. Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the winner of the Sundance-Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, I Dream has already received support from Imcine in Mexico. Shooting is scheduled in Mexico for the end of 2014.

Revolver is now editing Bodkin Ras, the debut film of Iranian-Dutch director Kaweh Modiri, an English-language documentary-thriller set in North Scotland. The Dutch-Belgian-u.K. coproduction is set for release at the end of 2014.

Finnish film-maker Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa’s is editing his latest feature They Have Escaped, which Revolver coproduced with Helsinki Film.

Trend of smart art genres

Another continuing trend, which began with Xyz and Celluloid Nightmares and continued with Memento, is the character-driven art genre films with tight budgets, like the Danish coming-of-age-werewolf-romance, When Animals Dream, directed by first timer Jonas Arnby, sold by Gaumont to Radius-twc for No. Americ. The Scandinavians, formerly making a mark with "Nordic Noir" are now making what they call "Nordic Twilight".

Trend of remake rights

Another trend is that of remake rights. Film Sharks reports it makes more from selling remake rights than from licensing distribution rights.

The Intouchables is selling remake rights to more countries than only India as is the sale of Other Angle’s Babysitting remake rights. Negotiations are underway with Russia, Italy and Germany.

Fruit Chan is considering an English language remake of his 2004 cult horror film Dumplings.

The market is bit too calm?…Then let us look at Cannes…

Usually by Afm you can begin the Tipped for Cannes List (which Gilles Jacob detested), but even that is a little on the quiet side. I begin to question whether all media fueled news is accurate: the slow sales being reported, the lack of pre-Cannes buzz… Is the media really investigating deeply?

Of all the trades, while Screen has the most international news and deepest analyses, Variety reports things no other trade is covering. But…still the non-news of a quiet market persists as if it were headline news. We always hear this and we are still in an economic slump, so what we wish for is not apparent, but this is not news.

Tipped for Cannes

Tipped for Cannes are Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home staring Gong Li and to be sold by Wild Bunch, Stealth’s First Law starring Mads Mikkelsen (Cannes 2012 Best Actor Award for The Hunt); Self Made (Boreg) by Shira Geffen and to be sold by Westend, shot in Hebrew and Arabic by the production and sales team behind Oscar nominated 2011 drama Footnote, the second film after Geffen’s 2007 debut Jellyfish which won the Cannes Camera d’Or. MK2’s Clouds of Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas and starring Juliette Binoche, Chloe Grace Moretz and Kristen Stewart, and Naomi Kawase’s Still the Water will be delivered in time for Cannes. Pyramide International is plannng for Leviathan, a modern retelling of the biblical story which deals with some of Russia’s most important social issues to be ready for Cannes. It is directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and produced by Alexander Rodnyansky (Stalingrad) as their followup to Elena. Gaumont-cj co-production, The Target, the Korean remake of Fred Cavaye’s action thriller Point Blank will be ready in time for Cannes.

Rumors and truths about people changing positions

Rumors about Dieter Kosslick replacing Berlin’s Culture Secretary who resigned after a tax evasion scandal in which he admitted to stashing $575,000 in a Swiss bank account…Charlotte Mickie has left eOne and knowing her, she is bound to find something good elsewhere as she's too good to lose...StudioCanals Harold van Lier now leads eOne’s newly ramped international sales team and Montreal based Anick Poirier leads its subsidiary label, Seville International. Jeff Nuyts is leaving Intramovies. Nigel Sinclair and Guy East seem to be leaving Exclusive Media the company they founded as discussions with partners from Dasym Investment Strategies Bv move forward. Kevin Hoiseth from Voltage Pictures has joined International Film Trust as their director of international sales...and of course, Nadine de Barros has founded her own company, Fortitude, and was holding court at the Ritz Carlton the buzziest spot outside of the Martin Gropius Bau.

What I Saw and What I Thought

For what it's worth, here is my limited list of screenings of films seen only in the last 3 days of the festival when I was no longer "working". I am including some I actually saw at Sundance.

First and foremost -- and to be written about further in a "thought piece" as I term the articles I think long about before writing and to include my interview with the director Goran Hugo Olsson's (The Black Power Mixtapes winner of Sundance 2011 World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award) -- Concerning Violence (Isa: Films Boutique, U.S.: Cinetic), based on Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and seen at Sundance this year next to Stanley Nelson's outstanding Freedom Summer (PBS) and Greg Barker's We Are The Giant (Submarine), is a call to action for new societal models ringing out loud and clear.

Golden Bear Winner, Black Coal, Thin Ice by Diao Yinan, a Chinese noir, lacked the momentum and substance I would have expected in a winning film, though it was a fascinating way to see today's urban China. Had I been on the jury, I would have chosen the Best Director Award winning Boyhood (Isa: IFC) by Richard Linklater. But perhaps because James Schamus, an American who loves Chinese films, was President of the Jury, there might have arisen a question of disinterested objectivity. I would have to hear what jurists Barbara Broccoli, Trine Dyrhom, Chistoph Waltz, Tony Leung, Greta Gerwig, Mitra Farahani and Michel Gondry would have to say about the deliberations.

Speaking of jury prizes, it was a surprise the much acclaimed '71 (Isa: Protagonist, now headed by our dear Mike Goodridge) won nothing, and good Alain Renais' Life of Riley (Isa: Le Pacte) received recognition. I found Christophe Gans' La belle et la bete (Beauty and the Beast) (Isa: Pathe) an overproduced unwieldy special effects-ridden mess, even though it was exec-produced by Jérôme Seydoux who also produced the masterpiece La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty), and starred his granddaughter Lea Seydoux. I'll stand by Cocteau's versoin. I heard Claudia Llosa (Milk of Sorrow)'s Aloft was also not widely admired.

About the best actress winning film The Little House (Isa: Shochiku could have marketed it more widely), I heard nothing at all, though it sounds really good. Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross) (Isa: Beta) by brother and sister team Anna and Dietrich Brueggemann (any relation to our own Tom Brueggeman?) had a satisfying denouement and was quite engrossing with moments of humor lightening the heavy weight of the cross carried by 14 year old Maria played by Lea van Acken, a picture face out of a George de la Tour painting (Magdeline with a Smoking Flame or A Piece of Art). Macondo (Isa: Films Boutique - again! ) by Sudabeh Mortezai of Austria was a window on a world never seen before and very engrossing although the coming of age story was one we have seen before.

Not sorry to say I missed The Monuments Men and Nymphomaniac Volume I, but sorry that I missed Beloved Sisters (Isa: Global Screen) of Dominik Graf, The Grand Budapest Hotel (will see it in U.S.), Argentinian Benjamin Naishat's History of Fear (Isa: Visit) -- I'll catch it in Carthegena, Guadalajara or San Sebastian I'm sure, Jack, In Order of Disappearance which sounds like the sleeper hit of the festival, Argentinan (again!) La tercera orilla (The Third Side of the River), Lou Ye's Tui Na (Blind Massage) and Rachid Bouchareb's Two Men in Town (Isa: Pathe - again!), which I heard was rather flat which is not surprising, for when non-Americans try to make an American genre, it usually misses a certain verve, but still is such an interesting subject for him to tackle, Zwischen Welten (Inbetween Worlds) (Isa: The Match Factory) from Germany, another "American" subject, but here about a German soldier in Afghanistan, not an American one.

Among the Berlinale Specials, I wish I had seen Nancy Buirski's Afternoon of a Faun which everyone said was good (Isa: Cactus Three the doc production company of Krysanne Katsoolis and Caroline Stevens) and Volker Schloendorff's 1969 Brecht piece Baal starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. I did see his Diplomacy (Isa: Gaumont) which was a great treat, erudite, intimate and reminiscent of the novels of Sandor Marai (Embers and Casanova in Bolzano). Wish I could have seen Wim Wenders' Cathedrals of Culture (Isa: Cinephil), Diego Luna's Cesar Chavez (Isa: Mundial) and In the Courtyard aka Dans la cours (Isa: Wild Bunch) starring Catherine Deneuve and The Kidnapping of Michel Houllebecq (Isa: Le Pacte - again!!). I will see The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (Isa: The Film Sales Company) by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, produced by Jonathan Dana, Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller and Celeste Schaefer Snyder (Ballets Russes), back home. The Turning (Isa: Level K), an experimental omnibus produced by my favorite Australian producer, Robert Connelly who also directed in part and Maggie Myles, is also a must-see as is Errol Morris' companion piece to The Fog of War, The Unknown Known (Isa: HanWay) and Houssein Amini's Two Faces of January (Isa: StudioCanal) starring my favorites Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst. We Come as Friends (Isa: Le Pacte), by Hubert Sauper whose earlier film Darwin's Destiny astounded me, was worth watching although so often his films plunge one into a hopeless helplessness. Fresh from Sundance, it was raising controversy and the story of the Sudan is worth knowing. His particular and peculiar Pov is valuable. Watermark (Isa: Entertainment One), another social issue worth knowing about will have to wait for a more propitious time. Personally I'm hoping Israel's current venture into desalination of water will lead the world into peace and that I will rejoice watching the doc about that.

Difret (Isa: Films Boutique - again!), fresh from Sundance where I saw it was really good and it sold well. I got to hang out with the team at the Panorama party. Gueros (Isa: Mundial - again!), was a disappointment -- too like The Year of the Nail (though different) in tone. But what a great company Canana is!

Panorama's Finding Vivian Maier (Isa: HanWay - again!) is brilliantly interesting. It is about to be released in U.S. by IFC. I highly recommend seeing this documentary about an eccentric, unknown photographer. It premiered at Tiff 2013. Fresh from Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (Isa: Submarine) was a treasure; Velvet Terrorists was about the oddest piece I have ever seen. About three former opponents of the Czechoslovakian Soviet Regime, each has continued to enjoy blowing up things. One is still training the next generation in urban guerilla warfare. They are otherwise unremarkable, sweet even, but twisted. What an odd documentary.

A quick look at the Market Films I have seen: of the 400+ premieres: Zero -- no I did see German Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Two Lives (Isa: Beta), and I will soon be home to celebrate its nomination at the famous Villa Aurora, the former home of German expatriate writer Leon Feuchtwanger. So many more films look sooooo attractive! A pity I may never get to see them. I would need all the time in the world, and I have so little. I have so much and yet I want more!

Ahead of the world premiere of Los Ángeles [pictured], Damian John Harper has announced his next project with Weydemann Brothers.

Never change a winning team: even before the world premiere of Damian John Harper’s debut Los Ángeles in the Forum today (Feb 8), producers Jakob and Jonas Weydemann of Weydemann Brothers are already working with him on preparations for his next feature.

With the working title of In The Middle Of The River, the project is being developed again in close collaboration with Zdf’s Das kleine Fernsehspiel unit.

The Us-born director has set his family drama in an impoverished Native American reservation in the Arizona. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in winter 2014/15.

In addition, debut features are planned with German directors Paul Florian Müller and Philipp Döring.

Financing for Müller’s black comedy Sex & Crime, set to shoot in Nrw and Berlin in autumn 2014, has come from Sky Deutschland, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Film-...