The Berlin Film Festival’s parent org the Kbb, which oversees state-backed cultural events in the German capital, has posted job ads for four key executive roles ahead of the arrival of the event’s new director Tricia Tuttle in April.
They include a new Chief of Staff role which is described as a key management level position within the Berlinale leadership team.
The appointee will give close support to Tuttle, who will be Berlinale’s sole director after the ditching of the dual directorship structure tried out with departed Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian and MD Mariette Rissenbeek.
As per the ad, the Chief of Staff’s duties will include “proactive and effective selection, prioritization and control of all communication from the festival management to ensure a smooth exchange of information.”
Getting the Berlinale’s communication strategy on track will be a priority for the new management team, after a difficult 74th edition.
They include a new Chief of Staff role which is described as a key management level position within the Berlinale leadership team.
The appointee will give close support to Tuttle, who will be Berlinale’s sole director after the ditching of the dual directorship structure tried out with departed Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian and MD Mariette Rissenbeek.
As per the ad, the Chief of Staff’s duties will include “proactive and effective selection, prioritization and control of all communication from the festival management to ensure a smooth exchange of information.”
Getting the Berlinale’s communication strategy on track will be a priority for the new management team, after a difficult 74th edition.
- 3/25/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
French actress Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient”) will be the next president of the European Film Academy Board, succeeding Polish director Agnieszka Holland (“Europa”) in the honorary role. Holland was the first female president of the board.
Binoche was unanimously proposed by the board members after Holland decided to step down. Following a formal approval process, which historically has been a mere formality, Binoche’s appointment will officially begin on May 1, 2024. The presidential role is primarily symbolic.
Holland, who served as chairwoman of the board until 2019, became president in 2021, succeeding German director Wim Wenders. Holland plans to fully dedicate her time to making films.
Holland’s “Europa” won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her 2023 film “Green Border” won the Special Jury Prize at Venice International Film Festival.
Mike Downey, the current chair of the board, and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol said...
Binoche was unanimously proposed by the board members after Holland decided to step down. Following a formal approval process, which historically has been a mere formality, Binoche’s appointment will officially begin on May 1, 2024. The presidential role is primarily symbolic.
Holland, who served as chairwoman of the board until 2019, became president in 2021, succeeding German director Wim Wenders. Holland plans to fully dedicate her time to making films.
Holland’s “Europa” won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Her 2023 film “Green Border” won the Special Jury Prize at Venice International Film Festival.
Mike Downey, the current chair of the board, and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol said...
- 3/14/2024
- by Tony Maglio
- Indiewire
French actor Juliette Binoche will be the new president of the European Film Academy (Efa) when Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland steps down on May 1.
The Academy board unanimously proposed The Taste Of Things actor. Members now have until the end of April to vote their approval – a majority needs to be reached for Binoche to succeed.
Holland has been president since 2021, after previously serving as chairwoman of the board until 2019. The Green Border director said she is stepping down to focus on filmmaking.
“I am not a person to easily step aside, but I have come to the conclusion that...
The Academy board unanimously proposed The Taste Of Things actor. Members now have until the end of April to vote their approval – a majority needs to be reached for Binoche to succeed.
Holland has been president since 2021, after previously serving as chairwoman of the board until 2019. The Green Border director said she is stepping down to focus on filmmaking.
“I am not a person to easily step aside, but I have come to the conclusion that...
- 3/14/2024
- ScreenDaily
Juliette Binoche, the Oscar-winning French actor whose sprawling career shows no signs of slowing down, is set to succeed Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland as president of the European Film Academy.
The honorary role was previously held by Ingmar Bergman, who served as the first president and was originally chosen by the 40 founding Academy members in 1989. Wim Wenders, who succeeded Bergman in 1996, served until 2020, followed by Holland, who became the first female president and has now decided to step down.
“We want to honour Agnieszka Holland’s wish and completely understand that responsibilities besides filmmaking, however inspiring and important, can sometimes stand in the way of creating art,” said the chair of the Board Mike Downey and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol in a statement shared with all Academy members in 52 European countries. “A decision like this is also one that makes us realise how much we owe to Agnieszka Holland’s work for our institution.
The honorary role was previously held by Ingmar Bergman, who served as the first president and was originally chosen by the 40 founding Academy members in 1989. Wim Wenders, who succeeded Bergman in 1996, served until 2020, followed by Holland, who became the first female president and has now decided to step down.
“We want to honour Agnieszka Holland’s wish and completely understand that responsibilities besides filmmaking, however inspiring and important, can sometimes stand in the way of creating art,” said the chair of the Board Mike Downey and Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol in a statement shared with all Academy members in 52 European countries. “A decision like this is also one that makes us realise how much we owe to Agnieszka Holland’s work for our institution.
- 3/14/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
French actress Juliette Binoche has been announced as the new president of the European Film Academy, replacing Polish director Agnieszka Holland.
The body said Binoche had been unanimously proposed by the members of the Efa board after Holland expressed her desire to step down in 2024.
The role of Efa President is an honorary one and holds a symbolic power for the Berlin-based body, representing more than 4,600 cinema professionals across Europe.
Ingmar Bergman served as the first President and was originally chosen by the 40 founding Academy members in 1989.
He was followed by Wim Wenders in 1996, who held the post until 2020. His sucessor Holland was the Academy’s first female President.
Binoche will formally take up the role on May 1 2024, after a majority of the 4,600 members of the European Film Academy have given their vote of approval until the end of April 2024.
Holland indicated her decision to step down this spring, expressing...
The body said Binoche had been unanimously proposed by the members of the Efa board after Holland expressed her desire to step down in 2024.
The role of Efa President is an honorary one and holds a symbolic power for the Berlin-based body, representing more than 4,600 cinema professionals across Europe.
Ingmar Bergman served as the first President and was originally chosen by the 40 founding Academy members in 1989.
He was followed by Wim Wenders in 1996, who held the post until 2020. His sucessor Holland was the Academy’s first female President.
Binoche will formally take up the role on May 1 2024, after a majority of the 4,600 members of the European Film Academy have given their vote of approval until the end of April 2024.
Holland indicated her decision to step down this spring, expressing...
- 3/14/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The European Film Academy has unveiled its new board which has been voted in under updated guidelines aimed at ensuring a more balanced geographical representation of its members.
Three incumbent board members have been re-elected for a fresh two-year term running from 2024-25. Mike Downey (Ireland/UK) will continue as chair of the board with Joanna Szymańska (Poland) joining Ada Solomon (Romania) as Deputy Chair.
Another eight new members have been voted in for the next two years, while a further six incumbent members will continue their mandate until the end of 2024.
The new structure has increased board representation of members in countries in Northeastern and Southeastern Europe such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia.
A new seat representing members from transnational populations is dedicated to Sámi filmmakers from 2024-2025, followed by Romani filmmakers for 2026-2027.
Anne-Lajla Utsi (Sápmi/Norway), who is head...
Three incumbent board members have been re-elected for a fresh two-year term running from 2024-25. Mike Downey (Ireland/UK) will continue as chair of the board with Joanna Szymańska (Poland) joining Ada Solomon (Romania) as Deputy Chair.
Another eight new members have been voted in for the next two years, while a further six incumbent members will continue their mandate until the end of 2024.
The new structure has increased board representation of members in countries in Northeastern and Southeastern Europe such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia.
A new seat representing members from transnational populations is dedicated to Sámi filmmakers from 2024-2025, followed by Romani filmmakers for 2026-2027.
Anne-Lajla Utsi (Sápmi/Norway), who is head...
- 1/10/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The shake up at the Berlin Film Festival has begun.
Just hours after former BFI London festival director Tricia Tuttle was named to take over from Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek as the new head of the Berlinale, Dennis Ruh, director of Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) is out.
Ruh on Tuesday confirmed he will be leaving the EFM after next year’s market, saying the Berlinale has decided not to extend his contract when it expires in March 2024. Tuttle will take over as the new Berlinale boss in April.
“The designated director of the Berlinale has decided to appoint a new head of the European Film Market for the 2025 edition and to let my contract as EFM Director expire in March 2024,” Ruh said in a statement. “This news was brought to me via official channels. There was no conversation with the new Berlinale director. Therefore, the EFM in...
Just hours after former BFI London festival director Tricia Tuttle was named to take over from Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek as the new head of the Berlinale, Dennis Ruh, director of Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) is out.
Ruh on Tuesday confirmed he will be leaving the EFM after next year’s market, saying the Berlinale has decided not to extend his contract when it expires in March 2024. Tuttle will take over as the new Berlinale boss in April.
“The designated director of the Berlinale has decided to appoint a new head of the European Film Market for the 2025 edition and to let my contract as EFM Director expire in March 2024,” Ruh said in a statement. “This news was brought to me via official channels. There was no conversation with the new Berlinale director. Therefore, the EFM in...
- 12/12/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dennis Ruh, director of the Berlinale’s European Film Market (EFM), has announced his departure as head of the market after the 2024 edition.
Ruh said in a statement that Berlinale’s incoming festival director Tricia Tuttle had decided to appoint a new EFM director for 2025.
He said that his contract had been left to expire and that he had not been offered the chance to discuss its renewal with Tuttle, whose appointment was announced this morning.
“The designated director of the Berlinale has decided to appoint a new head of the European Film Market for the 2025 edition and to let my contract as EFM Director expire in March 2024,” he said.
“This news was brought to me via official channels. There was no conversation with the new Berlinale director. Therefore, the EFM in February 2024 will be the last under my leadership.”
Looking to the 2024 edition, Ruh said the exhibition spaces were sold out,...
Ruh said in a statement that Berlinale’s incoming festival director Tricia Tuttle had decided to appoint a new EFM director for 2025.
He said that his contract had been left to expire and that he had not been offered the chance to discuss its renewal with Tuttle, whose appointment was announced this morning.
“The designated director of the Berlinale has decided to appoint a new head of the European Film Market for the 2025 edition and to let my contract as EFM Director expire in March 2024,” he said.
“This news was brought to me via official channels. There was no conversation with the new Berlinale director. Therefore, the EFM in February 2024 will be the last under my leadership.”
Looking to the 2024 edition, Ruh said the exhibition spaces were sold out,...
- 12/12/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The German film industry is eagerly awaiting the appointment of the Berlin Film Festival’s new director, expected to be announced tomorrow, and as the guessing game surrounding the choice shifts into high gear, one thing looks increasingly clear: the new head will face considerable financial and political challenges at the Berlinale.
Speculation in the local industry has been rife with likely candidates to succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek, who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.
A number of potential contenders have now quashed those rumors, among them Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and director of the European Film Academy, who made it clear to Variety that he was not in the running and was very content in his current post; Kirsten Niehuus, head of funding org Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, who said she...
Speculation in the local industry has been rife with likely candidates to succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek, who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.
A number of potential contenders have now quashed those rumors, among them Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and director of the European Film Academy, who made it clear to Variety that he was not in the running and was very content in his current post; Kirsten Niehuus, head of funding org Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, who said she...
- 12/11/2023
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
European Film Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol has denied he is a candidate to become the next director of the Berlin Film Festival.
Rumors were rife ahead of the Academy’s European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin this weekend that he was in pole position for the role.
The search is currently on for a new Berlinale director to replace Executive Director Mariette Rissenbeek and Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian who are due to step down after the 2024 edition, with an announcement expected at press conference on Tuesday.
In an interview with Deadline ahead of the ceremony in Berlin, Wouter Knol categorically ruled out that he was in the frame, chiefly because he felt had a lot more to do at the European Film Academy.
“I’m not a candidate to go to a festival because I wouldn’t be able to do the same at a festival that I can do here,...
Rumors were rife ahead of the Academy’s European Film Awards ceremony in Berlin this weekend that he was in pole position for the role.
The search is currently on for a new Berlinale director to replace Executive Director Mariette Rissenbeek and Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian who are due to step down after the 2024 edition, with an announcement expected at press conference on Tuesday.
In an interview with Deadline ahead of the ceremony in Berlin, Wouter Knol categorically ruled out that he was in the frame, chiefly because he felt had a lot more to do at the European Film Academy.
“I’m not a candidate to go to a festival because I wouldn’t be able to do the same at a festival that I can do here,...
- 12/11/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
French director Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy Of A Fall swept the awards at 36th European Film Awards in Berlin this evening, winning Best European Film, Director, Screenplay (with Arthur Harari) and actress for Sandra Hüller.
There was a strong selection this year with other films and directors leading the nominations including Aki Kaurismäki with Fallen Leaves, Agnieszka Holland with Green Border, Matteo Garrone with Me Captain, Jonathan Glazer with The Zone Of Interest.
The European Films Awards haul for Anatomy Of A Fall will likely ramp up growing Academy Awards buzz around the film and its star Sandra Hüller.
“I can’t say whether it will happen or not but yes… now we are in the race and we will continue the campaign in the U.S. and we’re totally involved, let’s see,” Triet said in an press conference after the ceremony.
There was a strong selection this year with other films and directors leading the nominations including Aki Kaurismäki with Fallen Leaves, Agnieszka Holland with Green Border, Matteo Garrone with Me Captain, Jonathan Glazer with The Zone Of Interest.
The European Films Awards haul for Anatomy Of A Fall will likely ramp up growing Academy Awards buzz around the film and its star Sandra Hüller.
“I can’t say whether it will happen or not but yes… now we are in the race and we will continue the campaign in the U.S. and we’re totally involved, let’s see,” Triet said in an press conference after the ceremony.
- 12/9/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Justine Triet’s acclaimed French courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall has won best film at the 2023 European Film Awards, held Saturday evening, Dec. 9 in Berlin.
Sandra Hüller, a double nominee in the best actress category, won for her barnstorming turn in Anatomy of a Fall as a writer who may have killed her husband.
Accepting her prize, Hüller, speaking to the various conflicts raging in and around Europe at the moment, called for a moment of silence from the audience to “silently, strongly, vividly, imagine peace.”
Justine Triet took the best directing honor for Anatomy and shared the best screenplay honor with Arthur Harari for their joint script to the twisty murder mystery. A couple in real life, Triet and Harari said writing the script, which is a piercing dissection of a marriage in crisis, “put our relationship to the test but thankfully we survived.”
Anatomy of a Fall...
Sandra Hüller, a double nominee in the best actress category, won for her barnstorming turn in Anatomy of a Fall as a writer who may have killed her husband.
Accepting her prize, Hüller, speaking to the various conflicts raging in and around Europe at the moment, called for a moment of silence from the audience to “silently, strongly, vividly, imagine peace.”
Justine Triet took the best directing honor for Anatomy and shared the best screenplay honor with Arthur Harari for their joint script to the twisty murder mystery. A couple in real life, Triet and Harari said writing the script, which is a piercing dissection of a marriage in crisis, “put our relationship to the test but thankfully we survived.”
Anatomy of a Fall...
- 12/9/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cinema professionals from across Europe are gathering in Berlin this weekend for the ceremony of the 36th European Film Awards on Saturday evening.
This younger cousin of Hollywood’s near hundred-year-old Academy Awards is overseen by the Berlin-based European Film Academy.
The body’s 4,600 members – hailing from “geographical Europe” as well as Israel, Palestine and Russia, – vote on an official Academy Selection made up of around 40 films selected by the European Academy Board and a group of experts.
Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and UK director Jonathan Glazer The Zone Of Interest top the nominations this year, followed by Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall and Poland’s Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, which won the Venice Special Jury Prize.
Awards for the craft categories were decided by an expert jury and announced ahead of tonight’s ceremony.
The European Film Academy...
This younger cousin of Hollywood’s near hundred-year-old Academy Awards is overseen by the Berlin-based European Film Academy.
The body’s 4,600 members – hailing from “geographical Europe” as well as Israel, Palestine and Russia, – vote on an official Academy Selection made up of around 40 films selected by the European Academy Board and a group of experts.
Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves and UK director Jonathan Glazer The Zone Of Interest top the nominations this year, followed by Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall and Poland’s Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, which won the Venice Special Jury Prize.
Awards for the craft categories were decided by an expert jury and announced ahead of tonight’s ceremony.
The European Film Academy...
- 12/9/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The nominees for the 2023 European Film Awards (EFAs) are among the very best movies of the year, in Europe or anywhere. The five best picture nominees include Justine Triet’s legal thriller Anatomy of a Fall; Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust film The Zone of Interest; the refugee dramas Io Capitano, from Italian director Matteo Garrone; Green Border from Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland; and dour romantic comedy Fallen Leaves, by Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki. Award winners all — Anatomy, Zone and Fallen Leaves picked up top honors in Cannes, while Green Border and Io Capitano won plaudits at this year’s Venice Film Festival — this lineup of critical hits could hold its own at any awards ceremony.
The quality at the EFAs goes deep, including first-time filmmakers like Britain’s Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex), France’s Stéphan Castang (Vincent Must Die) and Spanish filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (20,000 Species of Bees...
The quality at the EFAs goes deep, including first-time filmmakers like Britain’s Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex), France’s Stéphan Castang (Vincent Must Die) and Spanish filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (20,000 Species of Bees...
- 12/8/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Typically, the European Film Awards (Efa) are an event for celebration and, broadly, consensus. There might be debate over which European movie deserves the top prize — this year’s best film contenders include refugee dramas Io Capitano from Italian director Matteo Garrone and Green Border from Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland; Justine Triet’s French legal thriller Anatomy of a Fall; Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust film The Zone of Interest; and the dour romantic comedy Fallen Leaves from Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki —but when it comes to politics, the members of the European Film Academy, who hands out the honors, are usually unified in their progressive message backing the oppressed of society over those in power, and for their unwavering support of freedom of expression.
This year’s awards, which will be handed out in Berlin on Saturday, Dec. 9, may be different. Conflicts raging in Europe are pitting Efa member...
This year’s awards, which will be handed out in Berlin on Saturday, Dec. 9, may be different. Conflicts raging in Europe are pitting Efa member...
- 12/8/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The early autumn slump has been reversed.
France’s box office bounced back in November following a downturn in September and October with 15.1 million ticket sales, a total gross of €108.8m based on an average ticket price of €7.2.
However, admissions were still down 19.6% from the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average for the month.
It was enough to assure solid annual figures to date with ticket sales hitting upwards of 162.8 million admissions (€1.17bn), above 2022’s full year 152 million admissions but below the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic average of 208 million tickets per year. Estimates suggest 2023 will reach between 180-190 million.
The upswing comes after an abysmal...
France’s box office bounced back in November following a downturn in September and October with 15.1 million ticket sales, a total gross of €108.8m based on an average ticket price of €7.2.
However, admissions were still down 19.6% from the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 average for the month.
It was enough to assure solid annual figures to date with ticket sales hitting upwards of 162.8 million admissions (€1.17bn), above 2022’s full year 152 million admissions but below the 2017-2019 pre-pandemic average of 208 million tickets per year. Estimates suggest 2023 will reach between 180-190 million.
The upswing comes after an abysmal...
- 12/6/2023
- by Rebecca Leffler
- ScreenDaily
More than 800 film industry professionals in Germany and Austria have signed an open letter opposing antisemitism, with the number of signatories continuing to grow.
The signatories include a wide range of directors, writers, producers and other film industry professionals. Those signing the letter include directors Caroline Link, whose “Nowhere in Africa” won an Oscar; Stefan Ruzowitzky, whose “The Counterfeiters” also won an Oscar; and Marie Kreutzer, whose “Corsage” won a prize at Cannes (all pictured above). Further directors include Julia von Heinz, Kilian Riedhof, Dominik Graf, David Wnendt, Dani Levy and Doris Dörrie.
Others signing the letter include European Film Academy director Matthijs Wouter Knol, “Resident Evil” producer Martin Moszkowicz, producers Oliver Berben and Fabian Gasmia, and Jürgen Prochnow, an actor best known for the Oscar-nominated “Das Boot.”
The letter was originally published on Nov. 9, the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, when the Nazis in Germany attacked Jewish people and property.
The signatories include a wide range of directors, writers, producers and other film industry professionals. Those signing the letter include directors Caroline Link, whose “Nowhere in Africa” won an Oscar; Stefan Ruzowitzky, whose “The Counterfeiters” also won an Oscar; and Marie Kreutzer, whose “Corsage” won a prize at Cannes (all pictured above). Further directors include Julia von Heinz, Kilian Riedhof, Dominik Graf, David Wnendt, Dani Levy and Doris Dörrie.
Others signing the letter include European Film Academy director Matthijs Wouter Knol, “Resident Evil” producer Martin Moszkowicz, producers Oliver Berben and Fabian Gasmia, and Jürgen Prochnow, an actor best known for the Oscar-nominated “Das Boot.”
The letter was originally published on Nov. 9, the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, when the Nazis in Germany attacked Jewish people and property.
- 11/15/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
European films, events and retrospectives will play across cinemas in 40 countries.
The European Film Academy kicks off the second edition of its Month of European Film initiative today (November 1).
The Month of European Film is designed to celebrate the diversity of European film for six weeks until its grand finale on December 9 with the European Film Awards in Berlin.
The Academy’s partner Europa Cinemas is highlighting European films, presenting special programmes, events and dedicated retrospectives across cinemas in 40 countries.
At the same time, the arthouse streaming platform Mubi is presenting a special focus on European films. The VoD portal...
The European Film Academy kicks off the second edition of its Month of European Film initiative today (November 1).
The Month of European Film is designed to celebrate the diversity of European film for six weeks until its grand finale on December 9 with the European Film Awards in Berlin.
The Academy’s partner Europa Cinemas is highlighting European films, presenting special programmes, events and dedicated retrospectives across cinemas in 40 countries.
At the same time, the arthouse streaming platform Mubi is presenting a special focus on European films. The VoD portal...
- 11/1/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Results were published as part of wide-ranging survey of European Film Academy members.
Most European Film Academy (Efa) members do not want gender-neutral acting prizes to be introduced at the European Film Awards, according to a membership survey published today (Oct 27).
Of the European film professionals taking part in Efa’s first ever membership survey, 58% voted against the introduction of gender-neutral awards, while 19% were in favour of them and 22% said they didn’t know.
Efa runs the European Film Awards which currently has separate categories for European actor and European actress.
A string of awards shows have gone gender neutral in recent years,...
Most European Film Academy (Efa) members do not want gender-neutral acting prizes to be introduced at the European Film Awards, according to a membership survey published today (Oct 27).
Of the European film professionals taking part in Efa’s first ever membership survey, 58% voted against the introduction of gender-neutral awards, while 19% were in favour of them and 22% said they didn’t know.
Efa runs the European Film Awards which currently has separate categories for European actor and European actress.
A string of awards shows have gone gender neutral in recent years,...
- 10/27/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Critical Zone.International Competition(Jury: Lambert Wilson, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lesli Klainberg, Charlotte Wells, Matthijs Wouter Knol)Golden Leopard: Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Special Jury Prize: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude)Best Direction: Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Best Performance: Dimitra Vlagopoulou (Animal)Best Performance: Renée Soutendijk (Sweet Dreams)Special Mention: Nuit Obscure - Au Revoir Ici, N'importe Où (Sylvain George)Filmmakers Of The PresentGolden Leopard: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Best Emerging Director: Katharina Huber (A Good Place)Special Jury Prize: Camping Du Lac (Éléonore Saintagnan)Best Performance: Clara Schwinning (A Good Place)Best Performance: Isold Halldórudóttir and Stavros Zafeiris (Touched)Special Mentions: Excursions (Una Gunjak), Negu Hurbilak (Colective Negu)First Feature(Jury: Omar El Zohairy, Devika Girish, Isabel Sandoval)First Feature Award: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Ewa Puszczyńska, Matthew Rankin, Amos Sussigan)Best...
- 8/12/2023
- MUBI
Iranian filmmaker Ali Ahmadzadeh clinched the Golden Leopard in the main international competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival with his latest feature Critical Zone (Mantagheye Bohrani).
Ahmadzadeh was not in attendance to receive the award as he is currently banned from leaving his native Iran. Last month, the country’s authorities summoned Ahmadzadeh to the Ministry of Security, where he was pressured to pull Critical Zone from Locarno’s official competition. The film’s international sales agent Luxbox Paris and the producer, Sina Ataeian Dena, also said they had received threatening emails and messages demanding the film be pulled from the fest.
The pic, described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran,” was shot without permission from authorities before recent protests started. The plot follows a man who drives through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs and healing troubled souls. Born in Tehran in 1986, Critical Zone...
Ahmadzadeh was not in attendance to receive the award as he is currently banned from leaving his native Iran. Last month, the country’s authorities summoned Ahmadzadeh to the Ministry of Security, where he was pressured to pull Critical Zone from Locarno’s official competition. The film’s international sales agent Luxbox Paris and the producer, Sina Ataeian Dena, also said they had received threatening emails and messages demanding the film be pulled from the fest.
The pic, described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran,” was shot without permission from authorities before recent protests started. The plot follows a man who drives through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs and healing troubled souls. Born in Tehran in 1986, Critical Zone...
- 8/12/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ looks for piece of the action.
Shark sequel Meg 2: The Trench is the first major challenger to the Barbenheimer supremacy, opening in 544 cinemas at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend.
Meg 2 will look to challenge both its Warner Bros stablemate Barbie, and Universal’s Oppenheimer, while benefitting from the surge in audiences those titles have brought in the past fortnight.
The first title, 2018’s The Meg, started with £3.7m also in early August; and ended on a sharp £15.9m.
Jason Statham returns for the sequel, which sees a research team encounter multiple threats...
Shark sequel Meg 2: The Trench is the first major challenger to the Barbenheimer supremacy, opening in 544 cinemas at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend.
Meg 2 will look to challenge both its Warner Bros stablemate Barbie, and Universal’s Oppenheimer, while benefitting from the surge in audiences those titles have brought in the past fortnight.
The first title, 2018’s The Meg, started with £3.7m also in early August; and ended on a sharp £15.9m.
Jason Statham returns for the sequel, which sees a research team encounter multiple threats...
- 8/4/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The pair join jury president French actor Lambert Wilson in the international competition strand
Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi are among the jurors for the 76th Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12).
The Scottish filmmaker and Iranian actor will sit on the international competition jury, led by French actor Lambert Wilson, alongside European Film Academy president Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, president of film at the Lincoln Centre.
Films competing at Locarno this year include Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths...
Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi are among the jurors for the 76th Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12).
The Scottish filmmaker and Iranian actor will sit on the international competition jury, led by French actor Lambert Wilson, alongside European Film Academy president Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, president of film at the Lincoln Centre.
Films competing at Locarno this year include Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths...
- 7/12/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi have joined the jury of the 76th Locarno International Film Festival and will judge the 2023 competitors for the festival’s Golden Leopard award. Ebrahimi also stars in Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, which will be the closing film in Locarno this year.
French actor Lambert Wilson, known for his performances in the Matrix films, will head up this year’s Locarno international jury as president. Also in the 2023 jury are European Film Academy director and CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at New York’s Lincoln Center.
The films of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, featuring works from first and second-time directors will be assessed by a three-person jury of Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, the French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees...
French actor Lambert Wilson, known for his performances in the Matrix films, will head up this year’s Locarno international jury as president. Also in the 2023 jury are European Film Academy director and CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at New York’s Lincoln Center.
The films of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, featuring works from first and second-time directors will be assessed by a three-person jury of Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, the French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees...
- 7/12/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The European Film Academy hosted a series of conversations in Karlovy Vary.
The current and future role of film academies was the topic of debate at a European Film Academy-hosted event, Academies Open Doors, held this week at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Directors, producers and festival programmers revealed in one panel session what they expect from film academies, and what they would like academies to offer in the future, beyond glitzy award ceremonies.
The panel included Rada Sesic, who heads the documentary section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Slovakian producer and consultant Katarina Tomkova, Italian director Mattia Colombo, whose...
The current and future role of film academies was the topic of debate at a European Film Academy-hosted event, Academies Open Doors, held this week at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Directors, producers and festival programmers revealed in one panel session what they expect from film academies, and what they would like academies to offer in the future, beyond glitzy award ceremonies.
The panel included Rada Sesic, who heads the documentary section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Slovakian producer and consultant Katarina Tomkova, Italian director Mattia Colombo, whose...
- 7/6/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Academy Open Doors: filmmakers and industry execs debate the future role of film academies in Europe
Panellists debate the role of academies at European Film Academy-hosted event.
The current and future role of film academies was the topic of debate at a European Film Academy-hosted event, Academy Open Doors, held this week at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Directors, producers and festival programmers revealed in one panel session what they expect from film academies, and what they would like academies to offer in the future, beyond glitzy award ceremonies.
The panel included Rada Sesic, who heads the documentary section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Slovakian producer and consultant Katarina Tomkova, Italian director Mattia Colombo, whose documentary...
The current and future role of film academies was the topic of debate at a European Film Academy-hosted event, Academy Open Doors, held this week at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Directors, producers and festival programmers revealed in one panel session what they expect from film academies, and what they would like academies to offer in the future, beyond glitzy award ceremonies.
The panel included Rada Sesic, who heads the documentary section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Slovakian producer and consultant Katarina Tomkova, Italian director Mattia Colombo, whose documentary...
- 7/6/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Board members will now be chosen from 15 defined regions in Europe.
The European Film Academy (Efa) is to restructure its board membership for 2024 to improve representation from different parts of Europe.
From the upcoming elections in 2023, board members will be chosen from 15 defined regions in Europe.
Efa said that the defined regions, each comprising different countries, are meant to “reflect the realities of modern Europe and give a fairer and more equal distribution of voices from all over Europe within the board.”
One board seat will also be made available for a transnational ethnic representative belonging to either the Sámi...
The European Film Academy (Efa) is to restructure its board membership for 2024 to improve representation from different parts of Europe.
From the upcoming elections in 2023, board members will be chosen from 15 defined regions in Europe.
Efa said that the defined regions, each comprising different countries, are meant to “reflect the realities of modern Europe and give a fairer and more equal distribution of voices from all over Europe within the board.”
One board seat will also be made available for a transnational ethnic representative belonging to either the Sámi...
- 6/29/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Moin film fund exec to succeed Albert Wiederspiel.
Malika Rabahallah is to succeed Albert Wiederspiel as the festival director of Filmfest Hamburg.
The 52-year-old Franco German executive, who is head of the funding department at Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein’s regional film fund Moin (Moving Images North), will take over on January 1, 2024.
Her appointment was unanimously agreed by the supervisory board of the Moin film fund, Filmfest’s parent company.
It followed the recommendation of a selection committee which included the heads of the European Film Academy and European Film Promotion, Matthijs Wouter Knol and Sonja Heinen.
Wiederspiel, who will step...
Malika Rabahallah is to succeed Albert Wiederspiel as the festival director of Filmfest Hamburg.
The 52-year-old Franco German executive, who is head of the funding department at Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein’s regional film fund Moin (Moving Images North), will take over on January 1, 2024.
Her appointment was unanimously agreed by the supervisory board of the Moin film fund, Filmfest’s parent company.
It followed the recommendation of a selection committee which included the heads of the European Film Academy and European Film Promotion, Matthijs Wouter Knol and Sonja Heinen.
Wiederspiel, who will step...
- 5/9/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The European Film Awards have announced a major shift in their dates. Starting in 2026, the European Film Academy honors will be held mid-January, smack in the middle of awards season and ahead of both the BAFTAs and the Oscars.
Traditionally, the EFAs are held in December, capping off the European cinema year. But under European Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and chairman of the board Mike Downey, the ceremony is undergoing a major overhaul and rebranding, intended to boost its profile and importance within the international film world.
“With the European Film Awards moving a month later to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the international awards season including the Oscars,” the European Film Academy said in a statement Tuesday, announcing the date change.
The EFAs 37th edition will be held as planned in December 2024. The 38th EFAs will...
Traditionally, the EFAs are held in December, capping off the European cinema year. But under European Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and chairman of the board Mike Downey, the ceremony is undergoing a major overhaul and rebranding, intended to boost its profile and importance within the international film world.
“With the European Film Awards moving a month later to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the international awards season including the Oscars,” the European Film Academy said in a statement Tuesday, announcing the date change.
The EFAs 37th edition will be held as planned in December 2024. The 38th EFAs will...
- 4/25/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The annual awards ceremony to shift from December to January.
The European Film Awards (EFAs) is set to move from its traditional December slot to mid-January from 2026 in a bid to boost the visibility of its nominees during awards season.
The European Film Academy, which organises the annual event, said the date change would come after the 37th edition in December 2024 and was “a next step in the repositioning” of the EFAs in the international awards corridor, creating “a larger window for nominated films to be promoted”. The nominations will continue to be announced by mid-November.
The awards have been...
The European Film Awards (EFAs) is set to move from its traditional December slot to mid-January from 2026 in a bid to boost the visibility of its nominees during awards season.
The European Film Academy, which organises the annual event, said the date change would come after the 37th edition in December 2024 and was “a next step in the repositioning” of the EFAs in the international awards corridor, creating “a larger window for nominated films to be promoted”. The nominations will continue to be announced by mid-November.
The awards have been...
- 4/25/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
The European Film Awards, Europe’s equivalent of the Oscars, will move from its traditional December slot to mid-January in 2026.
The European Film Academy, which oversees the awards, said the shifting of the date was part of an ongoing strategy to reposition and rebrand the event and its work.
This year’s 36th edition and the 37th edition in 2024 will both take place in December as previously. The 38th edition will then move to mid-January in 2026.
The academy believes that by moving the ceremony to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the international awards season including the Oscars.
The Efa nominations will continue to be announced by mid-November each year, giving a larger window for nominated films to be promoted.
Academy members eligible to vote will be able to watch the films on the Academy VOD platform, or in...
The European Film Academy, which oversees the awards, said the shifting of the date was part of an ongoing strategy to reposition and rebrand the event and its work.
This year’s 36th edition and the 37th edition in 2024 will both take place in December as previously. The 38th edition will then move to mid-January in 2026.
The academy believes that by moving the ceremony to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the international awards season including the Oscars.
The Efa nominations will continue to be announced by mid-November each year, giving a larger window for nominated films to be promoted.
Academy members eligible to vote will be able to watch the films on the Academy VOD platform, or in...
- 4/25/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The European Film Academy is changing the date of its annual award ceremony, the European Film Awards, so that it will be positioned within the awards season at the start of the year.
After the 37th edition in December 2024, the 38th edition will take place mid-January 2026 and will celebrate the best European films from the previous year. The date change is a next step in the repositioning and rebranding process of the event and the work of the European Film Academy.
With the European Film Awards moving a month later to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the awards season, culminating with the Oscars.
As the nominations for the European Film Awards will continue to be announced by mid-November each year, the date change will create a larger window for nominated films to be promoted. Academy members eligible to...
After the 37th edition in December 2024, the 38th edition will take place mid-January 2026 and will celebrate the best European films from the previous year. The date change is a next step in the repositioning and rebranding process of the event and the work of the European Film Academy.
With the European Film Awards moving a month later to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the awards season, culminating with the Oscars.
As the nominations for the European Film Awards will continue to be announced by mid-November each year, the date change will create a larger window for nominated films to be promoted. Academy members eligible to...
- 4/25/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
The Berlinale 2023: The Festival and the Market (EFM) We think the market is bouncing back. The streamers are no longer hogging the good films financed by international sales agents and distributors, international and national as well as regional film funds; they are now creating their own content, buying less. There are many new indie projects and new international sales agents. Now if only the theatrical venues would fill up again, all would be well. We wait word from the European Film Market itself to know more than anecdotally how the sales agents fared. But anecdotally, it went pretty well. You can read my Rights Roundup next up soon. Sales agents reported buyers were still very selective, while pre-sales on all but the most alluring commercial packages with name cast and director remain a tough proposition. Acquisitions teams looking for special films to fill slots in 2024 were prepared to wait until a completed feature was ready to watch. Ticket sales for this year's Berlinale 2023 totaled 320,000 by the time the festival closed on Sunday (February 26). This figure is close to pre-pandemic levels where the 2020 edition reached 330,000 tickets. Sales were up 105% from last year's festival which sold 156,472 tickets - though seating capacity was reduced by 50% due to Covid-19 restrictions. Berlinale also confirmed the 74th edition will take place February 15–25, 2024. It will be Co-Director of the Berlinale Marietta Rissenbeck's last year. In addition to the public, this year's festival saw 20,000 accredited professionals from 132 countries in attendance, including 2,800 media representatives, while the Berlinale Co-Production Market organized 1,500 meetings. Eliminated this year were festival delegates and programmers from EFM accreditation. The European Film Market (EFM), which finished on February 22, reported a record number of attendees at 11,500+ - up from the previous record of 11,423 in 2020, the last year of an on-site EFM. There were 230 stands at this year's market across the Martin Groppius Bau and Marriott Hotel sites, up from 203 in 2020; with 612 companies exhibiting, an increase of 8.5% from 2020's 564. The 612 companies originated from 78 countries, with the market participants hailing from 132 countries. The biggest increase of 57.9% was in the number of screenings, from 971 to 1,533, although this is partly explained by the 647 online screenings which took place this year. 599 of the screenings were market premieres. The number of films was up too, with 773 compared to 732 three years ago. The total number of buyers was up to 1,302. Costs are also up. Great govenment support from normal 35% of the budget to $2.3m, 45% of the budget for the Berlinale! Racism debate …Norwegian black face animated character causes film to be pulled from opening the section ___…The President of the European Film Academy, Matthijs Wouter Knol resigns his position at the Anti-Racism Taskforce Artef, citing a conflict of interest between his two positions…is it the job of the Anti-Racism Taskforce to tell a festival what it can/ should or should not show? Who is deciding what is racist and what is Ok? How to find dis-interested judges? Let me be the judge. I have long experience with racism and racist and other exclusionary policies and being from the USA, I have no professional interests in the European Film Industry. And being so-called white and Jewish, my perspective is not only one race that I am particularly vested in. My credentials attest to my multi-racial preferences as I have dealt with every race throughout my professional and private life. Put me on a committee with an outside Asian, an outside African, an outside Middle Easterner and an outside Latinx and we will be set. Ties cannot happen and festivals are always free to program what they deem worthy of conversation and debate. Carlo Chatrian, artistic director, and Mariette Rissenbeek, executive director, of the Berlin International Film Festival, reflect…This is taken verbatim from Screen: You decided to pull the first screening of Norwegian director Rasmus A. Sivertsen's animated film Just Super in Generation KPlus after the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film (Artef) contacted the festival outlining concerns "about the film's depictions of Blackface and animalisation of Black people" to give yourselves time to work out how to proceed. Subsequent screenings went ahead with a disclaimer printed at the entrance of each cinema showing the film contextualising the concerns "so as to avoid potentially harming any viewers". Chatrian: It is very telling that the way one film is seen by one community or one group of people is not an absolute truth. The film was released in Norway and seen by hundreds of thousands of people. A film is always an encounter between you, us, the viewer, and the film itself. It changes all the time. When did both of you see first see the film? Chatrian: In this case I saw the film after it was selected. The film was selected by Generations. For me it was more about the animation style so I didn't see the film in its entirety before it was selected. I saw it afterwards. But that's not the point. It's not because I haven't seen it. It's about embracing all the different points of view. And that's part of the process. A film festival like Berlin is great as we gather a global community. It's important to say the first screening was pulled in agreement with the [production] company. Even if one single viewer feels offended by some images we have to take this concern seriously. We cannot say, 'they read something that is not there'. When it comes to feeling you can not judge feeling. If you feel hurt, simply you feel hurt. In the end we took the right decision. The second screening took place. The filmmaker was there and introduced the film, the audience was informed so we could go with our conscience clear. We said the film might be perceived in the way that the filmmaker didn't want to. Rissenbeek: If you don't have a certain history yourself you just might not be aware of what could be an unconscious implication of the film. It's a very thin line. Will you make any change to the processes of the programming team? As you say, Artef saw something that hadn't been seen by the Norwegian audiences, the programming team, even the press who had seen the film earlier Chatrian: For sure. The problem in this case was the timing was so short [between the concerns raised by Artef and the first public screening]. At the same time we have to accept mistakes can happen on both sides. And then we have to learn from this mistake or use this mistake as an opportunity to talk about it. We could have used it as an opportunity to explain that a film can be seen differently. Did you receive any feedback from audiences after issuing the disclaimer? Rissenbeek: We didn't get any feedback from audiences after the film. Chatrian: We prepared the teachers so we know some teachers decided to go with their class and do some special work on that. Other reflections on this year's festival, their personal highlights, handling a difficult situation and what they would like their legacies to be can be read here sin Screen International. My particular professional entry into this Berlinale was through two doorways. One was through a group I have been working with for the past three years, since meeting the innovator Millie Zhou on a tour I was conducting of the Berlin Market several years ago. Zhou is a young Chinese film entrepreneur(esse?) living in London. Her business partner Zixi (Cc) Zhang is a young Chinese film business entrepreneurse (?) living in Beijing. Under the mentorship of the producer Angus Finney and the Cambridge University Business School where he is a professor, each year they bring a group of emerging Chinese filmmakers living both inside and outside of China to Berlin and to Cannes. Angus and I and others share views of the film business today. We find our own views on films are shaped further by theirs; we exchange so much about cultures and visions that I am always engaged. And this year I learned so much from the participants and from Angus Finney and Simon Crowe, the international sales agent whose specialty is animation and family films. The other doorway I entered was by way of the Canadian Media Fund and Hot Docs who sent a delegation of Bipoc (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and 2Slgbtq+ (2 Spirit is the Indigenous term covering the spectrum of male-female sexual identity, LGBTQ+ has become familiar to most people by now) filmmakers to the EFM. Another tour was of the Canadian Media Fund staff, Tamara Dawitt, outgoing VP of Growth & Inclusion and Marcia Douglas incoming VP of Growth & Inclusion along with Carol Anne Pilon the Ed of the Association of Francophone Producers (an org which supports French producers living outside of Quebec). Carol Anne attended EFM to explore opportunities for her membership. When the first five days with the two groups were finished, though I was exhausted and though the weather was cold, cold, cold, gray, rainy, and windy, I was still up for running between East and West Berlin screenings. I caught the Opening Night film, Rebecca Miller's She Came to Me, produced by Christine Vachon among others and in all, I saw 22 films. A good number. Of them, my favorites were Sira, Art College 1994 , Kokomo City, Der Vergessener Mensch, Roter Himmel, Adentro mio, and most surprisingly, Allensworth. Here they are with my little encapsulated takes on them. She Came To Me directed by Rebecca Miller. A sweet, positive story of love and creativity. Anne Hathaway is a brilliant comedienne! And Marisa Tomei is no slack either. Peter Dinklidge plays it straight and everything ends happily. Produced by Killer Films and international sales by Protagonist, two of the best names in the business, Benelux rights are with Belga, France's are with Originals Factory, Japan's are with Shochiku. Peter Dinklidge plays it straight2. Sira directed by Apolline Traoré. Panorama Audience Award for best feature, Sira tells the story of a young nomad named Sira who refuses to surrender to her fate without a fight and instead takes a stand against Islamist terror. This is a great film to pick up and is still available for U.S.! Contact international sales agent Wide. This is a story of a real female warrior set today in Sahel, the region that stretches across the north of sub-Saharan Africa. Boku Haram kidnaps and rapes a 17 year old on a caravan going with her nomadic Fulani family to her wedding with the son of a farming family. We see Boku Haram's other young women kidnapped from schools to use as sex slaves, breeders and servants hopelessly trapped, but she survives and in the end, carries the day. Music by Cyril Morin is, as all his music, unique and perfectly fitted to the film. This coproduction of Burkina Faso, France, Germany and Senegal runs a bit long at 122 minutes but its heart is pure as it traces the fight to survive by this Fulani woman. At the Berlinale party, Jacqueline Lyanga, the Berlinale's new U.S. delegate programmer introduced me to the producers Verena Kurz and Sara Boekemeyer of Sira who live in Berlin. They work with the Twkvers' company in Kenya. In 2008, Tom Tykwer and Marie Steinmann-Tykwer founded the production company Some Fine Day Pix, to give young African filmmakers the opportunity to create their own films. This film will surely get Kenya's push for Academy Award nomination. The problem will then be finding strong enough publicity on their shoestring budget to get it seen widely enough to be shortlisted, which it clearly deserves. Perhaps the below-the-radar Academy campaign of Andrea Riseborough for her role in To Leslie can offer some lessons and perhaps a U.S. distributor will pick up the film and make a decent campaign for it. The film went on to Burkino Faso where it played in Fespaco, Africa's top film festival and its oldest, founded in 1969. Since the bi-annual festival was last held in 2021 the West African nation has had to deal with the political fallout from two coups within eight months and spiraling violence driven by groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State. In BerlinApolline Traoré spoke so eloquently to the audience afterward that they did not want to let her go but were forced to leave the theater so the next film could play. She began this film eight years ago. Five countries are still being terrorized by Boku Haram: Nigeria, Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. Only Mauritania has rid itself of them. She hopes that this tale of resistance brings hope to the people of the region. She spoke of the Fulani people, who the star represents. They are divided by color and don't mix with each other, nor do Muslims usually marry Christians so this story is complicated in ways Westerners may not wholly understand. The topic, very near and dear to Apolline, may also not find a home with Burkino audiences. And there is something else close to her heart: portraying women as strong characters. Watch the Berlinale Meets interview with Apolline Traoré, director of Sira. "I simply have to give them a voice. Most of the time, they are portrayed as victims: People show women in refugee camps who have lost their fathers or husbands. But it's these same women who protect their children. Who have used dangerous escape routes to save them." Women, in fact, who have demonstrated how to survive. According to Traore, it is precisely these women who play a major role in the fight against the jihadists in Africa. Watch the discussion of women filmmakers in Africa here. Director and writer Apolline Traoré was born in 1976 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Her father's profession, a diplomat, led to her travelling the world. At the age of 17, her family moved to the United States and she began her studies at Emerson College in Boston, a well known institution in the field of art and communication. This is her fourth feature film. Its international sales agent (Isa) is Wide Management. TV5Monde has worldwide TV rights. Why isn't Wide pushing this film? 3. Art College 1994 directed by Jian Liu. Remember how much we cared about art, revolution and the world and had no idea about what life was like in college? So these students live lives of art until the real world enters their existence and they go their ways into real life. This captures the purpose and aimlessness of our college days. The animation itself is not only beautiful but the story makes you forget these are animated characters, so real they become as people. Isa: Memento 4. Kokomo City directed by D. Smith. One of the smallest subsets of a subset of society: sex workers who are black trans women with dicks and the men who love them. These are the ultimate of the street hos but the women on camera are elegant and eloquent. Able to have made small nests that seem safe, though life for such beings is always precarious, these women are further marginalized by the wives of the men who frequent their beds. They are rightfully proud of their achievements, having made a decent life from less than nothing and, while still remaining underground, their pride in themselves as queens of their domains elevates us as we witness their beauty. This is a documentary about life as very, very few of us will ever know or could have even imagined. It made a great impression in Sundance and when it showed at the Berlinale, it won the Panorama Audience Award. The director D. Smith, trans herself, makes her debut with this film but is a veteran of the music industry and a Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and songwriter. In encounters and interviews, D. Smith portrays four Black trans sex workers in New York and Georgia. The protagonists discuss their lives with relish and without any sugar-coating. The conversations that emerge are deep and passionate reflections on socio-political and social realities as well as perceptive analyses of belonging and identity within the Black community and beyond. The protagonists also tell us about their lovers, friends and families, and how these relationships are marked by taboos and fetishisation, and also by their own desires. This vibrant portrait gives them space for their uninhibited and defiant narratives. Interestingly, as each reaches a level of self-sustenance and comfort, they reflect and begin to imagine their next level of development which will take them beyond earning their livings so precariously as sex workers in a very dangerous milieu. These are the lucky ones, chosen, no doubt by D. Smith because they had reached levels of success and even love, something so many of us miss. International sales agent and U.S. distributor: Magnolia Films. Spain: Filmin. Scandinavia: NonStop. U.K.: Dogwoof 5. Der vermessene Mensch/ Measures of Men directed by Lars Krause (The People vs. Fritz Bauer) A Berlinale Special Screening. You could say this is a conventional period drama, but the place, in Namibia as a German colony is entirely unusual and extremely engrossing as it is witnessed through the eyes of a young idealistic ethnologist who doubts social Darwinism in favor of love. It tells a tale of genocide and is enacted by two very talented actors Leonard Scheicher (The Silent Revolution, TV series Das Boot)and Girley Charlene Jazama. Alexander Hoffmann is determined to continue the legacy of his father, a pioneering ethnologist. At university, he gets caught up in the maelstrom of the evolutionist race theory of the late 19th century. Hoffmann is disgusted by the measuring of skulls, which has no other purpose than to pseudo-scientifically legitimize the superiority of the white race - but he goes along with it. He wants to find counter-evidence and seeks contact with Kezia Kambazemi, the interpreter of a delegation of Nama and Herero in Berlin who have been forced to take part in a "peoples show". Shortly after the delegation leaves, an uprising against the German colonial power begins in what was then "German Southwest Africa". As an ethnologist, Hoffmann becomes a member of an expedition and travels all over the country under the protection of the imperial army in search of skulls - and of Kezia. Leonard Scheicher and Girley Jazama in Der vermessene MenschLars Kraume's topical film provides answers to some of today's most pressing questions for turn-of-the-century German history, such as why the first concentration camps were built in what is now Namibia and how so many Nama and Herero skulls ended up in German museums. Isa Picture Tree. Studio Canal has German rights. 6. Afire/ Roter Himmel directed by Christopher Petzold. My favorite German director brings us his favorite actress, Paula Beer, once again. The magical element of Transit or of Ondine is missing here as four young adults find their loves and their destinies on the Baltic coast of Germany as fires are raging. There is a humor…and sadness…and it is the Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. The story follows novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert), who has escaped the city with his friend Felix (Langston Uibel), intending to put the finishing touches on his second book. Instead, the two become romantically enmeshed with Nadja (Paula Beer), a literary scholar who spends the summer selling ice cream, and the local lifeguard Devid (Enno Trebs). Unlike the others, Leon cannot embrace the season's lighthearted self-abandonment. The raging fires lighting up the sky bring the entire entourage to a level of reality to be revealed to the viewer but not here. Enno Trebs, Langston Uibel, Paula Beer, and Thomas Schubert in Afire (2023)After acquiring Lila Avilés' Tótem at the Berlinale, Sideshow and Janus Films acquired up their second title, Christian Petzold's Afire, which will receive its theatrical release this summer. Great distributors! We'll watch for it! Isa: The Match Factory has sold the film to Australia/ N.Z. to Madman; Austria to Stadtkino; Baltics to A One; Benelux, Surinam, Dutch Antilles to September; Brazil to Imovision; Canada to Films We Like; Czech, Hungary and Slovakia to Vertigo; Denmark to Camera; Germany to Piffl; Greece to One from the Heart; Italy to Wanted; Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to ifa; Norway to Arthaus; Poland to Aurora; Romania to Independenta; Serbia to Five Stars; So. Korea to M&m; Spain to Filmin; Switzerland to Filmcoopi; Taiwan to Light Year Images; Turkey to Bir; USA to Sideshow and Janus. Read more of rights bought and sold in EFM here. 7. The Klezmer Project/ Adentro mio estoy bailando directed by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann. Premiering in the Encounters Competition, this is a suprising fun contemporary rom com, a film within a film and a concurrent folk tale about a young Argentinian man trying to win the love of an accomplished young musician who is also the daughter of a rabbi. He fakes making a music about the roots of klezmer and wins funding to make it from Austrian Broadcasting. As he travels to Ukraine and Moldovia, he and the crew find no remaining traces of Klezmer roots but we discover a lot about other local music roots while he gets to see his beloved. The film won the German Collection Society Gwff's Best First Feature Award with a cash prize of €50,000. Isa: Films Boutique. Austria is sold to Filmgarten. Another find for a U.S Distrib! Fabulous as in Fable! The Klezmer Project/ Adentro mio estoy bailando by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann8. Allensworth directed by James Benning. Apparently James Benning is well known because this Forum screening was sold out. And the Q&a was extensive. How the audience could sit still for one hour without moving (nor did the pictures move!) for tableaus of 12 buildings through 12 months of the year with two songs, "Blackbird" sung by Nina Simone, "In the Pines" sung by Huddie Ledbetter, and a Lucille Clifton poem read out by a someone with a special dress directly to camera was a shock to me. And by the end I was transfixed. What a great discovery and he is so close to my home! Allensworth by James Benning"Allensworth is about a lost town in California's Great Central Valley, built by and for Black Americans in the early 20th century. It was shot over a full year and positions the town in a veiled political and social context, hoping to bring attention to its historical importance."– James Benning Benning wants the story of Allensworth to be known; it is near where he lives in California's Tulare County, an unattractive part of Central Valley. Founded in 1908, Allensworth was the first independent Black governed municipality in California created in reaction to and migration from the restrictive Jim Crow laws of the South. As we pass through the year and around the settlement - a lonely tree before a winter sky, wood frame houses and a plain brick hotel from the early 20th century, passing trains heard-before-seen, elements of this specific heritage begin to accumulate as echoes in a place that is now a state park museum, a space for reflection as only cinema can make it, a place to think about what was, like the graveyard shown in the final shot. Allensworth faced racism and was closed down after 25 years, though as today's news of storms and flooding in California have made us aware, it does still exist and is still being victimized once again by the more powerful. See article on "Ugly deeds, politics and high drama swirl amid the waters of a re-emerging Tulare Lake": "Someone illegally cut the banks of Deer Creek in the middle of the night causing water to rush toward the tiny town of Allensworth." The Tulare County sheriff issued evacuation orders for the towns of Alpaugh and Allensworth. Sjv Water, an independent, nonprofit news site serving the San Joaquin Valley, reported that a levee was intentionally cut, sending floodwaters into the low-income rural area, as agricultural interests in the basin attempt to avoid what seems like inevitable flooding this spring. James Benning was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 1942 and has been acutely aware of racism all his life. He studied film and has been making films since 1972 and has created numerous art installations. Since 1977, he has been a frequent guest at Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded. He teaches at the California Institute of the Arts where, through his works, he continues to greatly influence younger generations of artists. One particularly important aspect of his oeuvre is his engagement with the American landscape and with racism engrained in the U.S. Using durational, fixed-frame shots, Benning's films often study nature and humankind's encroachment on the world. 9. I Heard it Through the Grapevine directed by Dick Fontaine. The title belies the story. Created by filmmaker Dick Fontaine who is well-known for his passion for music, this particular song has little to do with the story of James Baldwin on his return in 1957 from Paris to spend his last 20 years in the USA, although it does have an interesting history. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. Whitfield had started to write the song in Chicago, where the idea had come to him while walking down Michigan Avenue where people were always saying "I heard it through the grapevine". The phrase is associated with black slaves during the Civil War, who had their form of telegraph: the human grapevine. James and David BaldwinFontaine met James through his brother David Baldwin who had a New York jazz club. While this has the usual doc interviews and archival footage, the special use of music as the connective tissue makes this special. The soul's underpinning of Black society is related to the jazz musicians of that day, all of whom knew the Baldwin brothers in one way or another and were known by them. The documentary's urgency today as the loud emergence of white supremacy takes more and more of the stage and its viewpoint of 1980 when it was shot bares the roots of our society. Anything featuring James Baldwin should be seen by all who care about an equal and just society. It will be released theatrically in the U.S. in September 2023. 10. Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen/ Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything directed by Emily Atef. A farm on the East German-West German border that recently stopped being a border, in the summer of 1990. A young woman stays at the home of her boyfriend and discovers a neighbor, an older man, with whom she has a torrid romance. Having loved Emily Atef's Cannes competition film More Than Ever (2022) (See my blog), and having been impressed by 3 Days in Quiberon (2018), I was eager to see this. However, I found it reminiscent of French films made by middle aged male directors and could not find the feminist angle to the romance of the young woman and the older man. The ending, putting a coda of her looking back at this tragic romance as a mature writer, did not improve it for me. While I did not not enjoy it (I did), I was disappointed by it. 11. Ingebord Bachmann - Journey into the Desert directed by Margaret von Trotta, another of my favorite directors, also disappointed me. Depicting the relationship between well-known writers Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch, it meandered and I never saw Ingeborg, whose poetry I do not know, writing anything, only complaining about not being able to write. So sorry that the now 80 year old Margarete von Trotta, director of 27 films, did not make a more remarkable or memorable film this time, especially so since Vicky Krieps was playing Bachmann. After her star roles in Emily Atef's More than Ever and Corsage, both of which played in Cannes last year, this was especially disappointing. But maybe it is how Margarete herself felt during her years married to Volker Schlondorf. 12. Golda directed by Guy Nattiv. Another star turn for Helen Mirrin and another disappointment for me, the story of Golda Meir, as told and directed by Guy Nattiv, gave little background into the Yom Kippur War during her tenure but gave a lot of attention to Golda as she made decisions about the soldiers fighting which pained her as if she were their mother. I learned that she herself had no children and no husband and that she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation while directing the war. But for all that dramatic action, the movie was rather dull. I was also surprised to hear her real voice and that she had a completely American accent. There could have been more humor because she did have a well developed sense of humor, though these were the darkest days of Israel (up to that time). We face darker days now and there is no Golda Meir to mitigate matters. Helen Mirren as Golda MeirI also spent alot of time during the move trying to see Helen Mirren behind the prosthetics that made her look like Golda Meir. 13. A Golden live/ Or de vie directed by Boubacar Sangare. A slice of life look at young men (and some women) who, completely on their own, mine for gold in Burkino Faso. The documentarty centers on 16-year-old Rasmané, who barely seems like a teenager any more as he looks for a better future as he and other minors work in the 100 meter abyss of small scale mining to exhaustion, armed only with pickaxes to get the desired gold. 14. Joan Baez: I am a Noise directed by Karen O'Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O'Boyle. Baez allowed her trusted friend, filmmaker Karen O'Connor to delve into her archives which she could never approach herself. They are very well organized by diaries, audio tapes of her music and of her therapy sessions, art, home movies, papers. Intertwined is her 2018 Fare Thee Well final concert tour which was initially to be the focus of this film. But the archives allow her to talk of her father and some sexual childhood recollections and of her panic attacks, of the tragedy of her sister's death and of her love affairs (Dylan "broke my heart"), drugs and political activism. All this is impressive as her private life was rarely revealed during her 60 year career. Here she is shown as human; during her career she appeared more as a Saint Joan, or perhaps the Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. It was a relief to learn she has a human side and is compassionate with herself as with others. This Berlinale was the first film festival she ever attended. 15. On the Adamant directed by Nicolas Philibert is a crowd pleaser and enables the audience to come to understand and love the people who visit this day care center for the mentally ill which sits in a boat on the Seine in Paris. It won the Golden Bear this year. Frankly I was surprised that Kirsten Stewart and her jury awarded this feel-good movie top prize and completely ignored Past Lives, the most acclaimed and loved movie of the festival judging from all I have heard. 16. Why Try to Change Me Now directed by Dalei Zhang shows China from its early days of socialism in a factory quarter of town and grows with its characters into the more mechanized/ digitized factories of today. We know the child will become a sociopath if not a psychopath, though we only see the first three episodes of this engrossing TV series where a grisly murder upsets the working class apartment building inhabitants and will become more and more of a problem. This is a series I want to see! 17. Absence directed by Lang Wu is a beautiful meditation on society and its changes in China seen through the eyes of an ex-convict returning to society and the woman he loved then and still loves. As the returned ex-convict Han Jiangyu focuses his attention on the dead fish and the lobsters slowly dying on the grill, he asks his childhood friend Kei if the animals have a soul. Kei's restaurant business is booming. The island of Hainan, to which Jiangyu has returned after ten years in prison, has changed dramatically. It has become a flagship site of intensive housing construction - and therefore also a paradise for rip-offs and fraud. Jiangyu's old love now has a daughter, possibly his. Together with his central character - a marvellous performance from Lee Kang-Sheng, who even manages to crack a smile - debut director Wu Lang searches for traces of the old and familiar in the new. The camera captures his wanderings through various places with very little grandstanding but abundant sensitivity for people in spaces, relationships in limbo and societies in flux. Almost every shot is unexpected and seems unspectacular at first, yet the delicate way with which they unfold always contains, alongside visual precision, the urge to tell a story (without words), one such story being that every reunion is also a farewell. 18. Passages directed by Ira Sachs who lovingly and nonjudgmentally tells a story of an egocentric director and the lovers whose love he squanders. Very gay, very Ira Sachs. As Peter Debruge puts it, "captures the shrewd, soul-piercing quality we've come to expect from Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, who've now collaborated on five films together, resulting in the richest stretch of the director's career." Thought provoking and an enjoyable foray into the private lives of people we do not know. 19. Manodrome directed by John Trengove made me so nervous I wanted to leave, but I forced myself to stay because I thought the cruelty and non-consciousness it was portraying had something to tell me. And it did. Difficult as it was to watch, it was also mesmerizing. Adrien Brody playing a (crazy?) father figure cult leader to the lost and confused Ralphie, an Uber driver and amateur body builder played by Jesse Eisenberg made me squirm in my seat when he is inducted into a libertarian masculinity cult. Ralphie is a very, very angry young man who on Christmas was to become a father and whose own father abandoned him on Christmas. This is a violent and sad movie. The results of fathers leaving their children are the devastating consequences the children experience when they leave and which we see here. While male bonding and female hating are not my forte, the experience watching this movie reminded me of my feelings as I watched Taxi Driver. The feeling was anger that I was being manipulated against my will to watch something that made my stomach churn and I was unable to stop watching in spite of my disgust. South African director John Trengove's debut feature The Wound opened in Sundance and Berlin and was named "the most important LGBT film you will see in 2018" by i-d magazine. The controversial film, briefly banned in his home country went on to collect 28 international awards, including Best First Feature at the BFI London Film Festival and Best International Feature at Outfest and was shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar. John trained as an actor and studied film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His television miniseries Hopeville was awarded the Rose d'Or and received an International Emmy nomination. He has received 2 best director Safta's and an honorary award from the South African Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work on the drama series Swartwater. John lives between Johannesburg and São Paulo with his husband and filmmaker Marco Dutra. Manodrome is his second feature. International sales agent Capstone is selling it. 20. Silver Haze directed by Sacha Polak is a sort of a traditional British working class drama like I have not seen in several years. It is about Franky, 23 who, fifteen years after she got burnt when the pub where she slept as a child caught fire, she seeks revenge because she still hasn't found any answers. It is not Ken Loach nor is it Mike Leigh, but its working class milieu reminds me of them. The director and writer Sacha Polak was born on July 29, 1982 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is known for Dirty God (2019), Hemel (2012) and Silver Haze (2023). Isa New Europe Film Sales has licensed the film to Cineart for Benelux and The Jokers for France 21. Jacob the Liar directed by Frank Beyer was remade in 1999 starring Robin Williams. This original 1974 version takes place during World War II in a Jewish ghetto in Central Europe and tells about an ordinary inhabitant who fakes news about Allied offensives to inspire hope for other victims of the Nazi regime. Jacob the Liar was the winner of Silver Bear at the Berlinale 1975 and nominated for Oscar in 1977. Director Frank Beyer worked as a director for the East German film studio Defa since 1958 and received numerous decorations for his work until his film Trace of Stones in 1966 was immediately banned in the Gdr. As a consequence he worked only for a period of about 10 years. In 1991 he received the Bundes Film Prize for his complete works in the reunified Germany. 22. Blackberry directed by Matt Johnson is a straightforward story about a smart man who cannot change his ways, thus bringing the Blackberry cel phone into prominence and thereby losing its pre-eminence. Isa XYZ sold Blackberry to Paramount Global Content for all international rights except for US which is owned by IFC, Canada by Elevation, Mena by Falcon, Scandinavia by NonStop and Skeye for Airlines.
- 4/9/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
We think the market is bouncing back. The streamers are no longer hogging the good films financed by international sales agents and distributors, international and national as well as regional film funds; they are now creating their own content, buying less. There are many new indie projects and new international sales agents. Now if only the theatrical venues would fill up again, all would be well. We wait word from the European Film Market itself to know more than anecdotally how the sales agents fared. But anecdotally, it went pretty well. You can read my Rights Roundup next up soon. Sales agents reported buyers were still very selective, while pre-sales on all but the most alluring commercial packages with name cast and director remain a tough proposition. Acquisitions teams looking for special films to fill slots in 2024 were prepared to wait until a completed feature was ready to watch. Ticket sales for this year’s Berlinale 2023 totaled 320,000 by the time the festival closed on Sunday (February 26). This figure is close to pre-pandemic levels where the 2020 edition reached 330,000 tickets. Sales were up 105% from last year’s festival which sold 156,472 tickets — though seating capacity was reduced by 50% due to Covid-19 restrictions. Berlinale also confirmed the 74th edition will take place February 15–25, 2024. It will be Co-Director of the Berlinale Marietta Rissenbeck’s last year. In addition to the public, this year’s festival saw 20,000 accredited professionals from 132 countries in attendance, including 2,800 media representatives, while the Berlinale Co-Production Market organized 1,500 meetings. Eliminated this year were festival delegates and programmers from EFM accreditation. The European Film Market (EFM), which finished on February 22, reported a record number of attendees at 11,500+ — up from the previous record of 11,423 in 2020, the last year of an on-site EFM. There were 230 stands at this year’s market across the Martin Groppius Bau and Marriott Hotel sites, up from 203 in 2020; with 612 companies exhibiting, an increase of 8.5% from 2020’s 564. The 612 companies originated from 78 countries, with the market participants hailing from 132 countries. The biggest increase of 57.9% was in the number of screenings, from 971 to 1,533, although this is partly explained by the 647 online screenings which took place this year. 599 of the screenings were market premieres. The number of films was up too, with 773 compared to 732 three years ago. The total number of buyers was up to 1,302. Costs are also up. Great govenment support from normal 35% of the budget to $2.3m, 45% of the budget for the Berlinale! Racism debate …Norwegian black face animated character causes film to be pulled from opening the section ___…The President of the European Film Academy, Matthijs Wouter Knol resigns his position at the Anti-Racism Taskforce Artef, citing a conflict of interest between his two positions…is it the job of the Anti-Racism Taskforce to tell a festival what it can/ should or should not show? Who is deciding what is racist and what is Ok? How to find dis-interested judges? Let me be the judge. I have long experience with racism and racist and other exclusionary policies and being from the USA, I have no professional interests in the European Film Industry. And being so-called white and Jewish, my perspective is not only one race that I am particularly vested in. My credentials attest to my multi-racial preferences as I have dealt with every race throughout my professional and private life. Put me on a committee with an outside Asian, an outside African, an outside Middle Easterner and an outside Latinx and we will be set. Ties cannot happen and festivals are always free to program what they deem worthy of conversation and debate. Carlo Chatrian, artistic director, and Mariette Rissenbeek, executive director, of the Berlin International Film Festival, reflect…This is taken verbatim from Screen: You decided to pull the first screening of Norwegian director Rasmus A. Sivertsen’s animated film Just Super in Generation KPlus after the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film (Artef) contacted the festival outlining concerns “about the film’s depictions of Blackface and animalisation of Black people” to give yourselves time to work out how to proceed. Subsequent screenings went ahead with a disclaimer printed at the entrance of each cinema showing the film contextualising the concerns “so as to avoid potentially harming any viewers”. Chatrian: It is very telling that the way one film is seen by one community or one group of people is not an absolute truth. The film was released in Norway and seen by hundreds of thousands of people. A film is always an encounter between you, us, the viewer, and the film itself. It changes all the time. When did both of you see first see the film? Chatrian: In this case I saw the film after it was selected. The film was selected by Generations. For me it was more about the animation style so I didn’t see the film in its entirety before it was selected. I saw it afterwards. But that’s not the point. It’s not because I haven’t seen it. It’s about embracing all the different points of view. And that’s part of the process. A film festival like Berlin is great as we gather a global community. It’s important to say the first screening was pulled in agreement with the [production] company. Even if one single viewer feels offended by some images we have to take this concern seriously. We cannot say, ‘they read something that is not there’. When it comes to feeling you can not judge feeling. If you feel hurt, simply you feel hurt. In the end we took the right decision. The second screening took place. The filmmaker was there and introduced the film, the audience was informed so we could go with our conscience clear. We said the film might be perceived in the way that the filmmaker didn’t want to. Rissenbeek: If you don’t have a certain history yourself you just might not be aware of what could be an unconscious implication of the film. It’s a very thin line. Will you make any change to the processes of the programming team? As you say, Artef saw something that hadn’t been seen by the Norwegian audiences, the programming team, even the press who had seen the film earlier Chatrian: For sure. The problem in this case was the timing was so short [between the concerns raised by Artef and the first public screening]. At the same time we have to accept mistakes can happen on both sides. And then we have to learn from this mistake or use this mistake as an opportunity to talk about it. We could have used it as an opportunity to explain that a film can be seen differently. Did you receive any feedback from audiences after issuing the disclaimer? Rissenbeek: We didn’t get any feedback from audiences after the film. Chatrian: We prepared the teachers so we know some teachers decided to go with their class and do some special work on that. Other reflections on this year’s festival, their personal highlights, handling a difficult situation and what they would like their legacies to be can be read here sin Screen International. My particular professional entry into this Berlinale was through two doorways. One was through a group I have been working with for the past three years, since meeting the innovator Millie Zhou on a tour I was conducting of the Berlin Market several years ago. Zhou is a young Chinese film entrepreneur(esse?) living in London. Her business partner Zixi (Cc) Zhang is a young Chinese film business entrepreneurse (?) living in Beijing. Under the mentorship of the producer Angus Finney and the Cambridge University Business School where he is a professor, each year they bring a group of emerging Chinese filmmakers living both inside and outside of China to Berlin and to Cannes. Angus and I and others share views of the film business today. We find our own views on films are shaped further by theirs; we exchange so much about cultures and visions that I am always engaged. And this year I learned so much from the participants and from Angus Finney and Simon Crowe, the international sales agent whose specialty is animation and family films. The other doorway I entered was by way of the Canadian Media Fund and Hot Docs who sent a delegation of Bipoc (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and 2Slgbtq+ (2 Spirit is the Indigenous term covering the spectrum of male-female sexual identity, LGBTQ+ has become familiar to most people by now) filmmakers to the EFM. Another tour was of the Canadian Media Fund staff, Tamara Dawitt, outgoing VP of Growth & Inclusion and Marcia Douglas incoming VP of Growth & Inclusion along with Carol Anne Pilon the Ed of the Association of Francophone Producers (an org which supports French producers living outside of Quebec). Carol Anne attended EFM to explore opportunities for her membership. When the first five days with the two groups were finished, though I was exhausted and though the weather was cold, cold, cold, gray, rainy, and windy, I was still up for running between East and West Berlin screenings. I caught the Opening Night film, Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me, produced by Christine Vachon among others and in all, I saw 22 films. A good number. Of them, my favorites were Sira, Art College 1994 , Kokomo City, Der Vergessener Mensch, Roter Himmel, Adentro mio, and most surprisingly, Allensworth. Here they are with my little encapsulated takes on them. She Came To Me directed by Rebecca Miller. A sweet, positive story of love and creativity. Anne Hathaway is a brilliant comedienne! And Marisa Tomei is no slack either. Peter Dinklidge plays it straight and everything ends happily. Produced by Killer Films and international sales by Protagonist, two of the best names in the business, Benelux rights are with Belga, France’s are with Originals Factory, Japan’s are with Shochiku. Peter Dinklidge plays it straight 2. Sira directed by Apolline Traoré. Panorama Audience Award for best feature, Sira tells the story of a young nomad named Sira who refuses to surrender to her fate without a fight and instead takes a stand against Islamist terror. This is a great film to pick up and is still available for U.S.! Contact international sales agent Wide. This is a story of a real female warrior set today in Sahel, the region that stretches across the north of sub-Saharan Africa. Boku Haram kidnaps and rapes a 17 year old on a caravan going with her nomadic Fulani family to her wedding with the son of a farming family. We see Boku Haram’s other young women kidnapped from schools to use as sex slaves, breeders and servants hopelessly trapped, but she survives and in the end, carries the day. Music by Cyril Morin is, as all his music, unique and perfectly fitted to the film. This coproduction of Burkina Faso, France, Germany and Senegal runs a bit long at 122 minutes but its heart is pure as it traces the fight to survive by this Fulani woman. At the Berlinale party, Jacqueline Lyanga, the Berlinale’s new U.S. delegate programmer introduced me to the producers Verena Kurz and Sara Boekemeyer of Sira who live in Berlin. They work with the Twkvers’ company in Kenya. In 2008, Tom Tykwer and Marie Steinmann-Tykwer founded the production company Some Fine Day Pix, to give young African filmmakers the opportunity to create their own films. This film will surely get Kenya’s push for Academy Award nomination. The problem will then be finding strong enough publicity on their shoestring budget to get it seen widely enough to be shortlisted, which it clearly deserves. Perhaps the below-the-radar Academy campaign of Andrea Riseborough for her role in To Leslie can offer some lessons and perhaps a U.S. distributor will pick up the film and make a decent campaign for it. The film went on to Burkino Faso where it played in Fespaco, Africa’s top film festival and its oldest, founded in 1969. Since the bi-annual festival was last held in 2021 the West African nation has had to deal with the political fallout from two coups within eight months and spiraling violence driven by groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State. In BerlinApolline Traoré spoke so eloquently to the audience afterward that they did not want to let her go but were forced to leave the theater so the next film could play. She began this film eight years ago. Five countries are still being terrorized by Boku Haram: Nigeria, Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. Only Mauritania has rid itself of them. She hopes that this tale of resistance brings hope to the people of the region. She spoke of the Fulani people, who the star represents. They are divided by color and don’t mix with each other, nor do Muslims usually marry Christians so this story is complicated in ways Westerners may not wholly understand. The topic, very near and dear to Apolline, may also not find a home with Burkino audiences. And there is something else close to her heart: portraying women as strong characters. Watch the Berlinale Meets interview with Apolline Traoré, director of Sira. “I simply have to give them a voice. Most of the time, they are portrayed as victims: People show women in refugee camps who have lost their fathers or husbands. But it’s these same women who protect their children. Who have used dangerous escape routes to save them.” Women, in fact, who have demonstrated how to survive. According to Traore, it is precisely these women who play a major role in the fight against the jihadists in Africa. Watch the discussion of women filmmakers in Africa here. Director and writer Apolline Traoré was born in 1976 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Her father’s profession, a diplomat, led to her travelling the world. At the age of 17, her family moved to the United States and she began her studies at Emerson College in Boston, a well known institution in the field of art and communication. This is her fourth feature film. Its international sales agent (Isa) is Wide Management. TV5Monde has worldwide TV rights. Why isn’t Wide pushing this film? 3. Art College 1994 directed by Jian Liu. Remember how much we cared about art, revolution and the world and had no idea about what life was like in college? So these students live lives of art until the real world enters their existence and they go their ways into real life. This captures the purpose and aimlessness of our college days. The animation itself is not only beautiful but the story makes you forget these are animated characters, so real they become as people. Isa: Memento 4. Kokomo City directed by D. Smith. One of the smallest subsets of a subset of society: sex workers who are black trans women with dicks and the men who love them. These are the ultimate of the street hos but the women on camera are elegant and eloquent. Able to have made small nests that seem safe, though life for such beings is always precarious, these women are further marginalized by the wives of the men who frequent their beds. They are rightfully proud of their achievements, having made a decent life from less than nothing and, while still remaining underground, their pride in themselves as queens of their domains elevates us as we witness their beauty. This is a documentary about life as very, very few of us will ever know or could have even imagined. It made a great impression in Sundance and when it showed at the Berlinale, it won the Panorama Audience Award. The director D. Smith, trans herself, makes her debut with this film but is a veteran of the music industry and a Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and songwriter. In encounters and interviews, D. Smith portrays four Black trans sex workers in New York and Georgia. The protagonists discuss their lives with relish and without any sugar-coating. The conversations that emerge are deep and passionate reflections on socio-political and social realities as well as perceptive analyses of belonging and identity within the Black community and beyond. The protagonists also tell us about their lovers, friends and families, and how these relationships are marked by taboos and fetishisation, and also by their own desires. This vibrant portrait gives them space for their uninhibited and defiant narratives. Interestingly, as each reaches a level of self-sustenance and comfort, they reflect and begin to imagine their next level of development which will take them beyond earning their livings so precariously as sex workers in a very dangerous milieu. These are the lucky ones, chosen, no doubt by D. Smith because they had reached levels of success and even love, something so many of us miss. International sales agent and U.S. distributor: Magnolia Films. Spain: Filmin. Scandinavia: NonStop. U.K.: Dogwoof 5. Der vermessene Mensch/ Measures of Men directed by Lars Krause (The People vs. Fritz Bauer) A Berlinale Special Screening. You could say this is a conventional period drama, but the place, in Namibia as a German colony is entirely unusual and extremely engrossing as it is witnessed through the eyes of a young idealistic ethnologist who doubts social Darwinism in favor of love. It tells a tale of genocide and is enacted by two very talented actors Leonard Scheicher (The Silent Revolution, TV series Das Boot)and Girley Charlene Jazama. Alexander Hoffmann is determined to continue the legacy of his father, a pioneering ethnologist. At university, he gets caught up in the maelstrom of the evolutionist race theory of the late 19th century. Hoffmann is disgusted by the measuring of skulls, which has no other purpose than to pseudo-scientifically legitimize the superiority of the white race — but he goes along with it. He wants to find counter-evidence and seeks contact with Kezia Kambazemi, the interpreter of a delegation of Nama and Herero in Berlin who have been forced to take part in a “peoples show”. Shortly after the delegation leaves, an uprising against the German colonial power begins in what was then “German Southwest Africa”. As an ethnologist, Hoffmann becomes a member of an expedition and travels all over the country under the protection of the imperial army in search of skulls — and of Kezia. Leonard Scheicher and Girley Jazama in Der vermessene Mensch Lars Kraume’s topical film provides answers to some of today’s most pressing questions for turn-of-the-century German history, such as why the first concentration camps were built in what is now Namibia and how so many Nama and Herero skulls ended up in German museums. Isa Picture Tree. Studio Canal has German rights. 6. Afire/ Roter Himmel directed by Christopher Petzold. My favorite German director brings us his favorite actress, Paula Beer, once again. The magical element of Transit or of Ondine is missing here as four young adults find their loves and their destinies on the Baltic coast of Germany as fires are raging. There is a humor…and sadness…and it is the Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. The story follows novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert), who has escaped the city with his friend Felix (Langston Uibel), intending to put the finishing touches on his second book. Instead, the two become romantically enmeshed with Nadja (Paula Beer), a literary scholar who spends the summer selling ice cream, and the local lifeguard Devid (Enno Trebs). Unlike the others, Leon cannot embrace the season’s lighthearted self-abandonment. The raging fires lighting up the sky bring the entire entourage to a level of reality to be revealed to the viewer but not here. Enno Trebs, Langston Uibel, Paula Beer, and Thomas Schubert in Afire (2023) After acquiring Lila Avilés’ Tótem at the Berlinale, Sideshow and Janus Films acquired up their second title, Christian Petzold’s Afire, which will receive its theatrical release this summer. Great distributors! We’ll watch for it! Isa: The Match Factory has sold the film to Australia/ N.Z. to Madman; Austria to Stadtkino; Baltics to A One; Benelux, Surinam, Dutch Antilles to September; Brazil to Imovision; Canada to Films We Like; Czech, Hungary and Slovakia to Vertigo; Denmark to Camera; Germany to Piffl; Greece to One from the Heart; Italy to Wanted; Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to ifa; Norway to Arthaus; Poland to Aurora; Romania to Independenta; Serbia to Five Stars; So. Korea to M&m; Spain to Filmin; Switzerland to Filmcoopi; Taiwan to Light Year Images; Turkey to Bir; USA to Sideshow and Janus. Read more of rights bought and sold in EFM here. 7. The Klezmer Project/ Adentro mio estoy bailando directed by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann. Premiering in the Encounters Competition, this is a suprising fun contemporary rom com, a film within a film and a concurrent folk tale about a young Argentinian man trying to win the love of an accomplished young musician who is also the daughter of a rabbi. He fakes making a music about the roots of klezmer and wins funding to make it from Austrian Broadcasting. As he travels to Ukraine and Moldovia, he and the crew find no remaining traces of Klezmer roots but we discover a lot about other local music roots while he gets to see his beloved. The film won the German Collection Society Gwff’s Best First Feature Award with a cash prize of €50,000. Isa: Films Boutique. Austria is sold to Filmgarten. Another find for a U.S Distrib! Fabulous as in Fable! The Klezmer Project/ Adentro mio estoy bailando by Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann 8. Allensworth directed by James Benning. Apparently James Benning is well known because this Forum screening was sold out. And the Q&a was extensive. How the audience could sit still for one hour without moving (nor did the pictures move!) for tableaus of 12 buildings through 12 months of the year with two songs, “Blackbird” sung by Nina Simone, “In the Pines” sung by Huddie Ledbetter, and a Lucille Clifton poem read out by a someone with a special dress directly to camera was a shock to me. And by the end I was transfixed. What a great discovery and he is so close to my home! Allensworth by James Benning “Allensworth is about a lost town in California’s Great Central Valley, built by and for Black Americans in the early 20th century. It was shot over a full year and positions the town in a veiled political and social context, hoping to bring attention to its historical importance.”– James Benning Benning wants the story of Allensworth to be known; it is near where he lives in California’s Tulare County, an unattractive part of Central Valley. Founded in 1908, Allensworth was the first independent Black governed municipality in California created in reaction to and migration from the restrictive Jim Crow laws of the South. As we pass through the year and around the settlement — a lonely tree before a winter sky, wood frame houses and a plain brick hotel from the early 20th century, passing trains heard-before-seen, elements of this specific heritage begin to accumulate as echoes in a place that is now a state park museum, a space for reflection as only cinema can make it, a place to think about what was, like the graveyard shown in the final shot. Allensworth faced racism and was closed down after 25 years, though as today’s news of storms and flooding in California have made us aware, it does still exist and is still being victimized once again by the more powerful. See article on “Ugly deeds, politics and high drama swirl amid the waters of a re-emerging Tulare Lake”: “Someone illegally cut the banks of Deer Creek in the middle of the night causing water to rush toward the tiny town of Allensworth.” The Tulare County sheriff issued evacuation orders for the towns of Alpaugh and Allensworth. Sjv Water, an independent, nonprofit news site serving the San Joaquin Valley, reported that a levee was intentionally cut, sending floodwaters into the low-income rural area, as agricultural interests in the basin attempt to avoid what seems like inevitable flooding this spring. James Benning was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 1942 and has been acutely aware of racism all his life. He studied film and has been making films since 1972 and has created numerous art installations. Since 1977, he has been a frequent guest at Berlinale Forum and Forum Expanded. He teaches at the California Institute of the Arts where, through his works, he continues to greatly influence younger generations of artists. One particularly important aspect of his oeuvre is his engagement with the American landscape and with racism engrained in the U.S. Using durational, fixed-frame shots, Benning’s films often study nature and humankind’s encroachment on the world. 9. I Heard it Through the Grapevine directed by Dick Fontaine. The title belies the story. Created by filmmaker Dick Fontaine who is well-known for his passion for music, this particular song has little to do with the story of James Baldwin on his return in 1957 from Paris to spend his last 20 years in the USA, although it does have an interesting history. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. Whitfield had started to write the song in Chicago, where the idea had come to him while walking down Michigan Avenue where people were always saying “I heard it through the grapevine”. The phrase is associated with black slaves during the Civil War, who had their form of telegraph: the human grapevine. James and David Baldwin Fontaine met James through his brother David Baldwin who had a New York jazz club. While this has the usual doc interviews and archival footage, the special use of music as the connective tissue makes this special. The soul’s underpinning of Black society is related to the jazz musicians of that day, all of whom knew the Baldwin brothers in one way or another and were known by them. The documentary’s urgency today as the loud emergence of white supremacy takes more and more of the stage and its viewpoint of 1980 when it was shot bares the roots of our society. Anything featuring James Baldwin should be seen by all who care about an equal and just society. It will be released theatrically in the U.S. in September 2023. 10. Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen/ Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything directed by Emily Atef. A farm on the East German-West German border that recently stopped being a border, in the summer of 1990. A young woman stays at the home of her boyfriend and discovers a neighbor, an older man, with whom she has a torrid romance. Having loved Emily Atef’s Cannes competition film More Than Ever (2022) (See my blog), and having been impressed by 3 Days in Quiberon (2018), I was eager to see this. However, I found it reminiscent of French films made by middle aged male directors and could not find the feminist angle to the romance of the young woman and the older man. The ending, putting a coda of her looking back at this tragic romance as a mature writer, did not improve it for me. While I did not not enjoy it (I did), I was disappointed by it. 11. Ingebord Bachmann — Journey into the Desert directed by Margaret von Trotta, another of my favorite directors, also disappointed me. Depicting the relationship between well-known writers Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch, it meandered and I never saw Ingeborg, whose poetry I do not know, writing anything, only complaining about not being able to write. So sorry that the now 80 year old Margarete von Trotta, director of 27 films, did not make a more remarkable or memorable film this time, especially so since Vicky Krieps was playing Bachmann. After her star roles in Emily Atef’s More than Ever and Corsage, both of which played in Cannes last year, this was especially disappointing. But maybe it is how Margarete herself felt during her years married to Volker Schlondorf. 12. Golda directed by Guy Nattiv. Another star turn for Helen Mirrin and another disappointment for me, the story of Golda Meir, as told and directed by Guy Nattiv, gave little background into the Yom Kippur War during her tenure but gave a lot of attention to Golda as she made decisions about the soldiers fighting which pained her as if she were their mother. I learned that she herself had no children and no husband and that she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation while directing the war. But for all that dramatic action, the movie was rather dull. I was also surprised to hear her real voice and that she had a completely American accent. There could have been more humor because she did have a well developed sense of humor, though these were the darkest days of Israel (up to that time). We face darker days now and there is no Golda Meir to mitigate matters. Helen Mirren as Golda Meir I also spent alot of time during the move trying to see Helen Mirren behind the prosthetics that made her look like Golda Meir. 13. A Golden live/ Or de vie directed by Boubacar Sangare. A slice of life look at young men (and some women) who, completely on their own, mine for gold in Burkino Faso. The documentarty centers on 16-year-old Rasmané, who barely seems like a teenager any more as he looks for a better future as he and other minors work in the 100 meter abyss of small scale mining to exhaustion, armed only with pickaxes to get the desired gold. 14. Joan Baez: I am a Noise directed by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O’Boyle. Baez allowed her trusted friend, filmmaker Karen O’Connor to delve into her archives which she could never approach herself. They are very well organized by diaries, audio tapes of her music and of her therapy sessions, art, home movies, papers. Intertwined is her 2018 Fare Thee Well final concert tour which was initially to be the focus of this film. But the archives allow her to talk of her father and some sexual childhood recollections and of her panic attacks, of the tragedy of her sister’s death and of her love affairs (Dylan “broke my heart”), drugs and political activism. All this is impressive as her private life was rarely revealed during her 60 year career. Here she is shown as human; during her career she appeared more as a Saint Joan, or perhaps the Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. It was a relief to learn she has a human side and is compassionate with herself as with others. This Berlinale was the first film festival she ever attended. 15. On the Adamant directed by Nicolas Philibert is a crowd pleaser and enables the audience to come to understand and love the people who visit this day care center for the mentally ill which sits in a boat on the Seine in Paris. It won the Golden Bear this year. Frankly I was surprised that Kirsten Stewart and her jury awarded this feel-good movie top prize and completely ignored Past Lives, the most acclaimed and loved movie of the festival judging from all I have heard. 16. Why Try to Change Me Now directed by Dalei Zhang shows China from its early days of socialism in a factory quarter of town and grows with its characters into the more mechanized/ digitized factories of today. We know the child will become a sociopath if not a psychopath, though we only see the first three episodes of this engrossing TV series where a grisly murder upsets the working class apartment building inhabitants and will become more and more of a problem. This is a series I want to see! 17. Absence directed by Lang Wu is a beautiful meditation on society and its changes in China seen through the eyes of an ex-convict returning to society and the woman he loved then and still loves. As the returned ex-convict Han Jiangyu focuses his attention on the dead fish and the lobsters slowly dying on the grill, he asks his childhood friend Kei if the animals have a soul. Kei’s restaurant business is booming. The island of Hainan, to which Jiangyu has returned after ten years in prison, has changed dramatically. It has become a flagship site of intensive housing construction — and therefore also a paradise for rip-offs and fraud. Jiangyu’s old love now has a daughter, possibly his. Together with his central character — a marvellous performance from Lee Kang-Sheng, who even manages to crack a smile — debut director Wu Lang searches for traces of the old and familiar in the new. The camera captures his wanderings through various places with very little grandstanding but abundant sensitivity for people in spaces, relationships in limbo and societies in flux. Almost every shot is unexpected and seems unspectacular at first, yet the delicate way with which they unfold always contains, alongside visual precision, the urge to tell a story (without words), one such story being that every reunion is also a farewell. 18. Passages directed by Ira Sachs who lovingly and nonjudgmentally tells a story of an egocentric director and the lovers whose love he squanders. Very gay, very Ira Sachs. As Peter Debruge puts it, “captures the shrewd, soul-piercing quality we’ve come to expect from Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, who’ve now collaborated on five films together, resulting in the richest stretch of the director’s career.” Thought provoking and an enjoyable foray into the private lives of people we do not know. 19. Manodrome directed by John Trengove made me so nervous I wanted to leave, but I forced myself to stay because I thought the cruelty and non-consciousness it was portraying had something to tell me. And it did. Difficult as it was to watch, it was also mesmerizing. Adrien Brody playing a (crazy?) father figure cult leader to the lost and confused Ralphie, an Uber driver and amateur body builder played by Jesse Eisenberg made me squirm in my seat when he is inducted into a libertarian masculinity cult. Ralphie is a very, very angry young man who on Christmas was to become a father and whose own father abandoned him on Christmas. This is a violent and sad movie. The results of fathers leaving their children are the devastating consequences the children experience when they leave and which we see here. While male bonding and female hating are not my forte, the experience watching this movie reminded me of my feelings as I watched Taxi Driver. The feeling was anger that I was being manipulated against my will to watch something that made my stomach churn and I was unable to stop watching in spite of my disgust. South African director John Trengove’s debut feature The Wound opened in Sundance and Berlin and was named “the most important LGBT film you will see in 2018” by i-d magazine. The controversial film, briefly banned in his home country went on to collect 28 international awards, including Best First Feature at the BFI London Film Festival and Best International Feature at Outfest and was shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar. John trained as an actor and studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His television miniseries Hopeville was awarded the Rose d’Or and received an International Emmy nomination. He has received 2 best director Safta’s and an honorary award from the South African Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work on the drama series Swartwater. John lives between Johannesburg and São Paulo with his husband and filmmaker Marco Dutra. Manodrome is his second feature. International sales agent Capstone is selling it. 20. Silver Haze directed by Sacha Polak is a sort of a traditional British working class drama like I have not seen in several years. It is about Franky, 23 who, fifteen years after she got burnt when the pub where she slept as a child caught fire, she seeks revenge because she still hasn’t found any answers. It is not Ken Loach nor is it Mike Leigh, but its working class milieu reminds me of them. The director and writer Sacha Polak was born on July 29, 1982 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is known for Dirty God (2019), Hemel (2012) and Silver Haze (2023). Isa New Europe Film Sales has licensed the film to Cineart for Benelux and The Jokers for France 21. Jacob the Liar directed by Frank Beyer was remade in 1999 starring Robin Williams. This original 1974 version takes place during World War II in a Jewish ghetto in Central Europe and tells about an ordinary inhabitant who fakes news about Allied offensives to inspire hope for other victims of the Nazi regime. Jacob the Liar was the winner of Silver Bear at the Berlinale 1975 and nominated for Oscar in 1977. Director Frank Beyer worked as a director for the East German film studio Defa since 1958 and received numerous decorations for his work until his film Trace of Stones in 1966 was immediately banned in the Gdr. As a consequence he worked only for a period of about 10 years. In 1991 he received the Bundes Film Prize for his complete works in the reunified Germany. 22. Blackberry directed by Matt Johnson is a straightforward story about a smart man who cannot change his ways, thus bringing the Blackberry cel phone into prominence and thereby losing its pre-eminence. Isa XYZ sold Blackberry to Paramount Global Content for all international rights except for US which is owned by IFC, Canada by Elevation, Mena by Falcon, Scandinavia by NonStop and Skeye for Airlines.
- 4/6/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Senior execs will step down later this year.
Three senior executives at the UK’s BFI Film Fund, editor-at-large Lizzie Francke, head of production Fiona Morham, and head of editorial Natascha Wharton, will step down later this year.
The trio has helped to lead the BFI’s National Lottery funding for the development and production of UK films, and supported films including Rye Lane, Aftersun, Girl, Triangle Of Sadness and Rocks.
The news comes ahead of details of the latest iteration of the fund, to be announced tomorrow (Tuesday March 20), which forms part of Screen Culture 2033, the BFI’s 10-year strategy.
Three senior executives at the UK’s BFI Film Fund, editor-at-large Lizzie Francke, head of production Fiona Morham, and head of editorial Natascha Wharton, will step down later this year.
The trio has helped to lead the BFI’s National Lottery funding for the development and production of UK films, and supported films including Rye Lane, Aftersun, Girl, Triangle Of Sadness and Rocks.
The news comes ahead of details of the latest iteration of the fund, to be announced tomorrow (Tuesday March 20), which forms part of Screen Culture 2033, the BFI’s 10-year strategy.
- 3/20/2023
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Senior execs will step down later this year.
Three senior executives at the UK’s BFI Film Fund, editor-at-large Lizzie Francke, head of production Fiona Morham, and head of editorial Natascha Wharton, will step down later this year.
The trio has helped to lead the BFI’s National Lottery funding for the development and production of UK films, and supported films including Rye Lane, Aftersun, Girl, Triangle Of Sadness and Rocks.
The news comes ahead of details of the latest iteration of the fund, to be announced tomorrow (Tuesday March 20), which forms part of Screen Culture 2033, the BFI’s 10-year strategy.
Three senior executives at the UK’s BFI Film Fund, editor-at-large Lizzie Francke, head of production Fiona Morham, and head of editorial Natascha Wharton, will step down later this year.
The trio has helped to lead the BFI’s National Lottery funding for the development and production of UK films, and supported films including Rye Lane, Aftersun, Girl, Triangle Of Sadness and Rocks.
The news comes ahead of details of the latest iteration of the fund, to be announced tomorrow (Tuesday March 20), which forms part of Screen Culture 2033, the BFI’s 10-year strategy.
- 3/20/2023
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Wouter Knol said he was keen to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest charges.
Matthijs Wouter Knol, director of the European Film Academy (Efa), has stepped down as one of three directors of anti-racism taskforce Artef, following the latter group’s criticism of Norwegian animation Just Super over alleged Blackface, which led to the withdrawal of the film’s international premiere at the Berlinale.
Wouter Knol stepped down both from his Artef director role and the nine-member steering group “with immediate effect” on March 11, according to Efa.
“I hope that any perceived conflict of interest will be eliminated by this action,...
Matthijs Wouter Knol, director of the European Film Academy (Efa), has stepped down as one of three directors of anti-racism taskforce Artef, following the latter group’s criticism of Norwegian animation Just Super over alleged Blackface, which led to the withdrawal of the film’s international premiere at the Berlinale.
Wouter Knol stepped down both from his Artef director role and the nine-member steering group “with immediate effect” on March 11, according to Efa.
“I hope that any perceived conflict of interest will be eliminated by this action,...
- 3/20/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Belarusian filmmakers and industry professionals gathered in Berlin on Friday to announce the launch of the Belarusian Film Academy (BIFA), an organization formed to give a platform to independent filmmakers in the repressive former Soviet republic and staunch Kremlin ally.
Born in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when more than 130 Belarusian filmmakers signed a collective statement condemning the unprovoked act of aggression, the academy was created to “solidify, unite and support” their voices, according to co-founder Volia Chajkouskaya.
“Living under state censorship and control, we have been searching for ways to unite for a long time,” said Chajkouskaya, a producer, director and founder of the Northern Lights Film Festival. “Since [the start of the Ukraine war], we all continued to face challenges individually and felt that we should unite in solidarity to form a unified front.”
The Belarusian Film Academy’s founding members are Chajkouskaya; director Aliaksei Paluyan, whose 2021 documentary “Courage” (pictured) played in Berlin; Darya Zhuk,...
Born in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when more than 130 Belarusian filmmakers signed a collective statement condemning the unprovoked act of aggression, the academy was created to “solidify, unite and support” their voices, according to co-founder Volia Chajkouskaya.
“Living under state censorship and control, we have been searching for ways to unite for a long time,” said Chajkouskaya, a producer, director and founder of the Northern Lights Film Festival. “Since [the start of the Ukraine war], we all continued to face challenges individually and felt that we should unite in solidarity to form a unified front.”
The Belarusian Film Academy’s founding members are Chajkouskaya; director Aliaksei Paluyan, whose 2021 documentary “Courage” (pictured) played in Berlin; Darya Zhuk,...
- 2/17/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
New films by Zhuk, Paluyan and Kutsila among 17 projects to be presented in Belarus showcase at Film Academy launch on Friday.
New films by Darya Zhuk, Aliaksei Paluyan and Andrei Kustila are among 17 upcoming fiction and documentary projects by independent Belarusian filmmakers to be presented at the launch of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy at the EFM this morning.
Zhuk’s Until This Summer, which was one of the projects pitched at the 2021 edition of Connecting Cottbus East-West co-production market, follows three female protagonists whose paths overlap during one day in August 2020 which dramatically shifted the public’s perception of the ruling regime as unjust.
New films by Darya Zhuk, Aliaksei Paluyan and Andrei Kustila are among 17 upcoming fiction and documentary projects by independent Belarusian filmmakers to be presented at the launch of the Belarusian Independent Film Academy at the EFM this morning.
Zhuk’s Until This Summer, which was one of the projects pitched at the 2021 edition of Connecting Cottbus East-West co-production market, follows three female protagonists whose paths overlap during one day in August 2020 which dramatically shifted the public’s perception of the ruling regime as unjust.
- 2/17/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The European Film Market (EFM) is hosting a day-long event on diversity, equity and inclusion on Feb. 16, bringing together a host of industry stakeholders in an effort to set the agenda for better representation — both on and off screen — in Europe’s film and television industries.
The Equity and Inclusion Pathways Seminar will bring together roughly 100 industry professionals from 21 countries, representing both their respective media industries as well as regional and pan-European organizations and advocacy groups working toward greater diversity and inclusion.
By bringing European decision-makers and advocacy bodies together at the same table, the organizers hope to introduce “sustainable, lasting change” to Europe’s screen industries by “bring[ing] about better policy-making, measures and initiatives regarding inclusion, equity and accessibility,” according to Faysal Omer, head of EFM Producers.
Co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe – Media program, this year’s seminar will be the first of three such annual...
The Equity and Inclusion Pathways Seminar will bring together roughly 100 industry professionals from 21 countries, representing both their respective media industries as well as regional and pan-European organizations and advocacy groups working toward greater diversity and inclusion.
By bringing European decision-makers and advocacy bodies together at the same table, the organizers hope to introduce “sustainable, lasting change” to Europe’s screen industries by “bring[ing] about better policy-making, measures and initiatives regarding inclusion, equity and accessibility,” according to Faysal Omer, head of EFM Producers.
Co-financed by the European Union’s Creative Europe – Media program, this year’s seminar will be the first of three such annual...
- 2/13/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Filmmakers from Belarus who have fled government repression and state-sponsored violence have launched an independent Belarusian film academy to represent the country’s cinema artists in exile.
The Academy’s founders include producer Volia Chajkouskaya (Yoyogi); directors Aliaksei Paluyan (Courage), Darya Zhuk (Crystal Swan) and Andrei Kutsila (When Flowers are Not Silent); festival programmer Igor Soukmanov; and film critic Irena Kaciałovič.
Thousands of Belarusians fled the country in the wake of the brutal government crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protestors who began mass demonstrations following the contested 2020 presidential election, in which authoritarian leader Aliaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory despite widespread evidence of voting fraud.
Independent artists living in Belarus are under “constant threat of persecution, imprisonment and torture,” the group, which calls itself the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA), said in a statement Friday. “As well as a need to leave the country in order to continue working without state repression and...
The Academy’s founders include producer Volia Chajkouskaya (Yoyogi); directors Aliaksei Paluyan (Courage), Darya Zhuk (Crystal Swan) and Andrei Kutsila (When Flowers are Not Silent); festival programmer Igor Soukmanov; and film critic Irena Kaciałovič.
Thousands of Belarusians fled the country in the wake of the brutal government crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protestors who began mass demonstrations following the contested 2020 presidential election, in which authoritarian leader Aliaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory despite widespread evidence of voting fraud.
Independent artists living in Belarus are under “constant threat of persecution, imprisonment and torture,” the group, which calls itself the Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA), said in a statement Friday. “As well as a need to leave the country in order to continue working without state repression and...
- 2/10/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A new independent film academy has launched out of Belarus to support the country’s independent artists.
The Belarusian Film Academy (BIFA) will officially launch during this month’s Berlin Film Festival, where an industry presentation will be made in partnership with the European Film Market.
The org has been set up in response to a “constant threat” of persecution, imprisonment and torture against independent artists living in Belarus, who are forced to leave the country in order to work without state repression. Belarus neighbors both Ukraine and Russia, and has supported Russia in its nearly year-long war against Ukraine. Belarus allowed Moscow to stage part of its invasion from Belarusian territory in February 2022, and has also enabled missiles to strike Ukraine from within its borders.
The founding members of the new academy include: Volia Chajkouskaya, Aliaksei Paluyan (film director), Darya Zhuk (film director), Irena Kaciałovič (film critic), Andrei Kutsila...
The Belarusian Film Academy (BIFA) will officially launch during this month’s Berlin Film Festival, where an industry presentation will be made in partnership with the European Film Market.
The org has been set up in response to a “constant threat” of persecution, imprisonment and torture against independent artists living in Belarus, who are forced to leave the country in order to work without state repression. Belarus neighbors both Ukraine and Russia, and has supported Russia in its nearly year-long war against Ukraine. Belarus allowed Moscow to stage part of its invasion from Belarusian territory in February 2022, and has also enabled missiles to strike Ukraine from within its borders.
The founding members of the new academy include: Volia Chajkouskaya, Aliaksei Paluyan (film director), Darya Zhuk (film director), Irena Kaciałovič (film critic), Andrei Kutsila...
- 2/1/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Bär worked on ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ and contributed to ‘Tar’.
German casting director Simone Bär has died aged 57 in Berlin. She died on January 16, with the cause of death yet to be revealed.
Bär’s latest projects included Edward Berger’s German Netflix feature All Quiet On The Western Front – nominated for nine Oscars and 14 Baftas. She also contributed to Todd Field’s six-time Oscar nominated and five-time Bafta nominated Tar, with a location casting credit.
On the international circuit, Bär worked on Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse,...
German casting director Simone Bär has died aged 57 in Berlin. She died on January 16, with the cause of death yet to be revealed.
Bär’s latest projects included Edward Berger’s German Netflix feature All Quiet On The Western Front – nominated for nine Oscars and 14 Baftas. She also contributed to Todd Field’s six-time Oscar nominated and five-time Bafta nominated Tar, with a location casting credit.
On the international circuit, Bär worked on Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse,...
- 1/25/2023
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Click here to read the full article.
The five best film nominees for this year’s European Film Awards give a feel for the breadth and diversity of the 2022 lineup, one of the most impressive ever for the event. To illustrate: An intimate drama of two pre-pubescent boys turns deeply tragic in Lukas Dhont’s Close; Ali Abbasi’s Iran-set crime thriller Holy Spider centers on a serial killer and the female journalist trying to catch him; Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage is a period portrait of an Austrian empress struggling for emancipation and against ideals of femininity; the Catalan-set Alcarràs from Carla Simón spotlights a family of peach farmers on their final summer harvest; and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness rollicks as a capitalist satire with a set piece of impressive projectile vomiting. Alongside Dhont, Kreutzer, Abbasi and Östlund, best director nominees include the venerable 84-year-old Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski...
The five best film nominees for this year’s European Film Awards give a feel for the breadth and diversity of the 2022 lineup, one of the most impressive ever for the event. To illustrate: An intimate drama of two pre-pubescent boys turns deeply tragic in Lukas Dhont’s Close; Ali Abbasi’s Iran-set crime thriller Holy Spider centers on a serial killer and the female journalist trying to catch him; Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage is a period portrait of an Austrian empress struggling for emancipation and against ideals of femininity; the Catalan-set Alcarràs from Carla Simón spotlights a family of peach farmers on their final summer harvest; and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness rollicks as a capitalist satire with a set piece of impressive projectile vomiting. Alongside Dhont, Kreutzer, Abbasi and Östlund, best director nominees include the venerable 84-year-old Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski...
- 12/9/2022
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” Ali Abbasi’s “Holy Spider,” and tributes to the French New Wave are among the most common programming choices for this year’s Month of European Film, a variegated showcase for continental cinema that will run across the continent from Nov. 13 – Dec. 10.
Piloted by the European Film Academy, the month-long initiative will extend across 35 partner cinemas in as many countries, with each theater hosting a unique program tailored to that specific market. Like three-dozen complementary programs rallying around the same banner, this year’s Month of European Film will feature screenings of recent festival standouts, retrospectives to directors Jonas Mekas and Lars von Trier, and country focuses on contemporary German, Portuguese and Nordic cinema – among many other moving parts.
“With the Month of European Film, the Academy is launching a new network,” says European Film Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol. “A large part of...
Piloted by the European Film Academy, the month-long initiative will extend across 35 partner cinemas in as many countries, with each theater hosting a unique program tailored to that specific market. Like three-dozen complementary programs rallying around the same banner, this year’s Month of European Film will feature screenings of recent festival standouts, retrospectives to directors Jonas Mekas and Lars von Trier, and country focuses on contemporary German, Portuguese and Nordic cinema – among many other moving parts.
“With the Month of European Film, the Academy is launching a new network,” says European Film Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol. “A large part of...
- 11/4/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Initiative aimed at strengthening the visibility of European films.
The European Film Academy (Efa) is launching a month-long initiative at cinemas across Europe that aims to strengthen and protect the future of European film.
The inaugural Month of European Film will begin on November 13 and will see cinemas in 35 countries present special programmes, events and dedicated retrospectives for four weeks. Mubi will concurrently stream a special focus on European films, taking the initiative global.
It will all lead up to the European Film Awards, set to take place in Iceland on December 10.
Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and director of Efa,...
The European Film Academy (Efa) is launching a month-long initiative at cinemas across Europe that aims to strengthen and protect the future of European film.
The inaugural Month of European Film will begin on November 13 and will see cinemas in 35 countries present special programmes, events and dedicated retrospectives for four weeks. Mubi will concurrently stream a special focus on European films, taking the initiative global.
It will all lead up to the European Film Awards, set to take place in Iceland on December 10.
Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and director of Efa,...
- 11/4/2022
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
The European Film Academy has unveiled a new public-facing event called the Month of European Film.
The initiative consists of a showcase of European cinema taking place in arthouse theatres and other venues in 35 countries across Europe.
It will kick off on November 13 and run across the four weeks leading up to the European Film Awards in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik on December 10.
At the same time, streaming platform Mubi will present a special focus on European films, allowing viewers around the world to participate.
“With the Month of European Film, the Academy is launching a new network. A large part of this network consists of movie theatres curating smart programmes with handpicked films that cater for the curiosity and tastes of their local audiences, programs that help to rediscover European film culture,” said Efa CEO and director says Matthijs Wouter Knol.
“For the very first time, all these...
The initiative consists of a showcase of European cinema taking place in arthouse theatres and other venues in 35 countries across Europe.
It will kick off on November 13 and run across the four weeks leading up to the European Film Awards in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik on December 10.
At the same time, streaming platform Mubi will present a special focus on European films, allowing viewers around the world to participate.
“With the Month of European Film, the Academy is launching a new network. A large part of this network consists of movie theatres curating smart programmes with handpicked films that cater for the curiosity and tastes of their local audiences, programs that help to rediscover European film culture,” said Efa CEO and director says Matthijs Wouter Knol.
“For the very first time, all these...
- 11/4/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. Our crack team of reporters and editors brought you the news from Zurich to Singapore to London this week, and I’m here to help you digest. Read away.
Tales From Zurich
Marquee attendees: Diana Lodderhose reporting from the Zurich Film Festival where the indie film confab Zurich Summit, the marquee industry event, took place last Saturday and saw more than 100 of the film industry’s top execs take part in an all-day session that drilled down into the state of the industry. Attendees included the likes of former Lionsgate film chief Patrick Wachsberger, Sony Pictures Classics co-head Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Neon CEO Tom Quinn, CAA Media Finance co-head Roeg Sutherland and Le Grisbi Production founder and president John Lesher.
‘Coda’, Oscars and youth: And there was plenty going on. Wachsberger, who was a producer on Oscar-winning film Coda,...
Tales From Zurich
Marquee attendees: Diana Lodderhose reporting from the Zurich Film Festival where the indie film confab Zurich Summit, the marquee industry event, took place last Saturday and saw more than 100 of the film industry’s top execs take part in an all-day session that drilled down into the state of the industry. Attendees included the likes of former Lionsgate film chief Patrick Wachsberger, Sony Pictures Classics co-head Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Neon CEO Tom Quinn, CAA Media Finance co-head Roeg Sutherland and Le Grisbi Production founder and president John Lesher.
‘Coda’, Oscars and youth: And there was plenty going on. Wachsberger, who was a producer on Oscar-winning film Coda,...
- 9/30/2022
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Next year’s Golden Globes promises to be a major relaunch for the troubled awards show as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) continues to seek ways to reinvent the event, according to president Helen Hoehne.
Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival on Saturday, Hoehne listed the changes the HFPA has undertaken to address the criticisms that led to a major industry boycott of the show this year.
The HFPA has over the past year “made diversity, equity and inclusion really the cornerstone of our organization. We changed our governance because, as you know, a lot of the award shows are under fire, not just for diversity issues but because of corruption, because of all sorts of other things. And we cleaned up.
“It took a long time and we’re still working on becoming better and making this a very transparent process and really having people engage in award...
Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival on Saturday, Hoehne listed the changes the HFPA has undertaken to address the criticisms that led to a major industry boycott of the show this year.
The HFPA has over the past year “made diversity, equity and inclusion really the cornerstone of our organization. We changed our governance because, as you know, a lot of the award shows are under fire, not just for diversity issues but because of corruption, because of all sorts of other things. And we cleaned up.
“It took a long time and we’re still working on becoming better and making this a very transparent process and really having people engage in award...
- 9/25/2022
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
The beleaguered Hollywood Foreign Press Association had a good piece of news this week with the announcement that the landmark 80th edition of its Golden Globe awards will return to primetime TV after a year off the air.
Under a one-year deal with NBC and Peacock, the show will be broadcast and streamed across the U.S. on January 10.
Zurich Summit: Deadline’s Full Coverage
Talking on a Zurich Summit panel on Saturday, HFPA President Helen Hoehne welcomed the deal but said boosting viewing figures for the Golden Globes show remained challenging.
“How do we make people tune in again and get interested?” she said. “The truth is since we don’t really celebrate commercially successful films and award shows, why do people tune in? What do they want to watch?” she said.
“People watch things differently,” she continued, noting that the most popular live TV event in the U.
Under a one-year deal with NBC and Peacock, the show will be broadcast and streamed across the U.S. on January 10.
Zurich Summit: Deadline’s Full Coverage
Talking on a Zurich Summit panel on Saturday, HFPA President Helen Hoehne welcomed the deal but said boosting viewing figures for the Golden Globes show remained challenging.
“How do we make people tune in again and get interested?” she said. “The truth is since we don’t really celebrate commercially successful films and award shows, why do people tune in? What do they want to watch?” she said.
“People watch things differently,” she continued, noting that the most popular live TV event in the U.
- 9/24/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
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