Screen International Berlin Day 5

DA Y

5

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13 2017

AT BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com

Editorial +44 7713 086 674

Advertising +44 7765 257 260

TODAY

SCREENINGS

» Page 30

INCENTIVES Louisiana 30% spend, 10% payroll Baton Rouge local sales tax rebate up to 500,000 per project*

*For more details, visit www.filmbatonrouge.com or contact amy@filmbatonrouge.com.

PRESENTS AT

BERLINALE 2017

MONDAY FEB. 13th PRIVATE MARKET SCREENING

BERLINALE - SPECIAL GALA SCREENING

11:15 AM | CinemaxX 10

9:00 PM | Friedrichstadt-Palast

MYRIAD AT EFM: MGB Stand 35 +49 30 206033 424

DA Y

5

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13 2017

AT BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com

Editorial +44 7713 086 674

Advertising +44 7765 257 260

Pavlovich joins Professor

BY JEREMY KAY

I Am Not Your Negro

I Am Not Your Negro clicks for Wide House

Fabrica de Cine chief Gaston Pavlovich, the Mexican producerfinancier behind Silence, has come on board The Professor And The Madman starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. Fabrica is co-financing and co-producing with international sales agent Voltage Pictures.

The 19th-century set story sees Gibson play James Murray, who oversaw the compilation of the first

Oxford English Dictionary, while Penn portrays Dr William Chester Minor, an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane who submitted thousands of entries. Pavlovich financed Martin Scorsese’s period drama Silence, which AI Film licensed with IM Global international territories.

Pavlovich is also backing Scorsese’s upcoming mob drama The Irishman, which is going

through Paramount in the US and STX International for international sales. Fabrica de Cine’s slate includes Jennifer Morrison’s Sun Dogs, a comedy drama about an informal anti-terrorism unit. The film is in post-production and stars Melissa Benoist, Allison Janney and Michael Angarano.

Pavlovich has lined up a number of Mexican projects and plans to unveil further details in due course.

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Paris-based Wide House has scored sales on Raoul Peck’s Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which explores what it means to be black in the US through the writings of James Baldwin.

Fresh sales at the EFM include to former Yugoslavia (Discovery), Turkey (Fabula Films), Portugal (Midas Filmes), South Korea (AK Entertainment), Australia/New Zealand (Madman), Brazil (Imovision), Mexico (Canana) and Taiwan (Joint Entertainment). They join deals for the UK (Altitude Film Distribution) and North America (Magnolia). The film had a February 3 release in the US and grossed $1m in its first week. Wide House has also had buyers for Claire Simon’s The Graduation, which has sold to the US (Cinema Guild) and Thailand (Movie Matter).

Hardy’s Fonzo secures key backer

BY JEREMY KAY

Bron Studios in association with Creative Wealth Media has come on board to produce and finance EFM sales title Fonzo, the latest addition to its ambitious stable of titles. Bloom is selling international rights to the drama starring Tom Hardy as Al Capone. It is scheduled to shoot in the autumn.

Josh Trank, who broke out with Chronicle, will direct the profile of the gangster in his final years in prison, tormented by dementia and harrowing memories of his violent past. CAA and WME represent North American rights.

Bron Studios recently cofinanced Denzel Washington’s Oscar nominee Fences, and its

credits include recent Sundance acquisition Beatriz At Dinner and The Birth Of A Nation.

Bron chief Aaron L Gilbert is producing Fonzo with Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder of Addictive Pictures, and Lawrence Bender for A Band Apart. Executive producers are Creative Wealth’s Jason Cloth and Andy Pollack.

A Fantastic Woman, page 12

NEWS Travel plans Vikings star heads to Iceland for Truenorth’s A Journey Home. » Page 2

REVIEWS Under the skin A Fantastic Woman is a quality package on every level. » Page 12

Breaking and entering Claustrophobic drama Insyriated is taut and timely. » Page 14

FEATURES Screen TV How EFM embraced the small screen with Drama Series Days. » Page 18

Arab Stars Of Tomorrow Meet Screen’s inaugural selection of five actors, directors and writers from the Arab world. » Page 22

Match Factory lights up with Petzold’s Transit

Hubert Boesl

BY MARTIN BLANEY

Luna laments Trump’s wall Mexican actor-director-producer Diego Luna has branded US president Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico “absurd” and called for a rebel alliance against the scheme.

In an interview for Screen’s new video interview strand Screen Time, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story star, who is serving on Berlin’s Competition jury, said: “It’s refreshing to see solidarity with what is happening in Mexico.

Every crisis brings a reaction. I’m very glad the reaction has been so loud. We have to resist.” » See ScreenDaily.com for more

TODAY

Viceroy’s House stars Gillian Anderson and Hugh Bonneville with director Gurinder Chadha (centre) at a Berlin photocall for the film yesterday. The film premiered last night. See Screen’s review on page 13.

Plaza’s horror Veronica scares up French deal

BY JEREMY KAY

Film Factory has licensed French rights to [Rec] co-director Paco Plaza’s horror film Veronica. ARP Selection will distribute the feature, which producer Apache Films

claims to be based on the only unexplained supernatural case in the annals of the Spanish police.

Sony has earmarked an autumn release in Spain for Veronica. Ana Torrent will star with Leticia Dol-

era, Consuelo Trujillo and newcomer Sandra Escarcena in the lead role. Film Factory chief Vicente Canales brokered the deal with Michele Halberstadt and Laurent Pétin for ARP Selection.

The Match Factory has boarded international sales for Christian Petzold’s Transit, a contemporary reworking of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about refugees attempting to flee through Marseille after the Nazi invasion of France.

Paula Beer, who won the best newcomer award at Venice last year for Francois Ozon’s Frantz, and Franz Rogowski (Tiger Girl) lead the cast on the film, which will begin a 40-day shoot in Marseille from mid-May. Transit will mark the 11th collaboration between Petzold and Berlin-based production company Schramm Film, which is in this year’s Competition with Thomas Arslan’s road movie Bright Nights.

The latter is also handled by The Match Factory.

Transit has received $530,000 (¤500,000) funding from the German-French Funding Committee and $370,000 (¤350,000) from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

Marseille-based Neon is on board as co-producer and Piffl Medien has German distribution rights.

NEWS

Trial flies to Japan Seoul-based sales agent United Pictures has scored a Japanese deal on Kim Tae-yun’s New Trial, which has gone to New Select.

The film, about a man trying to prove his innocence, has also sold to Lemon Tree for China and Deltamac for Hong Kong.

Les Arcs hosts Meetings

Winnick heads Truenorth

BY WENDY MITCHELL

Katheryn Winnick, star of TV’s Vikings, has been cast in Icelandic production company Truenorth’s The Journey Home, written and directed by Lisa Forrell.

The English-language love story follows an Icelandic woman who moves to the UK to work as a chef during the Second World War. The drama will shoot in Iceland

and England, with UK producers Alex Boden (Sense8) and Tracey Seaward (Philomena) on board.

In addition, Truenorth and Mystery, the Icelandic production companies behind Berlinale TV drama selection Prisoners, have just optioned six books in Stefan Mani’s series of police novels. The first instalment is called Black Magic and is about a clairvoyant street cop. The companies plan to

adapt the books into an Icelandiclanguage TV series.

Also, Truenorth plans a shoot by the end of 2017 on its next TV show, Valhalla Murders, about a serial killer in contemporary Reykjavik. DR Sales is handling international rights.

Germany’s Global Screen is selling Prisoners, a drama by Ragnar Bragason set in Iceland’s only women’s prison.

The 2017 Les Arcs European Film Festival will host the 15th FrancoGerman Film Meetings from December 18-20. As part of the initiative, the festival’s country of honour will be Germany.

Polygram back in groove with Motown

Redeeming hires exec

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

UK company Redeeming Features has hired Lee Vandermolen to head its financing arm. The former Prescience exec will work alongside company principals Nathanael Wiseman and ex-Metrodome MD Jezz Vernon, who are at the EFM this week.

Universal Music Group (UMG) is relaunching the Polygram Entertainment label as it seeks to accelerate UMG’s film and television output. Polygram will develop and produce films and TV, including scripted and unscripted productions as well as financing premium documentaries.

Alpha Violet, MD4 duo on Fugue

The revived label will be based in Los Angeles and led by David Blackman, UMG’s head of film and television development and production. Polygram’s inaugural production will be The Story Of Motown, a documentary about the iconic record label. Motown founder Berry Gordy will participate. Gabe Turner will direct.

Peter Himsel

Victoria Guerra Portugal Big break?

Being cast in Lines Of Wellington.

Biggest challenge?

Working with Andrzej Zulawski on Cosmos. His insanely beautiful working methods were very different from anything I had encountered before.

Next up?

To continue to act, either in Portugal or internationally. I hope to be challenged by new methods and different characters, directors and actors.

Portugal introduces tax rebate

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

French sales outfit Alpha Violet is teaming with Warsaw-based production house MD4 on Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Fugue, her second film after 2016 Sundance debut The Lure. Alpha Violet is kicking off pre-sales on the film, which is in production. Agnieszka Kurzydlo at MD4 is lead producing, with Axman Production and Zentropa International Poland.

Polygram, Motown, Ghost Pictures and Fulwell73 are producing the film.

Polygram is also financing and co-producing documentary Mystify, which follows the life of INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

Mystify is a co-production between Polygram, Surfing Cowboys, Ghost Pictures and Passion Pictures.

EFP SHOOTING STARS 2017

VERHOEVEN TALKS TRUMP Paul Verhoeven (pictured) and Maggie Gyllenhaal kicked off the Berlinale Talent programme in a joint on-stage conversation at HAU. “I think it’s difficult for an artist to react to politics,” the Dutch filmmaker observed.

“Reacting to the crisis we all face now [with US president Donald Trump] would be extremely difficult as the next day there is something new happening.”

The Portuguese Film and Audiovisual Institute (ICA) has unveiled a tax rebate for film production at the EFM. The tax credit is similar to the French Crédit d’impot and TRIP, and the UK film tax rebate.

It is available to films of all types that spend at least $1.6m (¤1m) on production in Portugal.

It offers a rebate of 20%-25% on eligible expenditure, depending on the characteristics of the project, with 25% for Portuguese-

language films and at least 24% for official co-productions. Applications are managed by ICA. The scheme is expected to be in operation by March.

ICA also updated on the revised Portuguese-German co-production agreement, a new co-production agreement with Israel, the ratification of the Ibero-American Co-production Agreement and the signature of the revised European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production.

Come and see us @EFM Marriott Office 264 Contact info@devilworks.eu devilworksales Office telephone number: +49 30 22000 - 1126

devil works MA RKET PREMIERE

MA RKET PREM IERE

2 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

MARKET PREMIERE

MA RKET P REMIERE

.eu

www.screendaily.com

Miguel Angelo

BERLIN BRIEFS

NEWS

Asian Brilliant winners Xu Haofeng won best director for The Final Master at the first Asian Brilliant Stars awards in Berlin last night. Best producer went to Jerry Ye Ning for The Wasted Times, while best screenwriter went to Liu Zhenyun for Someone To Talk To.

Devilworks sees Red Genre specialist Devilworks has boarded world sales on Red Christmas, Craig Anderson’s Australian horror-comedy starring Dee Wallace. The company has also struck a North American deal on horror Lemon Tree Passage with Glass Pictures.

Bermuda hires Roddick Former Screen editor Nick Roddick has been appointed artistic director of Bermuda International Film Festival.

Martel, Branco Tide turns for Premiere coach at Qumra

BY JEREMY KAY

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel and veteran producer Paulo Branco have been confirmed as the final two ‘masters’ at Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent development event.

The Qatar-based institute has also unveiled the 34 projects from 25 countries that have been selected for the six-day event (March 3-8), including upcoming films from Muayad Alayan, Mehdi Hmili, Bassem Breche, Babak Jalali and Kaouther Ben Hania.

“Paulo Branco is one of those old-style producers who continue to challenge the world in an interesting manner,” said Qumra’s artistic director Elia Suleiman. The

Portuguese producer, who is based in Paris and Lisbon, has around 300 producing credits to his name.

Martel, whose past films include the award-winning The Holy Girl, is in post-production on her 17thcentury drama Zama.

Since launching in 2014, Qumra has become a go-to event for up-and-coming filmmakers, known for its intimate atmosphere and easy access to top producers, sales agents, festival directors and established talent.

It has also become a bountiful hunting ground ahead of Cannes.

Last year, Netflix first scouted Cannes Camera d’Or winner Divines at the event, sealing the deal during the festival in May.

Atlas tunes Chinese execs fly into town up for Mozart for Bridging The Dragon

BY MARTIN BLANEY

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Atlas International Film will handle international sales on Saving Mozart, by veteran Belgian director Gérard Corbiau. It will begin shooting in the autumn as a co-production between Belgium’s Saga Film, Luxembourg’s Deal Productions and Austria’s Eclypse Filmpartner.

Based on a bestselling novel by Raphael Jerusalmy, Andrée Corbiau’s screenplay centres on a Jewish composer who attempts to foil Nazi plans to use Mozart for propaganda purposes.

Chinese industry executives including Huayi Brothers Pictures’ CEO Jerry Ye Ning and Donwa Pictures’ Shan Dongbing are among the speakers at this year’s ‘Bridging The Dragon’ production forum. Speakers also include casting director PoPing AuYeung and Jessica Chen of Beijing-based talent agency Easy Entertainment, who will talk about casting Chinese actors in co-productions.

Now in its third edition, the forum is aimed at European pro-

4 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

ducers seeking to co-produce with China. Berlin-based Bridging The Dragon organises the day-long event with EFM. It will be held on February 15 in the White Room at Martin-Gropius-Bau. The forum will also feature a series of roundtable discussions in which experts on the Chinese film industry will share their knowledge. The experts include Spire Media’s Chen Lizhi, WD Pictures’ Alex Jia, Dadi Film’s Grace Zhang and Just Film Festival’s Ma Heliang and Yang Fengwei.

Los Angeles-based Premiere Entertainment Group has picked up international rights on family drama Run The Tide starring Taylor Lautner.

Soham Mehta makes his feature directorial debut from Rajiv Shah’s script. Pilar Savone produces and the cast includes newcomer Nico

Christou and Constance Zimmer.

Momentum Pictures and Orion Releasing distributed Run The Tide in the US in December.

Premiere Entertainment president and CEO Elias Axume and newly arrived vice-president of development and acquisitions Carlos Rincon negotiated the deal with WME Global.

Carlo Di Palma Life doc scores deals

BY GEOFFREY MACNAB

Adriana Chiesa Enterprises is selling Water And Sugar: Carlo Di Palma, The Colours Of Life, a feature doc about the legendary cinematographer (and Chiesa’s late husband), in the market. The company has reported deals for the UK (Swipe Films) and Spain (Film Buro). Instituto Luce will release in Italy this spring.

Directed by Fariborz Kamkari, the documentary profiles Di Palma’s career from being focus puller on Bicycle Thieves (1948) to his credits as a cinematographer on pictures including Blow-Up (1966) and 11 Woody Allen films.

At the EFM, Adriana Chiesa has also begun sales on They Called Her Maryam, written, directed by and starring Terence Hill.

EFP SHOOTING STARS 2017 gives me something that no other art form could give me. When I listen to jazz, my imagination flows, my senses open.

Biggest challenge?

I replaced an actor in a dance project at the Avignon Festival that involved a lot of physicality. I had to do 11 shows every day.

Tudor Aaron Istodor Romania Biggest inspiration?

Jazz music. Listening to John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Miles Davis

Next up?

I will travel around to promote my latest feature films [Stalin’s Couch with Gérard Depardieu and The Fixer].

www.screendaily.com

Andrei Runcanu

BERLIN BRIEFS

CHRIS MIERA WITH MATHIS REINHARDT WITH AND MIKE HOFFMANN AND

EIN WEG

DIRECTED BY

BY CHRIS MIERA DIRECTED

PATHS ON THE TRAIL OF A LONG RELATIONSHIP.

World PrEmIErE Today Today: Press & Industry: 14:00, CinemaxX 5 | Festival Premiere: 19:30, CinemaxX 3 Tomorrow: Tue, Feb 14th, 12:00, Colosseum & 21:00, CinemaxX 1 FILMUNIVERSItät BABELSBERG koNRAd woLF ko

WWW.EINWEG-FILM.DE

WORLD SALES: loCo FIlmS | EFm oFFICE Stand #36 at mGB laurent.danielou@loco-films.com | +33 6 64 20 91 60 2017.02.11_EW_Page_Magazin_V2.indd 1

11.02.2017 15:12:12

IN FOCUS POLAND

The Polish film industry is on a high. Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, backed by the Polish Film Institute, screens here in Competition and in 2016 there were a record 52 million admissions at the Polish box office. Of those, 13 million were for local titles — a market share of nearly 25%.

It is a figure few other European countries can match but local arthouse movies can be big business in Poland. Wojciech Smarzowski’s Hatred (Volhynia), the first film to deal with the sensitive subject of the massacre of Poles by Ukrainians during the Second World War, garnered 1.4 million admissions last year.

Now the government is aiming to put Poland on the international location map as the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage pushes through a 25% cash rebate scheme. “The Polish film industry has earned an excellent international reputation in recent years and the only thing lacking has been financial incentives,” says Tomasz Dabrowski, head of Film

Spoor plays here in Competition

POLE POSITION A planned incentive, soaring admissions and a vibrant new generation of filmmakers make Poland a territory to watch. By Geoffrey Macnab Commission Poland, which has serviced projects such as Mick Jackson’s Denial, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Work Without Author and Noh Gyu-yeop’s Korean crime drama Unfinished.

All being well, the incentive scheme could be available as soon as this summer. Available for local

as well as international productions, it will give producers a 25% rebate on qualifying Polish production costs. The mechanism will be run on a ‘first come, first served’ basis with an annual fund of $23m (¤22m). The aim is for the rebate to be paid to the Polish producer within a month of the

application being made, and for the scheme to be self-financing: the amount Poland earns in inward investment will cover the costs of the rebate.

At the same time the government is investing in the industry, Poland’s film community is anxious about some of the other policies of the right-wing ruling party.

Many expressed outrage at a nowinfamous government TV broadcast ahead of a screening of Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida on national broadcaster TVP last February, suggesting the events depicted in the film were misleading.

Fears the state-backed Polish Film Institute might bow to government pressure in what it chooses to finance have proved unfounded. “The mission of the Polish Film Institute has in no way changed,” affirms Magdalena Sroka, head of the institute, who is critical of the TVP broadcast ahead of Ida. “Explaining a work of art by additional captions is a mistake. Audiences should be respected, as should their intelli-

‘The Polish film industry has earned its reputation’ Tomasz Dabrowski

gence. They should be allowed to have an individual critical perception of any work of art.”

She points to the legacy of the late director Andrzej Wajda, a towering figure in Polish cinema who died last year. Wajda’s films had a knack of touching on sensitive subject matters and of exposing social and political tensions.

Sroka suggests his legacy lives on in the work of younger Polish filmmakers, citing The Last Family

by Jan P Matuszynski, which earned avid reviews in Locarno; Agnieszka Smoczynska’s debut The Lure, a horror musical about flesh-eating mermaids; and Tomasz Wasilewski’s Silver Bears winning United States Of Love. n

COMBAT AU BOUT DE LA NUIT FIGHTING THROUGH THE NIGHT WORLDPREMIERE

MONDAY | 13TH FEB | 15 P.M. | CINESTAR 7

Combat_AZ_150x218_02.indd 2

6 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

A FILM BY SYLVAIN L’ESPÉRANCE

SCREENINGS

WENDSDAY | 15TH FEB | 16 P.M. | CUBIX 7 SATURDAY | 18TH FEB | 17 P.M. | CINESTAR 3

09.02.17 11:29

www.screendaily.com

BERLIN DAYS Edited by Tom Grater

tom.grater@screendaily.com

Today

Tomorrow

Mostly sunny

Mostly sunny

High 1°c (34°f)

@ScreenDaily

High 3°c (37°f)

In conversation with...

SPECIAL GALA

SALLY POTTER (The Party, Competition)

CRUZ AND TRUEBA REIGN IN SPAIN Eighteen years after making The Girl Of Your Dreams, Fernando Trueba has revived that film’s protagonist Macarena Granada, the glamorous Spanish movie star, in The Queen Of Spain. She is once again played, appropriately, by glamorous Spanish movie star Penelope Cruz.

In the new film — which screens as a Berlinale Special Gala today — Macarena returns from Hollywood to Spain to star in a big-budget period drama as Queen Isabella. It marks the third collaboration between Cruz and Trueba. They first worked together on Trueba’s Oscar-winning Belle Epoque in 1992, one of Cruz’s first film roles.

“She was very serious from the beginning,” Trueba remembers of his first encounter with the 18-year-old actress. “She prepared, she worked a lot. She was a perfectionist… and she still is.”

Cruz today is now “more experienced” than in the days of Belle Epoque, he adds, and she knows more “things about life and work”. But the director says her work ethic has not declined in the slightest even as her fame has risen. And, no, she does not have any airs and graces.

Trueba says that originally he had no intention of making a sequel to The Girl Of Your Dreams.

However, he was continually asked what had happened to the characters in the first film.

Eventually, he gave way and decided to revive them, setting The Queen Of Spain in 1956, when

Sally Potter’s The Party is a dark comedy about a dinner party that goes horribly wrong. Set in real time, shot in black-and-white and filmed in just two weeks, it stars Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas and Timothy Spall, and premieres today in Competition You’ve said this film is a reaction to UK politics. Why? I wrote it during the 2015 general election. The Labour party at the time didn’t dare to talk about its deeper principles or what it really believed. This lack of political courage led me to think, ‘How can I write a comedy that deals with this feeling of chronic insincerity?’

The Queen Of Spain

Americans were beginning to come to Spain to make big runaway productions such as Alexander The Great and The Pride And The Passion.

Looking forward, the director is now working on the long-gestating follow-up to his 2010 animation Chico And Rita. The film, which has the working title Tenorio’s Story, is still being scripted. It will be set in 1960s and ’70s Latin America and the story will unfold against the backdrop of the coups in Brazil and Argentina during that period. Trueba will work on the project with his Chico And Rita co-director Javier Mariscal. “We’ve started doing drawings and they look beautiful,” he adds.

Geoffrey Macnab

How difficult was it to make?

I had some script development from the BBC and the BFI, so that was a great help. On the creative side, we had to do it fast and furious; keep the budget down, spend more time in preparation and post, but make the shoot just two weeks and do it in a studio. It gave the film a lot of energy.

#BerlinChatter The latest buzz and gossip from around the festival. Tweet us your chatter @Screendaily

Jason O @jasonosia

Totally loved the new Agnieszka Holland film Spoor, a sort of ecological thriller about a woman, her dogs, and natural selection. #Berlinale John Oursler, festival fundraiser @JMOursler

Viceroy’s House is a timely history lesson made more powerful by director’s personal connection #Berlinale Mark Cosgrove, cinema programmer @msc45

8 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

Cinemachile

Lead actress in the much buzzed A Fantastic Woman is trans, would be great if SPC made history and got an acting campaign going #Berlinale

What did the cast think of it?

All the actors and crew were in a state of profound nervousness

about whether it was achievable.

But we did it and I don’t think anything was sacrificed in terms of level of performance. The actors were amazing. We did three days of rehearsals together as a group but I spent time with each actor individually for a lot longer. By the time everyone came together they were individually all ready and very well primed.

As your career progresses, do you find it easier to make films?

I don’t know. I have become more pragmatic with budgets over the years. I decide what budget will make the film work so that we can get on with it, rather than having an idealised version.

Women directed fewer films last year than in 2015. Why do you think that was?

When I first started, a lot of prejudice against women directors was overt. Now it’s more hidden. In the film industry, we are also connected to the rhetoric in the political world — Trump and so on. Things that were unthinkable to say 10 years ago are being said again.

Orlando Parfitt

Chileans out in fantastic force This year’s EFM Chilean delegation (pictured above) is a sight to behold, with more than 50 industry professionals representing 40-plus projects. Standout titles include Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman, which premiered in Competition yesterday. Sony Pictures Classics swooped for North America, Australia and New Zealand rights in one of the festival’s more headline-grabbing deals. Further Chilean titles here include Lissette Orozco’s The Pact Of Adriana (Panorama) and Camila Donoso’s Casa Roshell (Forum).

The Party

www.screendaily.com

BERLINALE IN PICTURES

A Berlinale icebreaker Where When Who Why

Soho House, Berlin Saturday, February 11 Air New Zealand, Evolutionary Films, Festival Formula and Screen International Networking reception for Berlinale guests

1

2

4

10 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2016

3

5

www.screendaily.com

GUEST LIST 1 Clare Stewart BFI, Cedric Behrel Trinity Film 2 Edward Dunne Air New Zealand, Alexander Jooss Universal Pictures, Nigel Daly Screen International 3 Michael Ingram Parade Deck Films, Ross Boyask Evolutionary Films 4 Jason Resnick acquisitions consultant, Jeremy Kay Screen International, Ryan Kampe Visit Films 5 John Adams Evolutionary Films 6 Frankie Stewart, Katie McCullough, Ted Byron Baybutt, Kat Breadon all Festival Formula 7 Erik Bright Prodigy PR, Dana Archer DDA, Lawrence Atkinson DDA 8 Wendy Mitchell British Council and Screen International, Edward Fletcher Soda Pictures 9 Cecilia Frugiuele, Olivier Kaempfer Parkville Pictures 10 Elizabeth Brown Bird Flight Films, Peter La Terriere European Film Bonds @EvoFilmsUK, @festivalformula, @FlyAirNZ

6

7

13 9

www.screendaily.com

8

10

February 13, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 11

Theo Wood

In partnership with

REVIEWS Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

A Fantastic Woman Reviewed by Wendy Ide

Spoor Reviewed by Sarah Ward

COMPETITION

Misfortune stalking a small town, the natural world enforcing balance, or both? Spoor’s narrative defies easy categorisation but invites considerable contemplation.

Adapted by Agnieszka Holland and Olga Tokarczuk from the latter’s novel Drive Your Plough Over The Bones Of The Dead, Spoor delves into a spate of deaths seemingly linked to wildlife in a small village on the CzechPolish border. The film’s central character is rule-breaking retired civil engineer-turned part-time English teacher Duszejko, played with devastating conviction by veteran actress Agnieszka Mandat. A warm reception for her performance should help drive Spoor into wider festival play following its premiere here.

Nothing about Duszejko fits the norm. Although everyone in her mountainous village has eccentricities and struggles, as a willing outsider in a close-knit hunting community, hers stand out more than most. She refuses to answer to her first name, wears her personality on her sleeve and crusades tirelessly for animal rights. When Spoor opens, she is happily living alone with the two dogs she regards as her daughters; however, when they disappear suddenly, her agitating nature only amplifies.

Two months later, her neighbour Matoga (a warm turn from Wiktor Zborowski) calls on her help when a nearby resident and known poacher is found dead. Certain that she spotted deer tracks at the scene, Duszejko comes up with a distinctive theory. It is easy for the local police chief and others to dismiss her ideas, but more bodies soon pile up in similar circumstances.

With the instant dismissal of Duszejko by the men around her always apparent, and the few she calls her friends also experiencing their own forms of marginalisation, it is far from surprising that Spoor’s rumination on mistreatment none-too-subtly but effectively extends beyond the realm of wildlife. While animal scenes were filmed documentary-style by a dedicated unit, it is impossible not to notice the parallels stressed as the feature places both humans and forest creatures in similar situations, and cuts pointedly between the two.

SCREEN SCORE

Pol-Ger-Cze-Swe-Slov.

2017. 128mins Director Agnieszka Holland Production company Tor Film Production Worldwide distribution Beta Cinema, beta@ betacinema.com Producers Krzysztof Zanussi, Janusz Wachala Screenplay Olga Tokarczuk, Agnieszka Holland Cinematographers Jolanta Dylewska, Rafal Paradowski Editor Pavel Hrdlicka Production design Joanna Macha Main cast Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Krobot, Jakub Gierszal, Patricia Volny, Borys Szyc

OUT OF COMPETITION

Marina (Daniela Vega) and Orlando (Francisco Reyes) are in love. Despite a 20-year age gap, they plan to spend their lives together. He left his wife and family for her.

But after a birthday celebration in which he promises to take her on a trip to Iguazu Falls, Orlando is taken gravely ill. He dies in hospital. And Marina finds that, as a transgender woman, everything is called into question — their relationship, her role in his death, her right to grieve for the man she loved.

Driven by a powerhouse performance by mesmerising transgender actress Vega, the fifth feature from Sebastian Lelio combines urgent naturalism with occasional flickers of fantasy to impressive and wrenchingly emotional effect. The film follows Leilo’s acclaimed previous feature, Gloria, which also premiered in Berlinale Competition and won the best actress Silver Bear for Paulina Garcia. And it is hard to imagine that A Fantastic Woman will go home empty-handed — this is a quality package on every level.

Although we mainly get to spend time with Marina while she is shellshocked by grief and fraying at the edges, and nothing is overtly stated, we get a sense from exchanges with her sister and brother-in-law of a chaotic, embattled life that found an anchor in Orlando.

There is a defensive carapace around her that Orlando had dismantled and which she rebuilds swiftly as humiliations are layered over her grief. Orlando’s ex-wife bars Marina from the memorial and the funeral. And his adult son Bruno reacts with petty acts of cruelty that soon graduate into physical aggression.

With this satisfying account of a few days in the life of a poised, resilient transgender woman and Gloria’s warm and contoured portrait of a divorcee in late middle age, Leilo displays a knack for getting under the skin of female characters who, for no fault of their own, find themselves somewhat marginalised by society.

The picture is tied together by a striking orchestral score from Matthew Herbert, while Marina’s own singing bookends the film, giving the picture its transcendent final scene.

SCREEN SCORE

Chile-US-Ger-Sp. 2017.

104mins Director Sebastian Lelio Production companies Fabula, Participant Media, Komplizen Film, Muchas Gracias, Setembro Cine Worldwide distribution Funny Balloons, contact@ funny-balloons.com Producers Juan de Dios Larrain, Pablo Larrain Screenplay Sebastian Lelio, Gonzalo Maza Cinematography Benjamin Echazarreta Editor Soledad Salfate Production design Estefania Larrain Music Matthew Herbert Main cast Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Küppenheim, Nicolas Saavedra, Amparo Noguera, Nestor Cantillana, Alejandro Goic, Antonia Zegers, Sergio Hernandez

★★★★

★★★

12 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

www.screendaily.com

REVIEWS » Spoor p12 » A Fantastic Woman p12 » Viceroy’s House p13

» Devil’s Freedom p13 » Insyriated p14 » The Young Karl Marx p14

» Newton p16 » Vazante p16

Devil’s Freedom Reviewed by Allan Hunter

Viceroy’s House Reviewed by Wendy Ide With this ambitious account of the backstage manipulation and human cost of Partition, Gurinder Chadha tackles a bigger canvas than previously. She meets the challenge with flair; Viceroy’s House, with its jostling below-stairs tensions and colonial gamesmanship, is an accessible blend of a Merchant Ivory period piece with the political edge of Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom.

A Hindu-Muslim romance at the heart of the story is too neatly schematic to fully persuade as anything other than a narrative device, but more effective is the use of the microcosm of the last Viceroy’s household staff into the broader tensions facing India.

The theme — the violent consequences of politicians peddling hate and division — makes this a timely release.

But although the film is a little heavy on scene-setting exposition in the first 20 minutes, this very watchable picture never feels as though it is lecturing the audience.

The film opens by introducing several newcomers to the Viceroy’s House in Delhi, 1947. Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville), his wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson) and daughter Pamela (Lily Travers) arrive at the palatial residence at the same time as Jeet (Manish Dayal), a Punjabi former policeman who takes up a position as a manservant. Mountbatten has been assigned the job of last Viceroy, and must oversee the transition to Indian independence after roughly 300 years of British colonial rule.

The whole of the sub-continent waits to see how Mountbatten will manage the transition. And through the 500 or so household staff, a mix of Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, we see the tensions that threaten to wrench the country apart played out on a smaller scale.

The contrast between the brittle propriety of the British social events and the simmering tensions at an Indian engagement party is nicely handled, and Chadha makes the most of the richly detailed production design. There are, however, moments that lack subtlety. A sequence in which everything within the house, from the cutlery to the library to the staff members, is divided between India and Pakistan makes its point a little too emphatically. And the ending feels a little convenient. Still, this is a vivid and coherent account of an impossibly complex period of Indian history that is driven by fine performances by Dayal, Bonneville and, particularly, Anderson.

www.screendaily.com

OUT OF COMPETITION UK. 2017. 106mins Director Gurinder Chadha Production companies BBC Films, Bend It Films, Pathé International Worldwide distribution Pathé International, agathe.theodore@pathe. com Producers Paul Mayeda Berges, Gurinder Chadha, Deepak Nayar Screenwriters Paul Mayeda Berges, Moira Buffini, Gurinder Chadha Cinematography Ben Smithard Editors Victoria Boydell, Valerio Bonelli Production design Laurence Dorman Main cast Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Michael Gambon, Om Puri, Simon Callow, Lily Travers

BERLINALE SPECIAL

The full horrors of life in modern Mexico are revealed in Devil’s Freedom (La Libertad Del Diablo), a gripping documentary filled with vivid eyewitness testimony from a country where violence is commonplace, corruption is endemic and life is so cheap it can be terminated for as little as $10. Director Everardo Gonzalez (El Paso) patiently teases out the personal experiences of victims and perpetrators caught in a national nightmare from which there seems to be no waking. The result is a mournful, spellbinding insight into the best and worst of humanity that should travel extensively to festivals and secure the support of specialist documentary distributors.

Gonzalez allows nothing to distract from the powerful testimony of his subjects. Individuals are filmed in shadowy, stark surroundings and everyone wears a mask to protect the identity of the innocent and the guilty. We see expressive eyes and mouths and witness the masks dampened by the flood of tears as the testimonies grow increasingly emotional.

The stories themselves are of torture and death; the pain of not knowing what has happened to family members who have disappeared and the shock of a mother recognising the sneaker of a son buried in the desert. We also hear the stories of those who have worked for the drug gangs or the forces of law and order. It becomes clear the police and federal authorities are often more dangerous than the criminals.

Gonzalez punctuates the film with brief exterior shots that feel like coming up for air. Visions of forests by dawn’s early light, misty mornings and a bustling colony of ants hint at a timeless natural world far removed from the population’s inhumanity to each other. Sound becomes a vital element in the production, from the sense of menace and foreboding in the score by Quincas Moreira to the tinkle of wind chimes caught in the breeze.

Gonzalez is not in the business of trying to propose any solutions to Mexico’s problems but he does try to reach an understanding of the personal impact on those who have dared to be interviewed. There is an array of feelings from those who would seek retribution to those prepared to offer forgiveness. The guilty parties speak of shame and regret. The film’s conclusion is made all the more poignant by the simple act of bravery in the final, lingering image.

Mex. 2017. 74mins Director Everardo Gonzalez Production companies Artegios, Animal de Luz Films Worldwide distribution Films Boutique, contact@ filmsboutique.com Producers Robert Garza, Inna Payan Cinematographer Maria Secco Editor Paloma Lopez Carrillo Music Quincas Moreira

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 13

REVIEWS

The Young Karl Marx Reviewed by Lee Marshall

Insyriated Reviewed by Jonathan Romney In Philippe Van Leeuw’s feature Insyriated, the term ‘home invasion’ is not the name of a Hollywood sub-genre but takes on a frighteningly immediate real-world meaning. Set entirely in a Damascus apartment under siege from a world in conflict, this tautly constructed, intensely claustrophobic drama offers a sometimes nerve-shredding depiction of what happens when conflict impinges on domestic space.

A concisely told story that could not be more timely in view of the traumas currently afflicting the Syrian people, Insyriated features a terrific lead performance by Hiam Abbass heading a multi-generational ensemble cast, and should be a reputation-making second feature — following Rwandan-themed The Day God Walked Away — by Belgian writer-director Van Leeuw.

Insyriated is set in its entirety — barring one brief climactic sequence — in a single apartment during the course of one day. The first shot we see, of a courtyard used as a car park, is a view from the flat of Oum Yazan (Abbass), a woman whose family is the last to inhabit a block that has been vacated while the battle rages outside. With her husband away and unreachable by phone, Oum Yazan keeps her family under control and out of range of the bullets fired by snipers outside. Three generations are in residence, including her young son and two daughters, elderly father-in-law, plus one daughter’s visiting boyfriend. Also present are neighbours Samir and Halima (a young couple with a baby who are planning to leave for the safety of Beirut after their flat upstairs was destroyed by shelling) and intensely loyal maid Delhani.

Hoping to keep their siege existence calm and smoothly running, Oum Yazan rules her domain with concerned authority, peremptorily herding everyone from room to room when danger beckons from outside. Knocks at her heavily barred door signal impending danger, and the flat’s security is finally broached when two men claiming to represent security forces burst in.

Cinematographer Virginie Surdej and production designer Kathy Lebrun make the most of a very restricted space — just a few rooms, a bit of corridor and a balcony.

It is here the entire drama takes place, with a complex sound design evoking an outside world whose dangers, unnervingly, draw ever closer. Long takes and rigorous blocking allow the drama to flow easily from room to room, while a superbly co-ordinated cast, largely composed of Syrian refugees, gels magnificently.

14 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

PANORAMA Bel-Fr-Leb. 2017. 85mins Director-screenplay Philippe Van Leeuw Production companies Altitude 100, Liaison Cinematographique, Minds Meet, Né a Beyrouth, Versus Production, Voo, Betv International sales Films Boutique, contact@ filmsboutique.com Producers Guillaume Malandrin, Serge Zeitoun Cinematography Virginie Surdej Production design Kathy Lebrun Editor Gladys Joujou Music Jean-Luc Fafchamps Main cast Hiam Abbass, Diamand Abou Abboud, Juliette Navis, Mohsen Abbas, Moustapha Al Kar

A spry romp through the seven years leading up to the drafting of The Communist Manifesto, Raoul Peck’s biopic of Karl Marx’s early years feels like a mix between a prestige BBC drama and a Marx For Dummies primer. Yet this fusion of waistcoat buttons and workers’ control of the means of production has charm and verve, not to mention a breezy attitude to chunks of theory that carries us past production values Marx himself would have probably found irredeemably bourgeois.

Peck’s lively drama is at heart a bromance, based largely on the letters exchanged by Marx (August Diehl) and Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske) between 1843 and 1850. It charts the course of their friendship and political brotherhood from a first wary meeting at the home of Marx’s German publisher to the eve of the drafting of The Communist Manifesto — a document that Marx, like any self-respecting writer, wrote at breakneck speed, way past deadline, after procrastinating for weeks.

The Young Karl Marx does not shirk its family duties, however. Vicky Krieps’ luminous performance as Jenny von Westphalen— the young aristocrat from Trier who took up with and married this “damn socialist atheist Jew”, as she teasingly calls him in a bodice-loosening bedroom scene — is one of several pleasures to be gleaned from what is an unashamedly old-fashioned film.

Peck’s story, co-penned with veteran French scripter Pascal Bonitzer, is at least in part about the paradox of two intellectuals, fond of their cigars, wine and stovepipe hats, who champion the proletariat. Diehl’s Marx has a permanent smile on his face, an easy, awareness of his own superiority and doctrinal purity — untroubled by the fact he and Jenny employ a servant. But the conflict is especially keen in the case of Engels, the son of a German mill owner with factories in Manchester. Visiting the urban hovel of Mary Burns (Hannah Steele), an Irish worker sacked by his father for defiance, he seems the classic slumming rich kid — and the fact he ends up entering into a ménage with flame-haired Mary and her younger sister hardly dilutes that impression.

But one of the merits of The Young Karl Marx is the way it evokes the revolutionary climate of 1840s Europe as something of a game, an alpha-male sparring match between old-school anarchists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (a wry Olivier Gourmet) and these two radicals, who in five short years move themselves, their ideas and their hangers-on between Cologne, Paris, Brussels, Manchester, London and Ostend.

BERLINALE SPECIAL Fr-Ger-Bel. 2017. 112mins Director Raoul Peck Production companies Agat Films, Velvet Film International sales Films Distribution, info@ filmsdistribution.com Producers Nicolas Blanc, Rémi Grellety, Robert Guédiguian, Raoul Peck Screenplay Pascal Bonitzer, Raoul Peck Cinematography Kolja Brandt Editor Frédérique Broos Production design Benoit Barouh Music Alexei Aigui Main cast August Diehl, Stefan Konarske, Vicky Krieps, Olivier Gourmet, Michael Brandner, Alexander Scheer, Hannah Steele, Niels Bruno Schmidt

www.screendaily.com

REVIEWS

Vazante Reviewed by Wendy Ide

Newton Reviewed by Sarah Ward Finding humour in the tenuous nature of democracy might be a hard task on the global stage at present; however, in Newton’s darkly comic exploration of one official’s attempt to uphold the election process in India, it is simpler than it sounds. The second film from writer/ director Amit V Masurkar displays a sense of chaos and absurdity, while remaining aware of the drama of reality.

Indeed, it is laughs and tension, and the interplay between the two, that give Newton its momentum; the film suffers when it surrenders to the inertia of buoyant, warmly scored montages (peppered liberally throughout). Still, the mostly successful handling of its topical premise is just one of the reasons Masurkar’s follow-up to 2014 comedy Sulemani Keeda deserves to travel on the festival circuit.

In the titular Newton (Rajkummar Rao), a rule-enforcing college graduate turned government worker, Masurkar and his co-writer Mayank Tewari have crafted an intriguing figure: rigid in his beliefs, unprepared to cope with anyone who does not share his mindset but willing to fight for what’s right, proper and just.

Introduced with his family while watching a news report about carnage caused by communist guerrillas in the jungles of Chhattisgarh — an incident that opens the feature, contextualising the events that follow — Newton does not appear to be troubled. At a workshop for volunteer polling staff he is similarly unworried by conflict, or about how his dogged mindset might be perceived. Even when he is sent to Chhattisgarh to collect 76 votes from oppressed indigenous inhabitants, he is still quick to reject any suggestion that deviates from regulations.

Unsurprisingly, several battles brew. Military representative Atma Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) imparts a dose of reality — that no one cares about the election and will not turn out anyway for fear of reprisals — but Newton refuses to be swayed from his mission. Masurkar grounds Newton’s behaviour in character, not just in ideals, building a portrait of a man rallying to retain his strict sense of self in the face of an uncertain world.

Understanding Newton as a person, not just a symbol of unyielding principles, makes both the amusing and terse altercations all the more effective, particularly as the story’s path and message become increasingly clear.

16 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

FORUM India. 2017. 106mins Director Amit V Masurkar Production company Drishyam Films International sales Drishyam Films, mmundra@gmail.com Producers Manish Mundra, Pramila Mundra Screenplay Mayank Tewari, Amit V Masurkar Cinematographer Swapnil S Sonawane Editor Shweta Venkat Production design Angelica Monica Bhowmick Music Naren Chandavarkar, Benedict Taylor Cast Rajkummar Rao, Anjali Patil, Pankaj Tripathi, Raghubir Yadav

A regular collaborator of Walter Salles — she co-directed Foreign Land, Midnight and Linha De Passe — Daniela Thomas makes her solo directing debut with this striking study of racial and gender politics in colonial Brazil. The year is 1821, shortly before Brazilian independence, and, viewed through the prism of the Portuguese owners of a tapped-out mine, it is clear the rot has set in for the colonial rule of this isolated corner of Brazil’s interior.

Although the sparse dialogue and gradual build require audience investment, this is an accomplished work. The technical package, in particular the arresting black-andwhite cinematography and textured sound design, is firstrate. The quality of the filmmaking should ensure interest from festivals and specialist arthouse distributors.

Antonio (Adriano Carvalho) has found himself, through marriage, the owner of a failing estate. We first encounter him as he travels home, with a caravan of slaves and burdened mules. The sound design fills in the spaces left by the minimal dialogue: the bells on the beasts that echo the jangling chains on the men; the percussion of hooves and bare feet in the mud. Antonio hurries home to his pregnant wife, only to discover she and the child have died during labour.

Antonio disappears to grieve; shortly afterwards his impoverished brother-in-law and family arrive to find an absent landlord, a babbling granny and a mining estate on the brink of ruin.

Sinuous camerawork picks up on the building tensions within the slave community and the sense of decay within the ruling family. The generous widescreen photography makes the most of the geological potential of the backdrop and the meticulously composed interiors.

There is a slow build to the story, which gathers momentum once Antonio marries Beatriz, the 12-year-old niece of his late wife. Mindful of the tears of his child bride, Antonio repeatedly summons the slave Feliciana (Jai Baptista) to his bed. And Beatriz, still a girl on the cusp of adolescence, fills the long, lonely days by beginning a flirtation with a boy her own age, Feliciana’s son Virgilio (Vinicius dos Anjos). It is a dynamic that bares some similarities to William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth. And while it lacks the concentrated venom of Oldroyd’s picture, Vazante’s savage climax has a shock value of its own.

PANORAMA Bra. 2017. 116mins Director Daniela Thomas Production companies Dezenove Som e Imagens, Cisma Producoes International sales Films Boutique, contact@ filmsboutique.com Producers Beto Amaral, Maria Ionescu, Sara Silveira Screenwriters Daniela Thomas, Beto Amaral Cinematography Inti Briones Editors Estevan Schilling, Tiago Marinho Production design Valdy Lopes Jn Sound Vasco Pimentel Main cast Adriano Carvalho, Luana Nastas, Sandra Corveloni, Juliana Carneiro da Cunha, Roberto Audio, Jai Baptista, Toumani Kouyaté, Vinicius dos Anjos, Fabricio Boliveira, Adilson Mag

www.screendaily.com

Martyr’s Lane

By Ruth Platt

IFFR celebrates independent cinema

Ningdu

By Lei Lei

Pop Aye

By Kirsten Tan Sexy Durga

By Sanal Kumar Sasidharan

Sakhisona

By Prantik Basu

La Flor (Parte 1)

By Mariano Llinás

Moonlight

By Barry Jenkins El cuento de Antonia

By Jorge Cadena Quality Time

By Daan Bakker

Martin Eden

By Pietro Marcello

Children Are Not Afraid of Death, Children Are Afraid of Ghosts

By Rong Guang Rong

Mes nuits feront écho

By Sophie Goyette

Pela janela

By Caroline Leone

Jumpman

By Ivan I. Tverdovsky Rubber Coated Steel

By Lawrence Abu Hamdan

King of the Belgians

By Peter Brosens, Jessica Woodworth

Rey

By Niles Atallah

Congratulations to all nominees and winners of this year’s festival. You and all the other film professionals made these 12 days on Planet IFFR unforgettable.

Go to IFFR.com/pro to enjoy festival reports, masterclasses, interviews and more.

Or sign up to our newsletter and stay up to date on our next adventures, such as IFFR Unleashed, Boost NL & Propellor.

Big thanks to everyone who watched a film, attended a masterclass, enrolled in the IFFR PROgramme, danced the night away, visited exhibitions or helped us in any other way make IFFR 2017 yet another successful festival.

See you next year.

Stay connected. Go to IFFR.com/pro 17_ADV_SCREEN_335X245mm.indd 1

10-02-17 14:04

SCREEN TV DRAMA SERIES DAYS

Hans-Christian Schmid and Britta Knöller pitch The Disappearance — now The Vanishing — at last year’s EFM Drama Series Days

The high rise of TV drama Overcoming its early sceptics, the focus on high-end TV in Berlin’s market has quickly asserted itself, with EFM Drama Series Days a popular fixture in its third year. Geoffrey Macnab reports

I

t is three years since the Berlinale opened its doors to TV drama in earnest with Drama Series Days, a joint venture between the European Film Market, the Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents running this year from February 13-15. In that short space of time, the event has quickly grown in significance.

The event is now held in the luxurious Zoo Palast Cinemas in west Berlin, the festival’s old home, and a day has been added to this year’s schedule. Last year Susanne Bier’s John Le Carré thriller The Night Manager had its world premiere in Berlin and went on to become a major international hit. It is anticipated that another espionagethemed drama, Amazon Prime’s new series Patriot, which has its world premiere in Berlin tomorrow, will be looking to emulate that success (the shows premiere in Berlinale Special).

TV dramas were occasionally run on a one-off basis at the Berlinale long before Drama Series Days. However, the program-

18 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

‘Drama Series Days introduced us to a platform that we would not have known how to approach’ Britta Knöller, 23/5 Filmproduktion

(Right) The Night Manager world premiered in Berlin last year

ming of Jane Campion’s Top Of The Lake in Berlinale Special in 2013 was a symbolic turning point. The response was so enthusiastic that festival director Dieter Kosslick and his team saw the sense in including TV as an official part of the Berlinale offering.

It was obvious that producers, distributors and sales agents at the EFM were becoming more and more interested in TV drama.

The lines between cinema projects and those made for the small screen were already blurring.

“Most of all it was the realisation that the quality of these series was as good as the films being screened at the festival,” says Matthijs Wouter Knol, EFM director, of the decision to include TV as part of the market. “I knew that people who do their business in the market are also working

on series.” An event like Drama Series Days, Knol recognised, could be an “attractive additional niche market within EFM that would not only make business infrastructure better for some of our visitors but also attract new visitors”.

One principle was clear, namely that all the series screened and pitched in Berlin would be “high end” and cinematic in scope and that they would be made by producers who straddled the worlds of film and TV. There was never the intention to compete head-on with the major TV markets such as Mipcom and Mip-TV. “It came across as a revolutionary change at EFM, which I must say made me laugh a little,” says Knol, who points out there are 750 films presented in the market compared to roughly 20 series. Nonetheless, Drama Series Days is

www.screendaily.com

FILMS FROM ISRAEL

AT THE BERLINALE 2017 FORUM LOW TIDE (MOTZA EL HAYAM)

Director: Daniel Mann Producers: Itai Tamir, Ilann Girard Production: Laila Films, Arsam International Sales Contact: Itai Tamir, Laila Films, mail: itai@laila-films.com

Amazon Prime’s Patriot has its world premiere in Berlin

SAT MON TUE FRI

FEB 11 FEB 13 FEB 14 FEB 17

19:30 16:30 20:00 22:00

CINEMAXX 4 AKADEMIE DER KUENSTE COLOSSEUM 1 CINESTAR 8

PRESS & INDUSTRY: WED FEB. 15 09:30

CINEMAXX 6

MENASHE

Director: Joshua Z Weinstein Producers: Alex Lipschultz, Traci Carlson, Joshua Z Weinstein, Danny Finkelman, Yoni Brook, Gal Greenspan, Roi Kurland. Production: Shtick Film, Maiden Voyage, Where’s Eve, Sparks Productions, Autumn Productions, Green Productions.

World Sales: Mongrel International, Toronto / mail: charlotte@mongrelmedia.com SUN TUE WED SUN

FEB 12 FEB 14 FEB 15 FEB 19

19:15 16:30 20:00 19:30

DELPHI FILMPALAST CINESTAR 8 COLOSSEUM 1 CINEMAXX 4

BERLINALE CLASSICS AVANTI POPOLO

Director: Rafi Bukaee Producers: Rafi Bukaee, Micha Shagrir Production: T.T.G. Productions / Kastel Communications Ltd. Contact: Jerusalem Cinematheque, Israel Film Archive, Daniel Cohen, mail: daniel@jff.org.il TUE FEB 14 SAT. FEB 18

‘Amazon and Netflix come to the Co-Production Market to see which projects are in the pipeline’ Matthijs Wouter Knol, EFM

expanding. Registrations for the event have increased sharply.

Seven projects are being pitched at the EFM’s TV co-production event. Belgian outfit Caviar attended last year with Tabula Rasa, starring and coscripted by Veerle Baetens, and is back again this year with Gilles Coulier’s Omerta, about an elderly career criminal manufacturing Belgium’s most dubious export, XTC. “It [the co-production event] has become a bit of a secret hotspot within Drama Series Days because it is a very attractive for European and German TV channels and funds,” says Knol.

German producer Britta Knöller of 23/5 Filmproduktion was at the CoPro Series Pitching event last year with The Disappearance (now The Vanishing) by Hans-Christian Schmid, with the miniseries now due to be broadcast later this summer. Knöller is back this year to participate in one of the event’s panel discussions, on producing drama series.

“We’re a very small production company that has done cinematic, theatrical films. It was the first time we were approaching TV and series,” Knöller

www.screendaily.com

says, who notes Schmid had attended the Berlinale before with his feature films but had no TV experience. “It [Drama Series Days] introduced us to a platform that we would not have known how to approach. We were flattered by being selected. Buyers noticed us.”

She and Schmid were already in early discussions with Beta Cinema to represent their project internationally. Due to its selection in Drama Series Days, Beta quickly agreed to take on sales duties.

They also found a Czech co-producer — Mia Film — forged new contacts and, having developed the project on their own for three years, welcomed the feedback following the pitching session.

Fever pitch Alongside the screenings and co-production pitches, the event has conferences, talks and networking opportunities. In future, the festival organisers may look to see if Drama Series Days can be combined in some way with existing initiatives at the Berlinale Co-Production Market or Berlinale Talents.

Apart from anything else, Drama Series Days gives a boost to EFM in its second week. “We see there’s a new influx of visitors coming exclusively for the Drama Series Days,” says Knol, noting also that streaming giants Netflix and Amazon are supportive of the event.

“They welcome it. They come to the CoProduction Market to see which projects are in the pipeline. Their buyers are here.

They don’t share their screenings in the Drama Series Days because they don’t need to sell them.”

Even the sceptics who felt early on that it was incongruous for a film event to devote so much time to TV projects have now accepted Drama Series Days as a facet of Berlin’s market. The event may grow bigger, but not by too much.

As Knol says, “It’s not an ambition to become a bigger drama series market. s This size fits very well.” ■

19:00 12:00

CINEMAXX 8 ZEUGHAUSKINO

GENERATION 14 PLUS SEVEN MINUTES (SHEVA DAKOT)

Director: Assaf Machnes Producers: Gal Greenspan, Roi Kurland Production: Green Productions World Sales: Green Productions / Maya@greenproductions.co.il MON WED SAT SUN

FEB 13 FEB 15 FEB 18 FEB 19

11:30 10:30 14:30 16:00

CINEMAXX 3 CINEMAXX 1 CINEMAXX 1 CINEMAXX 5

FORUM EXPANDED TASHLIKH (CAST OFF)

Director: Yael Bartana Producers: Naama Pyritz, Yael Bartana Commisioned by: Neue Berliner Kunstverein - Berlin, Center for Contemporary Art - Tel Aviv Sales Contact: Yael Bartana, mail: ybartana@me.com MON FEB 13 SAT FEB 18

19:30 14:00

KINO ARSENAL 1 AKADEMIE DER KUENSTE

MARKET SCREENINGS BAR BAHAR (IN BETWEEN)

Director: Maysaloun Hamud Producer: Shlomi Elkabetz Production Company: Deux Beaux Garcons Films World Sales: Alma Cinema (FR) / Mail: sara@almacinema.com THU FEB 9

11:30

EFM CINEMOBILE

PAST LIFE

Director: Avi Nesher Producers: David M. Milch, David Silber, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery, Ruth Cats, Avi Nesher Productions: Metro Communications, Ars Veritas Productions, Sunshine Films Production World Sales: Bleiberg Entertainment / mail: sales@bleibergent.com THU FEB 9 SAT FEB 11

15:30 12:20

CINEMAXX 18 CINEMAXX 17

THE BURGLAR

Director: Hagar Ben Asher Producers: Benny Drechsel, Eitan Mansuri, Yael Fogiel, Nathalie Vallet, Karsten Stöter Production: Spiro films, Israel / Rohfilm, Germany / Films du Poisson, France World Sales: The Match Factory / mail: info@matchfactory.de THU FEB 9 WED FEB 15

12:40 09:30

CINESTAR 4 CINEMAXX 10

LAND OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE

Director: Yaniv Berman Producer: Tony Copti Production: Fresco Films Ltd. World Sales: Pluto Film Distribution Network / Mail: info@plutofilm.de SAT FEB 11 TUE FEB 14

13:30 16:20

CINEMAXX 14 CINEMAXX 15

BAUMSCHLAGER

Director: Harald Sicheritz Producers: Danny Krausz, Kurt Stocker / Co-Producers: Tami Leon, Chilik Michaeli, Avraham Pirchi Production: Dor Film / Co-Production: UCM – United Cahnnels Sales Contact: Danny Krausz, Dor-film / Mail: office@dor-film.at MON FEB 13

17:40

CINEMAXX 17

DUMB

Director: Shay Capon Producer: Jonathan Paran Production: Dori Media Sales Contact: Dori Media, Revital Basel / Mail: revital@dorimedia.com MON FEB 13

12:10

ZOO PALAST 5

ISRAEL FILM FUND / TEL: 972 3 562 8180, FAX: 972 3 562 5992 / INFO@FILMFUND.CO.IL / WWW.FILMFUND.ORG.IL THE RABINOVICH FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS - CINEMA PROJECT / INFO@CINEMAPROJECT.ORG.IL TEL: +972-3-5255020 / FAX: +972-3-5255130 / WWW.CINEMAPROJECT.ORG.IL Ministry of Culture and Sport

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 19

SPOTLIGHT HIGHLAND FILM GROUP

Take the high road After years of quietly assembling an eye-catching stable of sales titles, Highland Film Group is poised to step up to the major leagues with its upcoming slate. Jeremy Kay reports ‘We have a great partnership and we trust each other’ Delphine Perrier

Jason Momoa in Braven

H

ighland Film Group, the West Hollywood outfit run by CEO Arianne Fraser and COO Delphine Perrier, is at the EFM with plans to launch a production division this year, invest in bigger projects and build on its reputation for sourcing compelling titles. The expansion is a logical progression for a popular, hard-working team with a penchant for action fare and a knack for pulling projects together quickly and smoothly.

Titles such as The Trust starring Nicolas Cage, The Life And Death Of John Gotti with John Travolta, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which A24 will release in March, the upcoming Terminal with Margot Robbie and Braven starring Jason Momoa have kept buyers happy and are true to the company’s roots.

“I started Highland seven years ago not really knowing what that would mean in the long term,” says Fraser, who cut her teeth in senior executive roles at First Look International and Arsenal Pictures. “Our focus was reverse-engineering content for direct-to-broadcast.

We would make these dragon movies [Dawn Of The Dragonslayer and The Crown And The Dragon, to name two] for a price and sell to broadcasters all over the world.”

‘We understand what the buyer wants’ Arianne Fraser

Fraser learned early on how to maximise spend to deliver the most efficient return on investments. “You have to back into budgets for the content that makes sense,” she notes.

Universal language It is a strategy that still holds true at Highland and has earned the company a loyal network of partners around the world. “A lot of people gravitate towards us because we understand what the buyer wants — action films that translate into every language and are easier to sell to territories,” says Fraser.

Perrier entered the picture in 2012.

Fraser met the former Paramount Vantage and Odd Lot International senior executive at a dinner party in Monaco.

Six months later they met again and decided to go into business.

“We have a great partnership — a fan-

20 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

Margot Robbie in Terminal

tastic understanding of each other and we trust each other,” says Perrier. She echoes Fraser’s belief that while female executive empowerment at Highland is a source of pride it does not inform a particular mission beyond supporting quality commercial fare.

The women have moved quickly on a slate that covers most genres. They spotted the talent of Margot Robbie in The Wolf Of Wall Street and signed her up more than a year ago to noir thriller Terminal before she became a household name with Suicide Squad.

Highland boarded Final Score starring Dave Bautista and Pierce Brosnan, which, thanks to producer Marc Goldberg at Signature, incorporated the partial demolition last autumn of Upton Park football stadium, the former home to English Premier League side West Ham United. Safe to say, the upcoming siege thriller is on the radar of UK filmgoers.

Mindful of the turbulence that continues to unsettle the film world, Fraser and

Perrier are keen to diversify and take more control of content, not to mention a move into television. By reinvesting profits into projects, they remain deeply invested, in more than one sense of the word, in what they make.

In addition to production ambitions their goal is to move more aggressively into financing smart, appealing content.

Hence the investment with Samuel Hadida’s Davis Films and Electric Shadow on The Crow Reborn, a reboot of 1994 cult classic The Crow that starred the late Brandon Lee. The parties will finance, produce (with Ed Pressman) and distribute the film, and anticipate a production start towards the end of this year or early 2018. Highland says it will start talks with buyers at the EFM but the real push starts in Cannes once more elements have come together.

“We organically grew to a place that gave us the opportunity to become the rights holder of the source material, granting us more autonomy,” says Perrier. “We look forward to more of those opportunities.”

The Berlin sales slate includes The Last Draw Of Jack Of Hearts to star Josh Hartnett as a former black ops soldier left for dead who resurfaces to avenge a betrayal and reclaim the love of his life.

Guy Moshe will direct from his own screenplay.

The project is one of several new titles in the pipeline as Highland responds to the challenges of economics, streaming giants and the draw of television with optimism and vigour. “We’re having to adjust and adapt to the realities of the markets and distribution models,” says Fraser. “But as long as we stay openminded about what that means, there s are smart ways to make movies.” ■

www.screendaily.com

Shooting Stars are Europe’s best up-and-coming actors, selected annually by an international jury. Introduced at the Berlin International Film Festival — February 10 – 13. Honoured with the European Shooting Stars Award donated by TESIRO .

Slovenia MARUŠA MAJER

The Netherlands HANNAH HOEKSTRA

WWW. SHOOTING-STARS .EU

With the support of

European Shooting Stars Main Partner

Automobile Partner

Event Partners

© Jonas Jörneberg

Sweden KARIN FRANZ KÖRLOF

© Chloe Leenheer

European Film Promotion info@efp-online.com

Romania TUDOR AARON ISTODOR

© Alex Gonzalez

Germany LOUIS HOFMANN

© Matjaz Ivanisin

© Arturs Kondrats

Latvia ELĪNA VASKA

Italy ALESSANDRO BORGHI

© Riccardo Ghilardi

Poland ZOFIA WICHŁACZ

© Franciszek Przybylski

Portugal VICTORIA GUERRA

PARTICIPATING EFP MEMBERS Danish Film Institute, German Films, Istituto Luce Cinecittà (Italy), National Film Centre of Latvia, EYE International (The Netherlands), Polish Film Institute, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual I.P./ ICA (Portugal), Romanian Film Promotion, Slovenian Film Centre, Swedish Film Institute.

Special Thanks

medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH

EFP is supported by

© Andrei Runcanu

Denmark ESBEN SMED

© Sara Pinheiro

© Martin Dam Kristensen

AWARD CEREMONY TONIGHT 7 PM AT BERLINALE PALAST

Faces of the future Screen’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow initiative, launched in partnership with Dubai International Film Festival, celebrates the most promising acting, directing and screenwriting talent in the Middle East.

Profiles by Melanie Goodfellow

Back row from left: Alaa Eddine Aljem, Samer Ismail and Amjad Al-Rasheed Front row from left: Mariam Alferjani and Mounia Akl

creen’s inaugural edition of Arab Stars of Tomorrow — launched at Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) in December — spotlights five of the hottest directing and acting talents from across the Middle East. The joint venture with DIFF is a spin-off from Screen’s highly respected UK Stars of Tomorrow.

The five selected talents — Mounia Akl, Mariam Alferjani, Amjad AlRasheed, Samer Ismail and Alaa Eddine Aljem — were at DIFF for the launch,

S

photoshoot and five days of media and networking events. The timely initiative reveals how a film-making culture is taking root across the region beyond its traditional hubs of Egypt and Lebanon.

Jordanian film-maker Al-Rasheed, for example, hails from a territory that a decade ago had never produced a local feature film but put itself on the map in 2014 with Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb. Tunisian actress Alferjani’s country has seen an upsurge in independent film production following the 2011 revolution.

22 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

DIFF’s home territory of the United Arab Emirates is also building a talent base thanks to the support of the festival and Abu Dhabi-based entertainment company Image Nation. The efforts of Doha Film Institute (DFI) in neighbouring Qatar are also beginning to bear fruit.

What emerged in the selection process was the crucial role bodies such as DIFF, DFI and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture are playing in building a regional film industry. Beyond the grants they mete out, their workshops and events

foster networking and a larger feeling of an Arab independent film-making scene.

Another characteristic of development in the region is the absence of talent agents, with the scouting and nurturing of acting and directing talent left largely to producers.

After this exciting start, Screen is already keeping tabs on a number of talents for next year’s edition. In the meantime, we invite you to read about this year’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow in more » depth.

www.screendaily.com

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

SPOTLIGHT ARAB STARS OF TOMORROW

MARKET SCREENINGS

OFFICIAL & MARKET SCREENINGS OF FEB.13TH

SECRET INGREDIENT A film by Gjorce Stavreski

13/02 11AM

KINO ARSENAL 2

ME AND EL CHE

A film by Patrice Gautier 13/02 5.30PM

CINEMAXX 4

WATERBOYS

A film by Robert Jan Westdijk 13/02 1.05PM

CINEMAXX 2

SEX COWBOYS

A film by Adriano Giotti 13/02 6.20PM

CINESTAR 4

MARKET SCREENINGS

OFFICIAL & MARKET SCREENINGS TO COME

THE LAST PAINTING A film by Chen Hung-i

PANORAMA

14/02 10AM

CINEMAXX 9

14/02 11.15AM

CINEMAXX 2

A film by Song Chuan

18/02 2.30PM 19/02 8.30PM

Daily_13/02.indd 1

DEDE

A film by Mariam Khatchvani

CUBIX 9 (Official Screening) CINESTAR 3 (Official Screening)

08/02/2017 12:14

ARAB 2016

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

SPOTLIGHT ARAB STARS OF TOMORROW

Samer Ismail Actor (Syria) With his breakout role in The Worthy, the Syrian actor is rebuilding a career that was derailed by the country’s civil war yrian actor Samer Ismail got his big break straight out of Damascus’s Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts when he was cast as the lead in Hatem Ali’s 2012 TV drama Omar, an epic series revolving around the life of Omar ibn Al-Khattab — the second successor of the Prophet Muhammad. The role should have paved the way for a highprofile career but local work dried up as the Syrian civil war took its toll on the country’s once-thriving TV drama industry. “The start of my career coincided with the beginning of the war, so I never really savoured the success of appearing in Omar,” says Ismail. “Although we try to continue to work, the capacity of the local industry has been greatly reduced and a lot of actors and directors have left.”

S

‘As an actor, I want to live through these times even though it’s very dangerous’ Samer Ismail

A new chapter in Ismail’s acting career has just opened, however, with his first big-screen role in Emirati director Ali F Mostafa’s dystopian drama The Worthy.

Ismail delivers an arresting performance as Mussa, the psychopathic follower of a deadly cult. The futuristic thriller is the latest production from Abu Dhabi film company Image Nation. It is being sold internationally by IM Global under its Anthem label and has been picked up by Cinetic Media for the US. UAE-based Rami Yasin, a producer on The Worthy who also oversaw casting, hopes the role will boost Ismail’s profile both in the Middle East and internationally. “Samer really is made for film,” says Yasin. “He makes it look effortless in front of the camera. I hope that after The Worthy he will get more opportunities

and perhaps even be discovered internationally like Ali Suliman, because he really is of that calibre.”

In the meantime, Ismail has recently filmed another Image Nation production, feelgood comedy On Borrowed Time directed by Iraqi writer-director Yasir Al Yasiri. The film revolves around four forgotten residents of an old people’s home

24 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

whose lives are reinvigorated when one of them inherits a fortune.

In between shoots, Ismail continues to live in Damascus with his family. From 2014-15, he ran a comedy club in which acts discussed the ongoing conflict, but this has since disbanded and most of the performers are now dispersed across the globe. Ismail, however, says he has no

plans to leave Syria permanently for the time being. “As an actor, I want to live through these times even though it’s very dangerous,” he explains. “I want to see the truth rather than learn about what’s happening via the media.”

CONTACT SAMER ISMAIL samer.ismaeel@gmail.com

»

www.screendaily.com

SPOTLIGHT ARAB STARS OF TOMORROW

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Mariam Alferjani Actress, film-maker (Tunisia) The former medical student moves behind the camera as she prepares her first feature as a director ariam Alferjani was studying medicine in her native Tunisia five years ago when she happened to meet compatriot film-maker Leyla Bouzid through a mutual friend.

Bouzid, who has since made her critically acclaimed debut feature As I Open My Eyes, cast Alferjani in her 2012 graduation short Soubresauts, about a mother’s attempt to get to the bottom of her daughter’s attack during a night out with friends.

“I felt so at home on the set, I decided that’s what I wanted to do,” says Alferjani, who speaks Arabic, English, French and Italian. She dropped her medical studies and enrolled in directing and acting courses at the Civica Scuola di Cinema Luchino Visconti in Milan, where her diplomat father was based at the time.

Outside of term-time, Alferjani headed home to Tunisia to direct and

M

‘There has been an upsurge in creativity linked to the fact younger generations are able to express themselves more freely’ Mariam Alferjani

star in experimental shorts The Claim (Al Ediaa) and Wintry (Shatwi), based on the work of Egyptian poet Youssef Rakha. Tunisian film-maker Ala Eddine Slim also worked on the shorts, a collaboration that originated in the creative scene that has sprung up in Tunis following the 2011 popular rising.

“There has been an upsurge in creativity linked to the fact younger generations are able to express themselves more freely,” says Alferjani. “It’s become quite a hub.”

Since graduating from the Civica Scuola di Cinema in 2015, Alferjani has been living and working between Tunis and Milan. She will appear on the big screen this year in up-and-coming Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s debut fiction feature Beauty And The Dogs, starring as a young woman fighting for justice after she is raped by corrupt police officers during a night out in Tunis.

This follows Ben Hania’s award-winning documentary Zaineb Hates The Snow and mockumentary Challat Of

Tunis. The director contacted Alferjani on the back of her performance in Soubresauts. Based on a real-life tale, Beauty And The Dogs is a searing critique of society at large — not just in Tunisia — and the way it views women. “It’s about a person fighting for her rights. It’s not a movie against the police, it’s a movie about the cruelty of human beings,” says the young

26 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

film-maker. Paris-based Jour2fête has launched sales on the film at the EFM. Back in Milan, Alferjani is writing the screenplay for her first feature-length film. Provisionally entitled Alya, it will revolve around a young Tunisian woman with a passion for travel who finds herself increasingly hemmed in because of her Arab origins and gender.

“I get the feeling it’s becoming more and more difficult for people to wander, to travel, for reasons beyond their control.

Our realities are often down to chance and the film will explore this through the voyage of a woman,” says Alferjani.

CONTACT MARIAM ALFERJANI elferjani.mariam@gmail.com

»

www.screendaily.com

new films @ media luna

LIVE FOR ME

MALACOPA

JUST CHARLIE

ROOM 213

THE HERO

THE LIBRARY SUICIDES

A film by CHEMA DE LA PEÑA Four strangers get unexpectedly connected during their fight to survive. To keep on living, all of them will need the support but also the harm of the others.

A A film film by

by REBEKAH REBEKAH FORTUNE FORTUNE Teenager Charlie Teenager Charlie is is destined destined for for football football stardom. stardom. But But what what do do you you do do when when you you are are divided divided between between aa desire desire to to live live up up to to expectations expectations and and aa compulsion compulsion to to be be true true to to yourself? yourself?

A A film film by

by MENNO MENNO MEYJES MEYJES Sara Silverstein Sara Silverstein suddenly suddenly finds finds herself herself involved involved in in various various violent violent attacks. attacks. She She realizes realizes she she needs needs to to unravel unravel her her father‘s father‘s past past to to stop stop this this threat. threat.

A film by ARMANDO CASAS Shy and insecure Mateo prepares for the most important presentation of his career with a drink, unwillingly awakening his Nemesis Malacopa, who takes Mateo’s life into his own hands.

A A film film by

by EMELIE EMELIE LINDBLOM LINDBLOM When twelve-year-old When twelve-year-old Elvira Elvira goes goes to to summer summer camp, camp, strange strange things things start start to to happen happen in in her her room. room. Things Things that that cannot cannot be be explained explained -- unless unless you you believe believe in in ghosts. ghosts.

A A film film by

by EUROS EUROS LYN LYN Twin sisters Twin sisters Ana Ana and and Nan Nan seek seek revenge revenge on on the the man man they they believe believe murdered murdered their their mother mother and and lay lay siege siege to to him him in in the the National National Library.

Library.

SCREENING TOMORROW WALDSTILLE By

By Martijn Martijn Maria Maria Smits Smits

10:40H 10:40H in in CinemaxX CinemaxX

„extremely „extremely suspenseful“ suspenseful“ „expert „expert acting acting and and direction“ direction“ The The Hollywood Hollywood Reporter Reporter

Visit us! www.medialuna.biz www.medialuna.biz

media luna media luna new new films films @ @ Berlinale, Berlinale, MGB MGB #33 #33 Sales: Ida Martins • idamartins@medialuna.biz • mobile: +49 170 966 7900 Sales: Ida Martins • idamartins@medialuna.biz • mobile: +49 170 966 7900 Acquisitions: Acquisitions: Vito Vito Marchiano Marchiano •• vito@medialuna.biz vito@medialuna.biz •• mobile: mobile: +49 +49 173 173 249 249 4949 4949 Festivals: Floriano Buono • floriano@medialuna.biz • mobile: +49 173 Festivals: Floriano Buono • floriano@medialuna.biz • mobile: +49 173 804 804 6153 6153

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

SPOTLIGHT ARAB STARS OF TOMORROW

Mounia Akl Writer-director (Lebanon) Short film Beirut, I Love You (I Love You Not) set the former architecture student on a path to Cannes started watching Bergman films way too young,” jokes Lebanese film-maker Mounia Akl, the daughter of cinephile architects whose passion for cinema stoked her early ambition to become a director. Akl took a while to embrace her childhood dream, however, opting instead to study architecture at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA).

“At 17, I was too scared to plunge directly into cinema. It seemed too risky,” she says. “I half regret that but at the same time what I learned at architecture school became an inherent part of my film-making.”

While studying at ALBA, Akl met future collaborator Cyril Aris, and the pair decided to collaborate on a joint short film, Beirut, I Love You (I Love

“

Alaa Eddine Aljem Writer-director (Morocco) The young film-maker founded his own company to produce his works, and his tenacity has resulted in high-profile support laa Eddine Aljem took part in the Sundance Institute’s 2016 Screenwriters Lab, where he worked on the script for his upcoming debut feature The Unknown Saint. “It really helped me strip down the screenplay and inject some fresh ideas,” says the Moroccan director of the summer workshop, where he was mentored by Oscar-winning writer Charles Randolph (The Big Short), Brazilian writer-director Karim Aïnouz and Canadian-Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta.

His desert-set black comedy is about a thief on the run from the police who hastily buries his loot on a remote hill — only to discover on his return years later that a sacred sanctuary has been built on the spot. The project was presented at Locarno’s Open Doors section and attended the La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde initiative at Cannes last year, where

A

the production connected with French producer Alexa Rivero of Paris-based Altamar Films.

Aljem first became interested in cinema after failing a competitive exam for a computer-engineering course as a teenager. “I fell into a depression and ended up watching four, five films a day,” he says. “I came to understand the power of film to transport you out of everyday life.”

Spurred by his newfound passion, Aljem secured a place at the Marrakech School of Visual Arts (ESAVM), where he gained experience on the ground working on international productions, followed by a place at the prestigious INSAS art school in Brussels, where he worked as a production assistant to fund his studies. He returned to Morocco in 2014 to shoot his first non-student short, Desert Fish, about a boy growing up in the desert who dreams of becoming a fisherman against his land-loving father’s wishes.

Aljem’s progress stalled, however, because he could not convince a local production company to board the project alongside Belgian outfit Neon Rouge. “By law, you can’t shoot in Morocco unless you have a local company attached. I soon discovered that Morocco’s established producers had no interest whatsoever in shorts and

28 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

also realised that many of my former ESAVM classmates were in the same boat,” says Aljem. “So I set up a production company to produce all the work that no-one else wanted to produce.”

And so was born Casablanca-based production house Le Moindre Geste.

He finally completed Desert Fish at the end of 2014 and it went on to sweep the board in the shorts category at the Moroccan National Film Festival in 2015. Other Le Moindre Geste pro-

‘I came to understand the power of film to transport you out of everyday life’ Alaa Eddine Aljem

ductions to date include Hicham Elladdaqi’s documentary The Bread Road (La Route Du Pain), a co-production with Neon Rouge and Tact Production in France.

Aljem is now focused on The Unknown Saint, which he hopes to shoot this year. “Like Desert Fish it will be set in the desert, but it will be less contemplative,” explains Aljem.

“There will be more humour.”

CONTACT LE MOINDRE GESTE alaa.e.aljem@gmail.com

I

Amjad Al-Rasheed Writer-director (Jordan) The Jordanian director of short film The Parrot is gearing up for his first feature t the age of 10, Jordan’s Amjad Al-Rasheed declared to his mother that he wanted to be a director, and he has never looked back. His early exposure to cinema consisted mainly of Egyptian features on Jordanian TV, but he also recalls his first trip to a movie theatre in 1997 to see Titanic. “For me, it was huge, like a dream, and cinema has remained like a dream for me ever since,” he says.

Like many aspiring film-makers in the Middle East, Al-Rasheed felt compelled to undertake a more mainstream degree before turning his full attention to cinema. But while studying business, he also built a portfolio of corporate films and shorts before

A

www.screendaily.com

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

close collaborators. They include Spanish writer-director Clara Roquet — who is collaborating on Akl’s debut feature, about a family living in isolation from the world — and Georgian filmmaker George Sikharulidze, who edited the short.

Akl’s priority right now is to complete the script for her next feature ahead of Cannes. The deadline is linked to the fact she is participating in the fourth edition of Directors’ Fortnight initiative The Factory Project, which this year will put the spotlight on emerging talent from Lebanon. As part of the programme — which pairs an emerging director with a more established talent to make a short film — Akl has been paired with Costa Rican director Ernesto ‘Neto’ Villalobos.

Their joint short film I Can’t Hear You Well, will shoot in Lebanon early this year.

CONTACT MOUNIA AKL mounia.akl@gmail

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

You Not), in which they made a short visual letter to one another on a VHS camera. “It’s not a masterpiece, but it started everything for me,” says Akl. “We posted it online for our friends to see. A week later the movie went viral.”

Akl and Aris were approached by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) to create a spin-off, Beirut, I Love You, which became a hit series that spanned some 50 short episodes.

“It turned out to be our film school,” says Akl. More than half the crew on Beirut, I Love You serviced her latest award-winning short Submarine, which premiered at Cannes and competed in Dubai International Film Festival’s Muhr Short Film Competition.

Inspired by the Beirut garbage crisis of 2015, Submarine is about a young woman who refuses to evacuate her home despite mounds of refuse piling up in the street. Akl made the work as part of her MFA in directing at Columbia University in New York, where she graduated in January. She credits Columbia with “helping me understand who I was and wanted to be as a film-maker”. It has also connected Akl with a group of budding film-makers from across the globe who are now

www.screendaily.com

applying to the masters programme at Jordan’s Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts. Since graduating in 2010, Al-Rasheed has built a varied body of work, from TV ads to music videos to a handful of shorts. He was in attendance at Dubai International Film Festival last year with his short The Parrot, which revolves around a Moroccan Jewish family who move into a house in Haifa that has been abandoned by its Palestinian owners following the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. In their haste, they left behind a talking parrot.

The film is a highly original work which Al-Rasheed says is inspired

by Swedish director Roy Andersson.

“I like the way he carefully composes the scene and the frame and that everything is choreographed,” says the young director.

The project won Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize in 2015, which helped fund the shoot with assistance from Jordan’s Royal Film Commission (RFC). Roman Roitman of Cologne-based production com-

pany Monokel co-produced alongside Jordanian producer Deema Azar.

Al-Rasheed is developing his first feature, Inshallah It’s A Boy — A Chapter From The Fabled Life Of Nawal. It revolves around recently widowed Nawal, whose brother-in law is pressuring her to sell the house so he can get his hands on the inheritance from his deceased brother. Nawal starts looking for a man to make her pregnant so she may retain the right to keep her home. “It’s about women’s rights,” explains Al-Rasheed. “I want to tackle the fact Jordan is a male-dominated society in which women are too often the losers.” Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak has signed for the lead role.

Backed by RFC, Inshallah It’s A Boy is being produced by Diala Al Raie — an experienced line producer whose credits include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — and the commission’s Ayah Jardaneh. Al-Rasheed hopes to s shoot the film this year. n CONTACT AMJAD AL-RASHEED alrasheed.amjad@gmail.com

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 29

SCREENINGS Edited by Paul Lindsell

JURY GRID, PAGE 48

paullindsell@gmail.com

BERLIN VENUES AKADEMIE DER KUNSTE (HANSEATENWEG) Hanseatenweg 10 10557 Berlin ARSENAL CINEMA Potsdamer Strasse 2 10785 Berlin AUDI BERLINALE LOUNGE Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1 10785 Berlin BERLINALE PALAST Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1 10785 Berlin EMBASSY OF CANADA Leipziger Platz 17 10117 Berlin BUNDESPLATZ-KINO Bundesplatz 14 10715 Berlin (Wilmersdorf) CINEMAXX POTSDAMER PLATZ Potsdamer Strasse 5, Entrance Voxstrasse 10785 Berlin CINESTAR IN THE SONY CENTRE Potsdamer Strasse 4 10785 Berlin CINESTAR IMAX Potsdamer Strasse 4 10785 Berlin CITY KINO WEDDING (in the Centre Francais de Berlin) Mullerstrasse 74 13349 Berlin COLOSSEUM Schonhauser Allee 123 10437 Berlin CUBIX Alexanderplatz, Rathausstrasse 1, 10178 Berlin DELPHI FILMPALAST Kantstrasse 12a 10623 Berlin DEUTSCHE KINEMATHEK Filmhaus, Potsdamer Strasse 2 10785 Berlin EISZEIT KINO Zeughofstrasse 20 10997 Berlin (Kreuzberg) FILMTHEATER AM FRIEDRICHSHAIN Botzowstrasse 1-5 10407 Berlin

HAU HEBBEL AM UFER (HAU1, HAU2, HAU3) HAU1: Stresemannstrasse 29 HAU2: Hallesches Ufer 32 HAU3: Tempelhofer Ufer 10 10963 Berlin HAUS DER BERLINER FESTSPIELE Schaperstrasse 24 10719 Berlin HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 10557 Berlin KINO INTERNATIONAL Karl-Marx-Allee 33 10178 Berlin MARRIOTT HOTEL Inge-Beisheim-Platz 1 10785 Berlin MARTIN-GROPIUS-BAU (MGB) Niederkirchnerstrasse 7 10963 Berlin ODEON Hauptstrasse 116 10827 Berlin (Schoneberg) PREUSSISCHER LANDTAG (BERLIN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES) Niederkirchnerstrasse 5 10111 Berlin SILENT GREEN KULTURQUARTIER Gerichtstrasse 35 13347 Berlin SPUTNIK KINO Hasenheide 54 10967 Berlin (Kreuzberg) THALIA PROGRAMMKINO POTSDAM Rudolf-Breitscheid-Str. 50 14482 PotsdamBabelsberg TONI & TONINO Antonplatz 1 13086 Berlin VOLKSBUHNE AM ROSALUXEMBURG-PLATZ Linienstrasse 227 10178 Berlin WOLF Weserstrasse 59 12045 Berlin (Neukolln) ZEUGHAUSKINO Unter den Linden 2 10117 Berlin

FRIEDRICHSTADT-PALAST Friedrichstrasse 107 10117 Berlin

ZOO PALAST Hardenbergstrasse 29a 10623 Berlin

GROPIUS MIRROR RESTAURANT Niederkirchnerstrasse 10963 Berlin

» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration.

30 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

FESTIVAL & PRESS

FESTIVAL

AND PRESS

09:00 BRIGHT NIGHTS

(Germany, Norway) 86mins. Dir: Thomas Arslan. Cast: Georg Friedrich, Tristan Gobel, Marie Leuenberger, Hanna Karlberg.

Following his father’s death, Michael travels to the funeral in a remote part of northern Norway, taking with him his 14-year-old son Luis, whom he barely knows. During the long days of the summer solstice Michael tries to be the father he never was.

Competition Press only Berlinale Palast

09:30 INFLAME

(Turkey) Rachel Mayeri.

94mins. Dir: Ceylan Ozgun Ozcelik. Cast: Algi Eke, Ozgur Cevik, Kadir Cermik, Boncuk Yilmaz, Selen Ucer.

A young TV editor for a news channel experiences how the truth is increasingly manipulated.

She also suspects that her parents did not die in a traffic accident but must have been killed in another way. A study in paranoia as a metaphor for political trauma.

Panorama Special CinemaxX 7

RABBIT SCHOOL — GUARDIANS OF THE GOLDEN EGG

10:00 UP IN THE SKY

(Germany) Gullane.

76mins. Dir: Ute von Munchow-Pohl. Cast: Noah Levi, Jenny Melina Witez, Senta Berger, Friedrich von Thun.

By accident, city rabbit Max lands up in the rabbit school. He cannot wrap his head around how fusty and proper everything is.

(Sweden) 82mins.

Dir: Petter Lennstrand.

Cast: Mira Forsell, Adam Lundgren, Guffe Funck, Petter Lennstrand, Shebly Niavarani.

Pottan, aged eight, is meant to be staying at

Generation Kplus Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

kingdom is taking revenge.

Competition Friedrichstadt-Palast

SOMNILOQUIES

(France, US) 73mins.

Dir: Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor.

Dion McGregor became famous in the mid-1960s for talking in his sleep. Blurry images of sleeping bodies accompany recordings of his voice while asleep: a hypnotising exploration of the liminal state between wakefulness and dream.

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

SPOOR

(Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovak Republic) 128mins.

Dir: Agnieszka Holland.

Cast: Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Krobot, Jakub Gierszac, Patricia Volny, Borys Szyc.

Several hunters are mysteriously killed in a village in the mountains.

Retired engineer Duszejko suspects that the animal

TESOROS

(Mexico) 95mins.

Dir: Maria Novaro.

Cast: Jacinta Chavez, Dylan Sutton Chavez, Andrea Sutton Chavez, Lucas Barroso Tillinger, Michelle Organiz.

Dylan and Andrea have just moved to Barra de Potosi on Mexico’s Pacific coast. A treasure hunt takes the boy, his sister, and some local friends on a journey of discovery that turns up something far more precious than a lost pirate’s treasure trove.

Generation Kplus Zoo Palast 1

WILD MOUSE

(Austria) 103mins.

Dir: Josef Hader.

Cast: Josef Hader, Pia Hierzegger, Georg Friedrich, Jorg Hartmann, Denis Moschitto, Crina Semciuc, Nora von Waldstatten, Maria

a pony farm but her parents leave her at a recycling yard where strange characters are building a space rocket.

The combination of puppets and real-life characters makes for an action-packed adventure.

Generation Kplus HKW

Hofstatter, Thomas Schubert.

When Viennese music critic Georg suddenly loses his job he is hellbent on revenge. A dryly humorous tragi-comedy about the Austrian middle class’s private fears of failure and social decline.

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

10:00 NO LAND’S SONG

(Germany, France, Iran) 2.35 (Two Thirty Five).

93mins. Dir: Ayat Najafi.

In Iran, since the revolution of 1979, women are no longer allowed to sing in public as soloists — at least in front of men. Defying censorship and taboos, the young composer Sara Najafi is determined to organise a concert.

LOLA at Berlinale Accreditation only Zoo Palast 2

UP IN THE SKY See box, above

www.screendaily.com

»

DRAMA SERIES DAYS

13–15 FEB 2017, At thE Zoo PAlASt CINEMA MoNDAY, 13 FEB Zoo Palast Cinema 4

13:00 13:30 14:30 15:30

official opening* how to Make Your Series Go Global? Co-production, Financing and Distribution Strategies for Binge-worthy tV hosted by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW in cooperation with The Hollywood Reporter New Frontiers: original Content from latin America hosted by IMCINE

European Series Funding at a Glance

BERlINAlE tAlENtS (at hAU 3, hAU / hebbel am Ufer) 14:30–17:00 on location: Berlin Station

tUESDAY, 14 FEB Zoo Palast Cinema 4

13:00 14:00 15:00

Berlin on Screen: Zeitgeist in Serial Drama hosted by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Spotlight UFA: high-End Drama for the International Market hosted by UFA Pay tV Expanding: What to Expect? hosted by HBO Europe / moderated by C21

WEDNESDAY, 15 FEB Zoo Palast Cinema 2

11:00–14:00 CoPro Series Pitching*

MoNDAY, tUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, 13–15 FEB Zoo Palast Cinema 3, 4, 5

from 10:00

Market Screenings

* by invitation only Along with the Drama Series Days, the 67th Berlin International Film Festival will again present a curated selection of high-quality drama series within the framework of the Berlinale Special programme at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

www.efm-berlinale.de

EFM17_DSD_Screen_245x335_RZ.indd 1

01.02.17 11:47

SCREENINGS

11:00

GHOST HUNTING

(Germany) 91mins.

Dir: Nicolas Wackerbarth.

Cast: Andreas Lust, Judith Engel, Ursina Lardi, Corinna Kirchhoff, Andrea Sawatzki.

Director Vera is unwilling to compromise when it comes to finding the right lead actress for a television Fassbinder remake. Acting assistant Gerwin delivers dialogues with a bevy of famous actresses and soon realises that this could be his big chance.

(France, Switzerland, Palestine) Cicero Films.

92mins. Dir: Raed Andoni. Cast: Ramzi Maqdisi, Mohammed ‘Abu Atta’ Khattab, Raed Andoni, Atef Ai-Akhras, Wadee Hanani.

A set-up for an experiment in an empty room: former inmates reconstruct an Israeli secret service interrogation centre. These Palestinian men use role play to come to terms with their memories and the humiliation they have experienced.

Forum CineStar 8

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

CASTING

11:15 DIESTE [URUGUAY]

(Germany) 95mins.

Dir: Heinz Emigholz.

A documentary about 28 buildings by Uruguayan architect and master of thin shell structures Eladio Dieste, supplemented in a prologue by views of three buildings by Julio Vilamajo constructed in Montevideo in the 1930s.

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

GOODBYE BERLIN

(Germany) Kurt Krigar.

93mins. Dir: Fatih Akin.

Cast: Tristan Gobel, Anand Batbileg.

A coming-of-age story about Maik and Tschick, two 14-year-old outsiders who steal a car and embark on a life-changing road trip through Estern Germany.

LOLA at Berlinale Accreditation only Zoo Palast 2

HEADBANG LULLABY ON THE SILVER GLOBE

(Poland) 166mins.

Dir: Andrzej Zulawski.

Cast: Andrzej Seweryn, Jerzy Trela, Grazyna Dylag, Waldemar Kownacki, Iwona Bielska.

Astronauts stranded on a faraway planet develop into a new, shamanistic human tribe with a totalitarian streak. It was not until the 1980s that Zulawski was able to complete his visionary film, which had been banned in the 1970s.

Retrospective CinemaxX 8

12:00

(Morocco, France, Qatar, Lebanon) 111mins. Dir: Hicham Lasri. Cast: Aziz Hattab, Latefa Ahrrare, Zoubir Abou el Fadl, El Jirari Benaissa, Salma Eddlimi.

1986: a government official secures a bridge between two hostile communities near Casablanca ahead of the king’s visit. A visually stunning fairytale in which euphoria and hope lift the spirits of a mercilessly oppressed people.

Panorama Special CinemaxX 7

DARK BLUE GIRL

THE PARTY

(Germany) 103mins.

Dir: Mascha Schilinski.

Cast: Helena Zengel, Karsten Antonio Mielke, Artemis Chalkidou.

Seven-year-old Luca’s parents separated some time ago. At first it was awful but then she made herself at home in the second best of all worlds.

Now, everything is about to change again… back to how it used to be.

(UK) 71mins. Dir: Sally Potter. Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall.

An innocuous celebration among friends threatens to end with blood on the carpet.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino Colosseum 1

SPOOR

www.screendaily.com

Competition Press only Berlinale Palast

(Poland, Germany, Czech

Republic, Sweden, Slovak Republic) 128mins. Dir: Agnieszka Holland. Cast: Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Krobot, Jakub Gierszac, Patricia Volny, Borys Szyc.

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

12:15 BARRAGE

(Luxembourg, Belgium, France) Acrobates Films.

112mins. Dir: Laura Schroeder. Cast: Lolita Chammah, Themis Pauwels, Isabelle Huppert, Charles Muller, Elsa Houben.

After 10 years away, Catherine returns to her daughter, who’s been raised by her grandmother in the interim. As a mother, she’s no longer needed, while as a daughter she’s only a disappointment. Can a bond be created by sheer effort alone?

Forum Kino Arsenal 1

VICEROY’S HOUSE

(India, UK) ASAP Films.

106mins. Dir: Gurinder Chadha. Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Om Puri.

At the end of British rule, Lord Mountbatten is tasked with overseeing India’s transition to independence.

This romantic historical drama tells the story of the religious and ethnic conflicts and the effects of partition that still endure today.

Competition (out of competition) Friedrichstadt-Palast

13:00 BOY AND LAKE

(Russian Federation) 25mins. Dir: Prokopyi Nogovitsyn. Cast: Slava Titov, Roman Danilov, Vladimir Krivoshapkin, Anatolyi Solomonov, Semen Konstantinov.

A Sakha boy sets out on a lyrical journey through the boreal forest to catch fish in

a secluded icebound lake.

He performs the laborious task as a meditative ritual, at the same time drifting into a magical oneiric world.

NATIVe — Indigenous Cinema Cubix 8

GOD JOHOGOI

(Russian Federation) Yu Cheng-Ta. 60mins.

Dir: Sergei Potapov.

Cast: Pavel Chenyanov, Alya Poiseyeva.

The young horse herder Johogoi feels summoned by the equine deity to attend the celebrated summer festival of Sakha. His excitement radiates through his smile as he participates in the rituals, believing he will find the woman who appears in his dreams.

NATIVe — Indigenous Cinema Cubix 8

WALLAY

(France, Burkina Faso, Qatar) dollface. 84mins.

Dir: Berni Goldblat.

Cast: Makan Nathan

Diarra, Ibrahim Koma, Hamadoun Kassogue, Mounira Kankole, Josephine Kaborce.

When his dad sends him off to relatives in Burkina Faso, 13-year-old Ady’s ready for some R&R abroad. But once there, the reception is chilly and it soon becomes clear that this isn’t going to be the nice break from life back home he expected.

Generation Kplus HKW

13:30 LADY OF THE LAKE

(India) 71mins. Dir: Haobam Paban Kumar.

Cast: Ningthoujam Sanatomba, Sagolsam Thambalsang.

Loktak Lake in northeastern India is a place of unique natural beauty but now resettlement plans threaten its inhabitants’ everyday existence. A gun and a mysterious old woman bring ever greater

12:30 A FANTASTIC WOMAN

(Chile, US, Germany, Spain) Velvet Film.

104mins. Dir: Sebastian Lelio. Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolas Saavedra.

Marina is a transgender woman. When her partner dies she finds herself faced with his family’s anger and prejudice. She fights for her right to grieve — with the same unbroken energy she displayed when she fought to live as a woman.

SCREENING FOR BUYERS ONLY, NO PRESS ADMITTED

Competition Zoo Palast 1

RICHARD THE STORK

(Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway) microcscope. 84mins.

Dir: Toby Genkel.

Cast: Tilman Dobler, Christian Gaul, Nicolette Krebitz, Marco Ecer, Marcus Off. A little sparrow undertakes an enormous journey: When Richard wakes up alone in his stork nest one morning, he resolves to follow his adopted family to Africa on his own in order to prove against all odds that he’s one of them.

Generation Kplus Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

SCREENING TODAY 16:30 – Kino Arsenal 2 WORLD SALES MINERVA PICTURES – MGB 147 – sales@minervapictures.com »

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 33

SCREENINGS

uncertainty into the life of fisherman Tomba.

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

14:00

14:00 OCCIDENTAL

(France) 73mins. Dir: Neil Beloufa.

Cast: Idir Chender, Anna Ivacheff, Paul Hamy, Louise Orry-Diquero, Hamza Meziani, Brahim Tekfa.

As protests rage on the Paris streets, two

suspicious men rent the bridal suite at the Hotel Occidental, which feels stuck in the ’70s. When the events threaten to envelop staff and guests, hotel manager Diana tries to maintain order.

Forum Akademie der Kunste

AF_HalfPag_FilmeTchan_218x150mm.pdf

1

03/02/2017

18:40

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

CITY OF THE SUN

INSYRIATED

(Georgia, US, Qatar, Netherlands) 100mins.

Dir: Rati Oneli.

Chiatura was once a proud ore mining centre but today its remaining inhabitants eke out their livelihoods among the ruins of Soviet ambition.

Work in the mines, music and theatre: a postutopian portrait of life in the city of the sun.

(Belgium, France, Lebanon) 85mins.

Dir: Philippe Van Leeuw.

Cast: Hiam Abbass, Diamand Abou Abboud, Juliette Navis, Mohsen Abbas, Moustapha Al Kar. In Damascus, energetic Oum Yazan is trying to keep her family life together while the war is raging outside. Trapped in their apartment, the family is faced with a decision: should they sacrifice the life of one to protect the rest?

Forum CineStar 8

FESTIVAL & PRESS

and archival images, Essafi traces the contours of a truly independent artist.

CROSSING THE SEVENTH GATE

(Morocco) 80mins.

Dir: Ali Essafi.

Before Ahmed Bouanani died in 2011, he created a small, yet influential oeuvre against considerable odds.

Drawing on conversations

Panorama International

OCCIDENTAL See box, left

PATHS

(Germany) 107mins.

Dir: Chris Miera. Cast: Mike Hoffmann, Mathis Reinhardt, Tom Bottcher, Cai Cohrs, Peer Martin.

How long is forever? A few years? Or just the time it takes for a wave to crash onto the Baltic coast? Andreas and Martin share the ups and downs of their daily lives; their son Max is almost grown up. A sensitive portrait of a longstanding relationship.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino Press and Accreditation CinemaxX 5

RIFLE

(Brazil, Germany) 88mins. Dir: Davi Pretto. Cast: Dione Avila de Oliveira, Evaristo Goularte, Andressa Goularte, Elizabete Nogueira, Livia Goularte.

A taciturn former soldier is employed to guard a small landholder’s estate.

When an agricultural company seeks to buy

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

34 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

www.screendaily.com

up the land, he reacts in drastic fashion.

Berlinale Talents HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)

TEXT FOR YOU

(Germany) 107mins.

Dir: Karoline Herfurth.

Cast: Karoline Herfurth, Friedrich Mucke, Nora Tschirner, Frederick Lau, Katja Riemann.

Young and pretty Clara recently lost her fiance Ben, the love of her life.

To overcome her grief, Clara starts sending text messages to Ben. LOLA at Berlinale Accreditation only Zoo Palast 2

14:30 DARK CITY

(US, Australia) 100mins.

Dir: Alex Proyas. Cast: Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O’Brien.

An alleged murderer of prostitutes joins forces with

the investigating detective to uncover a plot by extraterrestrial invaders. An urban neo-noir thriller that references Metropolis and many other film classics.

Retrospective CinemaxX 8

MY WONDERFUL WEST BERLIN

(Germany) MinMamma Produktion. 90mins.

Dir: Jochen Hick. Cast: Romy Haag, Maximilian Lenz, Ades Zabel.

An absorbing journey through time to explore gay lifestyles in the former West Berlin and the beginnings of the post-war gay movement. Protagonists of the time paint a dynamic portrait of a city that is still considered a refuge.

Panorama Documents Colosseum 1

ONE THOUSAND ROPES

(New Zealand) Filmadora Producciones. 97mins.

Dir: Tusi Tamasese.

Cast: Frankie Adams, Uelese Petaia, Sima Urale, Beulah Koale, Ene Petaia, Anapela Polataivao.

A man tries to face his past, his daughter and his inner demons.

Panorama Special Cubix 9

THOSE WHO MAKE REVOLUTION HALFWAY ONLY DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES

(Canada) 183mins.

Dir: Mathieu Denis, Simon Lavoie. Cast: Charlotte Aubin, Laurent Belanger, Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez, Gabrielle Tremblay.

In the wake of the Maple Spring, four young people in Quebec form an avantgarde faction. This political epic, radical in its diverse formal aesthetics, tells a story of ideals and doubts, of a life on the fringe that is destined to fail.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 3

14:45

FIGHTING THROUGH THE NIGHT

MR LONG

(Canada) Les Films d’Antoine. 285mins.

Dir: Sylvain L’Espcrance.

Sylvain L’Espcrance’s longterm observational film is a poetic, combative work that takes a look at Greece and her people. A portrait of this crisis-torn EU country verging on collapse where extreme conditions are stirring its population into resistance.

(Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Germany) 129mins. Dir: Sabu.

Cast: Chen Chang, Sho Aoyagi, Yiti Yao, Junyin Bai, Masashi Arifuku.

A Taiwanese hitman finds his new calling running a successful mobile food stall in Japan. He also looks after a small boy. But then his past brutally catches up with him.

Competition Press only CinemaxX 7

15:00 A FANTASTIC WOMAN

(Chile, US, Germany, Spain) Velvet Film.

104mins. Dir: Sebastian Lelio. Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolas Saavedra.

Competition Friedrichstadt-Palast

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

15:30 AUTUMN, AUTUMN

(South Korea) Cold Iron Pictures. 77mins.

Dir: Jang Woo-jin.

Cast: Yang Heung-ju, Lee Se-rang, Woo Ji-hyeon.

A young man and an older couple take a train from Seoul to the small town of Chuncheon. Across two separate threads, we follow these protagonists to the

temple of Cheongpyeong, a place full of memories for them.

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

BUTTERFLY KISSES

(UK) Rachel Mayeri.

90mins. Dir: Rafael Kapelinski. Cast: Theo Stevenson, Liam Whiting, Byron Lyons, Rosie Day, Thomas Turgoose.

Jake can survey the whole housing block from the hallway window on the top floor. The solitude of this place exerts a particular attraction.

There are certain things you can’t tell anyone — not even your best friends.

Generation 14plus Cubix 8

LITTLE HARBOUR

(Slovak Republic, Czech Republic) 85mins.

Dir: Iveta Grofova.

Cast: Vanessa Szamuhelova, Matus

Market Screening Tue 14th | 11:15 a.m.

CinemaxX 18

Contact Patra Spanou Film Marketing and Consulting

Production

MGB #24 | +49 1520 1987294 | patra.spanou@yahoo.com » Screening_EFM.indd 1

www.screendaily.com

06/02/17 15:32

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 35

SCREENINGS

Bacisin, Katarina Kamencova, Johanna Tesalova.

Ten-year-old Jarka dreams of having a real family and a house by the sea. Together with her neighbour Kristian, she assumes the role of a parent in caring for two abandoned babies. Her grandmother’s enchanted garden becomes their safe haven.

Liqiao, Yao Fang, Huang Zifan, Yan Shixiang, Liu Xiaoling.

In a world that doesn’t offer much of anything to hold on to, 16-year-old Lynn applies for admission to the police academy in a small Chinese city. Together with her friend May she traffics in stolen cell phones. One day May stops responding to her calls.

Generation Kplus Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

SOLDIER

FREAK SHOW

(Argentina) 72mins.

Dir: Manuel Abramovich.

A young recruit commences his military training.

With clinical precision, the film reveals an everincreasing divide between the vulnerability of its protagonist and the rigid rules of the institution.

Generation 14plus Zoo Palast 1

FESTIVAL & PRESS

16:00

16:00

BRIGHT NIGHTS

BRIGHT NIGHTS

See box, above

(Germany, Norway) 86mins. Dir: Thomas Arslan. Cast: Georg Friedrich, Tristan Gobel, Marie Leuenberger, Hanna Karlberg.

Following his father’s death, Michael travels to the funeral in a

16:15 PAULA

(Germany) 123mins.

Dir: Christian Schwochow. Cast: Carla Juri, Arbrecht Abraham Schuch, Roxane Duran, Joel Basman.

Explores the fascinating life of a highly talented artist and radically modern woman living at the beginning of the 20th century, who will go down in art history as Paula Modersohn-Becker.

LOLA at Berlinale Accreditation only Zoo Palast 2

remote part of northern Norway, taking with him his 14-year-old son Luis, whom he barely knows. During the long days of the summer solstice Michael tries to be the father he has never been.

Competition Berlinale Palast

16:45

androids can soon replace their human counterparts.

(US) 90mins. Dir: Trudie Styler. Cast: Alex Lawther, Abigail Breslin, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Nelson, Celia Weston.

In between David Bowie and Lady Gaga, Billy creates his spot in pop culture heaven. His conservative milieu finds this anything but fabulous, which doesn’t deter Billy from running for homecoming queen.

IN THE INTENSE NOW

Retrospective CinemaxX 8

Generation 14plus HKW

(Brazil) 127mins.

Dir: Joao Moreira Salles.

A personal essay that analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s.

Panorama Documents Cubix 7

PILOT PIRX’S INQUEST 16:30 LOW TIDE

(Israel, France) 74mins.

Dir: Daniel Mann. Cast: Gal Hoyberger, Susanne Gschwendtner, Amnon Wolf, Eran Ivanir, Oleg Levin, Amit Berlowitz.

After losing his job and

2017_UKF_Screenad_Strip_93x490_Art_7.indd 11

getting divorced, a teacher signs up as a reserve soldier, yet keeps putting off his period of duty, while a foreign journalist is looking for a way to get to Gaza.

The story of two drifters in a land at constant war.

Forum Akademie der Kunste

(Poland, USSR) 99mins.

Dir: Marek Piestrak.

Cast: Sergiej Desnitski, Boleslaw Abart, Wladimir Iwaszow, Aleksandr Kajdanowski, Zbigniew Lesien.

The crew of a spaceship includes several robots.

Commander Pirx’s mission is to evaluate whether the

17:00 FIVE STARS

(Germany) 7 9mins.

Dir: Annekatrin Hendel.

Two women in a hotel room by the sea. Four existential weeks with a camera. Their talk revolves around their once glamorous lives in East Berlin, the present battle with a diagnosis and the bloody internet.

Panorama Documents International

THE FOOLISH BIRD

(China) 118mins. Dir: Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka.

Cast: Yao Honggui, Xiao

ON THE BEACH

(US) 133mins. Dir: Stanley Kramer. Cast: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins, Donna Anderson, John Tate, Lola Brooks.

After a nuclear war, Earth is contaminated with radiation; only Australia has so far been spared from the toxic cloud. This melodrama of humanity’s last days conveys its message without any images of global apocalypse.

Retrospective Zeughauskino

SKINS

(Spain) Deutsche Filmund Fernsehakademie Berlin. 77mins.

Dir: Eduardo Casanova.

Cast: Ana Polvorosa, Candela Pena, Carmen Machi, Macarena Gomez, Secun de la Rosa.

An episodic film that merges the lives of people with very different kinds of deformities who, living on the margins of society, are rarely granted places in which they feel secure. However, their situation is not as hopeless as it at first seems.

Panorama Special Cubix 9

THE TOKYO NIGHT SKY IS ALWAYS THE DENSEST SHADE OF BLUE

(Japan) unafilm. 108mins.

Dir: Yuya Ishii. Cast: Shizuka Ishibashi, Sosuke Ikematsu, Tetsushi Tanaka, Ryuhei Matsuda, Paul Magsalin.

Is the moon really only this blue in Tokyo and why doesn’t anyone else see it?

Shinji and Mika would both say they’re strange and chance brings them together again and again.

A tender love story between two lonely souls in the big city.

Forum CineStar 8

17:30

feature never shown. Carri now wants to make her own version of his story but which images are the right ones?

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

17:45 PENDULAR

(Brazil, Argentina, France) 105mins. Dir: Julia Murat.

Cast: Raquel Karro, Rodrigo Bolzan, Neto Machado, Marcio Vito, Felipe Rocha.

An empty industrial loft: in playful yearning for a sense of belonging, a dancer and a sculptor drift between intimacy and rivalry.

The past and their desires threaten to dissolve their identities both as artists and as a couple.

Competition (out of competition) Friedrichstadt-Palast

18:30 ON BODY AND SOUL

(Hungary) 116mins.

Dir: Ildiko Enyedi.

Cast: Alexandra Borbely, Geza Morcsanyi, Reka Tenki, Zoltan Schneider, Ervin Nagy.

Work colleagues Maria and Endre prefer to keep to themselves. They are surprised to learn that they have the same dreams at night. They begin to discover the realm of emotions and physical desire, at first individually and then together.

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Panorama CineStar 3

18:45

18:00

STREETSCAPES [DIALOGUE]

DEVIL’S FREEDOM

(Mexico) 74mins.

Dir: Everardo Gonzalez.

Victims and perpetrators of Mexico’s drug war have their say. Everyone is wearing a mask to preserve their anonymity.

Their detailed, shocking testimonials provide a portrait of a society governed by fear and deep insecurity.

Berlinale Special Cubix 8

RUSTLERS

(Argentina) 85mins.

Dir: Albertina Carri.

The life of Isidro Velazquez, a bandit and political dissident active in the 1960s, has previously formed the basis of a sociology book and a

Callow, Lily Travers.

VICEROY’S HOUSE

(India, UK) ASAP Films.

106mins. Dir: Gurinder Chadha. Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal, Huma Qureshi, Om Puri, Michael Gambon, Simon

in a Berber village in the Atlas Mountains. While Fatima prepares for her wedding and to leave the tightknit community, her younger sister Khadija dreams of being able to finish school.

Mira Banjac.

Jelena wants to end her life and she’s only got a week to sort things out. But this proves to be extremely difficult in a country caught between stagnation and change.

This absorbing documentary shows the daily grind on one of the world’s biggest maternity wards in Manila.

Forum Akademie der Kunste

Panorama Special Zoo Palast 1

PATHS

MAURICE

(UK) 140mins. Dir: James Ivory. Cast: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, Barry Foster, Ben Kingsley.

Two university students feel more for each other than mere friendship. But sexual contact remains taboo. The film deals sensitively with the grief of forbidden love.

Berlinale Classics CinemaxX 8

THE PARTY

(Germany) 132mins.

Dir: Heinz Emigholz.

Cast: John Erdman, Jonathan Perel, Natja Brunckhorst.

A fictionalised dialogue between a film director and his therapist, based on the protocols of Emigholz’s own psychoanalysis sessions and filmed in buildings by Julio Vilamajo, Eladio Dieste and Arno Brandlhuber in Uruguay und Berlin.

(UK) 71mins. Dir: Sally Potter. Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall.

An innocuous celebration among friends threatens to end with blood on the carpet.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

REQUIEM FOR MRS J

19:00 HOUSE IN THE FIELDS

(Morocco, Qatar) Lita Stantic Producciones.

86mins. Dir: Tala Hadid.

Documents the last summer spent together by two sisters

Competition Berlinale Palast

(Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russian Federation, France) American Zoetrope/ Osiris Films. 94mins.

Dir: Bojan Vuletic. Cast: Mirjana Karanovic, Jovana Gavrilovic, Danica Nedeljkovic, Vucic Perovic,

19:30 ANIMALS

(Switzerland, Austria, Poland) Classic. 95mins.

Dir: Greg Zglinski.

Cast: Birgit Minichmayr, Philipp Hochmair, Mona Petri, Mehdi Nebbou, Michael Ostrowski.

A couple travel from Vienna to Switzerland, leaving an acquaintance to look after their flat, while an aggrieved woman hurls herself from the upstairs window. Jealousy and mistrust take hold, reality splinters and strange animals begin to appear.

Forum Zoo Palast 2

MAMA COLONEL

(Congo, France) 72mins.

Dir: Dieudo Hamadi.

Honorine is affectionately referred to as Maman Colonelle and heads a Congolese police unit whose task is to protect women and children. Hamadi creates a portrait of this spirited woman’s work in a country still wracked by the effects of war and violence.

Forum CinemaxX 4

MOTHERLAND (BAYANG INA MO)

(US, Philippines) 94mins.

Dir: Ramona S Diaz.

Forum Press only CinemaxX 6

(Germany) 107mins.

Dir: Chris Miera. Cast: Mike Hoffmann, Mathis Reinhardt, Tom Bottcher, Cai Cohrs, Peer Martiny.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino CinemaxX 3

SCHUMANN’S BAR TALKS

(Germany) 98mins.

Dir: Marieke Schroeder.

Cast: Charles Schuhmann.

Culinary Cinema MGB-Kino

SOUL

(Spain) 79mins.

Dir: Angel Parra, Jose Antonio Blanco. Cast: Eneko Atxa, Jiro Ono. Join Basque chef Eneko Atxa on his journey to meet Jiro Ono and explore the secrets of gastronomy where two cuisines apparently so opposite in their philosophy and conception have both earned the famous culinary recognition of three Michelin stars.

Culinary Cinema CineStar IMAX

UNTITLED

(Austria, Germany) Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion GmbH. 107mins. Dir: Michael Glawogger, Monika Willi.

Cast: Fiona Shaw.

Michael Glawogger died of malaria in 2014 while he was filming in Europe and Africa. Monika Willi has

06/02/2017 15:16

SCREENINGS

edited his material into a fascinating chronicle of an aimless journey, creating a visually stunning film about the poetry of the arbitrary.

Panorama Documents International

20:00 BARRY LYNDON

(UK, US) 185mins.

Dir: Stanley Kubrick.

Cast: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Diana Korner, Leon Vitali, Marie Kean, Leonard Rossiter.

The rise and fall of an 18th-century gambler.

FESTIVAL & PRESS 21:00 THE QUEEN OF SPAIN

(Spain) Filmakademie BadenWurttemberg. 128mins. Dir: Fernando Trueba. Cast: Penelope Cruz, Chino Darin, Mandy Patinkin, Cary Elwes, Clive Revill, Antonio Resines, Santiago Segura, Ana Belen, Loles Leon, Jorge Sanz.

Homage Zeughauskino

A Spanish actress returns from Hollywood to a chaotic film set in Franco’s Spain. Doyen of Spanish cinema Fernando Trueba offers an entertaining but nonetheless highly political work that neatly references his own oeuvre.

Berlinale Special Gala Friedrichstadt-Palast

QuarterPagPortrait_ShootingStars_107x152mm_TypeOnly.pdf

1

03/02/2017

GOLDEN EXITS

(US) 94mins. Dir: Alex Ross Perry. Cast: Emily Browning, Adam Horovitz, Mary-Louise Parker, Lily Rabe, Jason Schwartzman, Chloe Sevigny, Analeigh Tipton.

18:27 An intersectional narrative of two families in Brooklyn and the unraveling of unspoken unhappiness that occurs when a young foreign girl spending time abroad upsets the balance on both sides.

Forum Cubix 9

SO LONG ENTHUSIASM

(Argentina, Colombia) 79mins. Dir: Vladimir Duran. Cast: Camilio Castiglione, Laila Maltz, Mariel Fernandez, Martina Juncadella, Rosario Blefari.

Ten-year-old Axel lives with his mother and three sisters in a flat in Buenos Aires. If the mother weren’t imprisoned in one of the rooms, they’d be a perfectly normal family. Arguments are hardly unusual but what happens when there’s no way out?

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

Forum Colosseum 1

THE TASTE OF BETEL NUT

(China) 85mins. Dir: Hu Jia. Cast: Zhao Bing Rui, Yue Ye, Shen Shi Yu. Two gay men are living on a Chinese island that is a surfer’s paradise. Their intimate togetherness is disrupted by a young woman. Filmed in quietly explicit images, director Hu Jia’s film tells a tale of love, 38 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

sex and trust — but also of violence.

Panorama CinemaxX 7

20:15 DISCREET

(US) Rachel Mayeri.

81mins. Dir: Travis Mathews. Cast: Jonny Mars, Joy Cunningham, Bob Swaffar, Atsuko Okatsuka, Joao Federici,.

Filmmaker Alex lives in a van and appears to be stranded in Texas — caught between his work beneath highway overpasses and anonymous sex with male strangers. But then he learns a terrible secret from his mother that brings back the past.

Panorama Cubix 7 and 8

MY HAPPY FAMILY

(Germany, Georgia, France) 120mins.

Dir: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Gross. Cast: Ia Shugliashvili, Merab Ninidze, Berta Khapava.

On her 52nd birthday, Manna announces that she wants to leave her husband and find a place of her own. As most of the family live with her, they show little understanding. The story of an emancipation, expertly directed and brilliantly acted.

Forum CineStar 8

VAYA

(South Africa) 110mins.

Dir: Akin Omotoso. Cast: Mncedisi Shabangu, Sibusiso Msimang, Sihle Xaba, Warren Masemola, Zimkhita Nyoka.

A journey to Johannesburg has an unexpected ending for the four protagonists.

Their paths cross as one attempts to find work in the corrupt metropolis, another tries to collect his father’s corpse and a third seeks to deliver a little girl to her mother.

Panorama Special CineStar 3

20:30 DARK BLUE GIRL

(Germany) 103mins.

Dir: Mascha Schilinski.

Cast: Helena Zengel, Karsten Antonio Mielke, Artemis Chalkidou.

Seven-year-old Luca’s parents separated some

time ago. At first it was awful but then she made herself at home in the second best of all worlds.

Now, everything is about to change again — back to how it used to be!

Perspektive Deutsches Kino CinemaxX 1

21:00 THE QUEEN OF SPAIN See box, left

21:30 24 SNOW

(Russian Federation) 93mins. Dir: Mikhail Barynin. Cast: Sergei Lukin.

Despite the sacrifices it entails, Sergei passionately devotes his life to traditional horse breeding, toughing out the winter in the taiga like a lone cowboy hero. Spectacular cinematography conveys the biting cold feeling of nomadic life in Sakha.

NATIVe — Indigenous Cinema CineStar IMAX

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

(Italy, France) Revolution Films. 131mins.

Dir: Luca Guadagnino.

Cast: Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel.

Northern Italy in 1983: well-educated young Elio is idling away the summer at his parents’ country villa listening to music, reading books and swimming until one day his father’s new assistant, Oliver, appears.

For Elio this causes an emotional upheaval.

Panorama Special Zoo Palast 1

THE KALI OF EMERGENCY

(India, Germany) 79mins. Dir: Ashish Avikunthak. Cast: Ruma Poddar, Saswati Biswas, Shamistha Nag, Siddhartha Banerjee, Sandeep Mukherjee.

During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on Earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity?

Forum Expanded Press only CinemaxX 6

www.screendaily.com

THE MIDWIFE

(France, Belgium) 117mins. Dir: Martin Provost: Cast: Catherine Frot, Catherine Deneuve, Olivier Gourmet, Quentin Dolmaire, Mylene Demongeot.

Claire suddenly receives a call from her father’s former mistress. A dramatic comedy about the need for change and two headstrong women who have more to offer each other than they at first suspect.

Competition (out of competition) Press (T badge holders only) CinemaxX 9

THE YOUNG KARL MARX

(France, Belgium, Germany) 118mins.

Dir: Raoul Peck.

Cast: August Diehl, Stefan Konarske, Vicky Krieps, Olivier Gourmet, Michael Brandner.

Raoul Peck portrays two impetuous young men determined to change the world — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — who hold fast to their vision of a better world in spite of conservative resistance and internal power struggles within the political Left.

Berlinale Special Gala Haus der Berliner Festspiele

21:45 MARIE ANTOINETTE

(France, Japan, US) 123mins. Dir: Sofia Coppola. Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Asia Argento, Molly Shannon, Danny Huston, Marianne Faithfull.

Homage CinemaxX 8

22:00 BOONE

(US) 75mins.

Dir: Christopher LaMarca.

Cast: Michael Moss, Dana Kristal, Zac JasperMiller.

Showing a sensory and unsentimental peek behind the veil of the utopian dream of farming, the story of three young goat farmers as they come to terms with the physical and emotional grit required to live in deep relationship with the land.

Culinary Cinema MGB-Kino

CASA ROSHELL

(Mexico, Chile) 71mins.

Dir: Camila Josc Donoso.

At Casa Roshell, men learn to be women during the day, before the parties get going at night. All manner of boundaries blur in this tiny utopia: between gay,

straight and bi, male and female, past and present, reality and fiction.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

ERASE AND FORGET

(UK) 90mins. Dir: Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

‘Bo’ Gritz is one of the highest decorated Vietnam veterans in the US. Using impressive visual material, this film explores how militarism and the propensity for violence have affected this contradictory personality and politics in the United States.

Panorama Documents Zoo Palast 2

MR LONG See box, below

STRONG ISLAND

(US, Denmark) 107mins.

Dir: Yance Ford.

Yance Ford comes to terms with the murder of his own brother 25 years ago by creating a documentary that is as personal as it is political. A freeform examination of racist terror, grief and simmering rage against inequality.

Mourning the death of his older brother, 13-year-old Dayveon becomes drawn to the camaraderie of a local gang while spending his days roaming around his rural Arkansas town.

FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:

MARKET SCREENING:

TODAY / 22:30 / Cubix 9 Feb 19 / 17:00 / HKW

TODAY / 12:40 / CinemaxX 9

“Imbued with warmth and humanity... simply gorgeous.” - VARIETY

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

THE THEATRE OF DISAPPEARANCE

(Argentina) 120mins.

COLUMBUS In an American town built on the promise of modern architecture, a local 19-year-old girl reluctant to leave home forms a close bond with a son visiting his dying father.

FESTIVAL & PRESS 22:00 MR LONG

(Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Germany) 129mins. Dir: Sabu. Cast: Chen Chang, Sho Aoyagi, Yiti Yao, Junyin Bai, Masashi Arifuku.

www.screendaily.com

A Taiwanese hitman finds his new calling running a food stall in Japan. He also looks after a small boy. But then his past brutally catches up with him.

Competition Berlinale Palast

MARKET SCREENING: TODAY / 18:45 / CinemaxX 13 BERLIN OFFICE: MGB #12 +1 617 835 6307 info@visitfilms.com

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 39

»

SCREENINGS

MARKET SCREENINGS

09:00 BABY BUMP(S)

(France) Gaumont, 94mins. Dir: Noemie Saglio. Cast: Juliette Binoche, Camille Cottin, Lambert Wilson.

Avril, 30, announces to her mother Mado, 47, that she’s pregnant. When Mado discovers that she’s also expecting a baby, the delicate balance of their relationship starts to inexorably unravel.

CinemaxX 9

CASPER AND EMMA GO HIKING

FESTIVAL & PRESS 22:30 THE MISANDRISTS

(Germany) Rachel Mayeri. 91mins. Dir: Bruce LaBruce. Cast: Susanne Sachsse, Viva Ruiz, Kembra Pfahler, Caprice Crawford.

A radical female ‘army of lovers’ is preparing itself to fight for a world without men. But can there be equality in a corrupt system?

godforsaken Chinese highlands into a hypnotic space in which the protagonist finds himself entering a world of emotions he once sought to escape.

Panorama CinemaxX 7

Panorama Cubix 7 and 8

JUST LIKE OUR PARENTS

Dir: Adrian Villar Rojas.

The surreal daily life on the border between North and South Korea, a pottery in Morocco, art spaces, industrial facilities, farflung landscapes: a sensual, mysterious survey of the Earth and all it holds, which observes and invents in equal measure.

Forum CinemaxX 4

22:30 A FANTASTIC WOMAN

(Chile, US, Germany, Spain) Velvet Film.

104mins. Dir: Sebastian Lelio. Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolas Saavedra.

Competition International

to fight back. An underappreciated masterpiece of Moroccan film history, infused with realistic grit.

Forum Kino Arsenal 1

DAYVEON

(US) Son et Lumiere.

75mins. Dir: Amman Abbasi. Cast: Devin Blackmon, Kordell ‘KD’ Johnson, Dontrell Bright, Chasity Moore, Lachion Buckingham.

Thirteen-year-old Dayveon has lost direction following the death of his brother and being initiated into a local gang now seems a necessary step towards becoming a man. A search for brotherhood in an AfricanAmerican community in the rural South.

Forum Cubix 9

THE BARBER OF THE POOR DISTRICT

GHOST IN THE MOUNTAINS

(Morocco) 110mins.

Dir: Mohamed Reggab.

Cast: Mohamed Habachi, Khadija Khammouli.

As a barber, Miloud is barely able to make ends meet. When his shop is supposed to make way for a Koran school, his friend Hmida encourages him

(China) 136mins.

Dir: Yang Heng.

Cast: Tang Shenggang, Liang Yu, Shang Yutong, Zhang Shujun, Shi Kaixuan.

A man returns home after an absence of many years.

Masterfully composed images transform these

40 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

(Brazil) 102mins.

Dir: Lais Bodanzky.

Cast: Maria Ribeiro, Clarisse Abujamra, Paulo Vilhena, Felipe Rocha, Jorge Mautner.

Rosa is in her late 30s, a child of the 1970s with divorced parents. She lives with her own family in Sao Paulo. Overwhelmed by an eruption of individual passions, lies and the expectations of three generations, she tries to discover who she really is.

Panorama Special Colosseum 1

(Norway) Attraction Distribution, 84mins.

Dir: Arne Lindtner-Ness.

Cast: Oliver Dahl, Alba Orbeck-Nilssen, Jeppe Beck Laursen, Janne Formoe.

Casper and Emma are two adorable and mischievous five-year-olds. During a family hiking vacation they will learn about love and that all families are different.

CinemaxX 15

COFFEE

(Italy, Belgium, China) Orisa Produzioni, 114mins. Dir: Cristiano Bortone. Cast: Hichem Yacoubi, Dario Aita, Lu Fang Sheng, Zhuo Tan. Coffee has three flavours: bitter, sour, perfumed.

Three destinies from three different parts of the world intertwine.

See box, above

22:45 FROM THE BALCONY

(Norway) 85mins.

Dir: Ole Giaever.

Cast: Ole Giaever.

Combining reflections, visions, documentary footage and video clips of everyday life in his family with his own sense of humour and curiosity, Ole Giaever creates an impressive cinematic cosmos that plumbs the depths of human existence.

Panorama CineStar 3

CineStar 1

Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Aline Kuppenheim.

Marina and Orlando are in love and planning for the future. After Orlando dies suddenly, Marina is forced to confront his family and society to defend her identity as a complex, strong, forthright, fantastic woman.

CinemaxX 10

PERSONAL GUARANTEE

(Spain) Auriga Films, 104mins. Dir: Rodrigo Rivas. Cast: Belen Lopez, Roberto Enriquez, Valentin Paredes, Juan Carlos Tirado.

In a small town in economic and social crisis, Mara, an attractive woman, will have to defend herself against creditors and ensure her welfare.

CineStar IMAX

SAVING NETA

(Israel) WestEnd Films, 91mins. Dir: Nir Bergman. Cast: Benny Avni, Neta Riskin, Rotem Abuhab, Irit Kaplan.

Four women whose lives are in turmoil encounter a mysterious stranger, Neta, whose honesty and vulnerability will help them reconnect with their dearest ones, their families.

MGB-Kino No press

BLOOD ROAD

(US) Red Bull Media House, 98mins.

Dir: Nicholas Schrunk.

Cast: Rebecca Rusch, Huyen Nguyen.

Professional mountain bike athlete Rebecca Rusch and her Vietnamese riding partner pedal 1,200 miles of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to gain closure over the death of Rebecca’s father, a fighter pilot shot down during the Vietnam War. CinemaxX 11

FELICITE

(France, Senegal, Belgium) Jour 2 F’te, 123mins. Dir: Alain Gomis. Cast: Vero Tshanda Beya, Gaetan Claudia, Papi Mpaka.

Felicite, a strong and proud woman, sings in bars in Kinshasa. When her son has a terrible accident she has to find the money to pay for an operation.

CinemaxX 13

STRONG ISLAND

(US, Denmark) Doc & Film International, 108mins. Dir: Yance Ford.

Cast: Craig Sutherland.

Haunted by the murder of her brother, ‘Strong Island’ is the director’s meditation on guilt, the impact of grief over time and the illusive meaning of justice.

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT — MASTERCLASS

(Romania, France) Romanian Film Center, 105mins. Dir: Gabriel Achim. Cast: Mimi Branescu, Doru Ana, Adrian Vancica, Rodica Lazar.

A special journey undertaken by four men: the mayor, the policeman and the leader of the Christian Youth accompany their friend on his trip to a monastery where he decides to start a new life as a monk — and run away from his past.

Kino Arsenal 2

CinemaxX 1

WIND RIVER

SISTER OF MINE

(US) Voltage Pictures, 112mins. Dir: Taylor Sheridan. Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Jon Bernthal, Graham Greene.

An experienced tracker and hunter discovers the frozen dead body of a teenage girl.

(Colombia) Stray Dogs, 94mins. Dir: Pedro Aguilera Londaiz.

Oliver, a young film director, discovers on an erotic website that the protagonist of one of the videos is his younger halfsister Aurora. In the process of finding out why she is there, Oliver will become fascinated by her.

CinemaxX 17

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

ORPHAN

(Chile, US, Germany) Funny Balloons, 104mins.

Dir: Sebastian Lelio.

CineStar 4

THE LAST DAY THE MISANDRISTS

111mins. Dir: Arnaud des Pallieres. Cast: Adele Haenel, Adele Exarchopoulos, Gemma Arterton, Solene Rigot.

Through four moments in the lives of four female characters of various ages, we come to know the different sides of the same woman.

(France) Le Pacte,

CinemaxX 2 No press

09:15

(Italy) Fandango Sales, 129mins. Dir: Sydney Sibilia. Cast: Edoardo Leo, Valerio Aprea, Pietro Sermonti, Paolo Calabresi.

The most highly cultured gang of criminals of all time are back.

CinemaxX 19

THE WORLD OF CHERYL

(US) New World Cinemas Distribution, 65mins.

www.screendaily.com

Dir: Cheryl Halpern, Mitchell Stuart.

The fascinating dedication to help those in need and support women’s rights.

can only be beaten by its own fire. Can a courageous young boy outsmart them all in a race against time for the fabulous fire flower?

Kino Arsenal 1

CinemaxX 8

09:30

DRONE

HOTEL SALVATION

(India) C International Sales, 99mins. Dir: Shubhashish Bhutiani.

Cast: Adil Hussain, Lalit Behl, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Palomi Ghosh.

Faced with his father’s demand to die in the holy city of Varanasi, a son must embark on this important journey with him.

(US) Summerside International, 86mins.

Dir: Christopher Tedrick.

Cast: Celina Jade, Jon Fletcher, Kate Middleton, Keir Dullea.

The discovery of an anonymous journal sets April on a quest across New York City in search of the author.

(US) Myriad Pictures, 89mins. Dir: Jason Bourque. Cast: Sean Bean, Patrick Sabongui.

Neil is a cog in the wheel of America’s war on terror.

A private drone operator, he spends his workdays flying covert missions for the CIA then returns to a family life of suburban mediocrity.

Marriott Studio

CinemaxX 3

BAD INFLUENCE

EVERYDAY HEROES

See box, below

(France) TF1 Studio, 80mins. Dir: AnneDauphine Julliand.

A documentary about the power of life and resiliency.

(France) Versatile, 84mins.

Dir: Laurent Teyssier.

Cast: Vincent Rottiers, Sabrina Ouazani, Bernard Blancan, Tim Seyfi.

In the south of France, Philippe lives between two worlds: the family farm and selling cannabis.

To save his father from crushing debt, he decides to shift his dealing base to the local market.

CineStar 5

Parliament

GARDEN LANE

VISITING OURS

(Sweden) The Yellow Affair, 109mins. Dir: Olof Spaak. Cast: Karin Franz Kerlof, Simon J Berger, Emil Algpeus, Nike Ringqvist.

Former step-siblings Eric and Elin meet as adults and recall the dark, magical summer when they met through their parents’ volatile love.

(France) Wild Bunch, 82mins. Dir: Rachida Brakni. Cast: Zita Hanrot, Samira Brahmia, Judith Caen, Fabienne Babe.

Every month, women go to a prison on the outskirts of Paris to visit their loved ones.

It’s the middle of August.

Fatma and her daughter Nora, her friends and others wait uncomfortably.

CinemaxX 12

CinemaxX 14

APRIL FLOWERS

THE CLIMB

(France) Studiocanal, 105mins. Dir: Ludovic Bernard. Cast: Ahmed Sylla, Alice Belaidi.

When Samy professes his love to Nadia, she jokingly dares him to climb Everest to prove his passion. True to his word, he embarks on the impossible journey.

CineStar 6

THE DRAGON SPELL

(Ukraine) Sola Media, 85mins. Dir: Manuk Depoyan.

A shady witch. A dimwitted troll. A dragon that

CineStar 2

TORIL

MARKET 09:30 BAD INFLUENCE

(Chile) Alpha Violet, 90mins.

Dir: Claudia Huaiquimilla.

Cast: Andrew Bargsted, Eliseo Fernandez, Francisco Perez-Bannen, Francisca Gavilan.

Tano, a rebellious boy from Santiago, is sent to southern Chile. He meets Cheo, a shy boy who is bullied at school for his indigenous origins. A refection of the ongoing Mapuche conflict portrayed through friendship and solidarity.

CinemaxX 16

»

www.screendaily.com

February 13, 2017 Screen International at AFM 41

SCREENINGS

Ammendola, Francesco Desogus, Melissa Satta, Gianpaolo Loddo.

Giovanni is a young boy who has the dream of working in the fashion industry. His father is a shepherd and violent man, while is mother is a depressed woman who decides to leave the house, leaving the boy to take care of his sister.

09:45 FIFTY SPRINGTIMES

(France) Be For Films, 89mins. Dir: Blandine Lenoir. Cast: Agnes Jaoui, Thibault De Montalembert, Pascale Abrillot, Sarah Suco.

A classic tale: Aurore is 50 and single since her husband ditched her for a younger woman. And then, just when she loses her job, Aurore also learns she’s going to be a grandmother.

So she decides to fight back.

Marriott Studio

SECRET INGREDIENT

CineStar 7

THE STOLEN

(UK, Germany) The Exchange, 97mins.

Dir: Niall Johnson. Cast: Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Graham McTavish, Stan Walker.

New Zealand, 1869: Charlotte’s dreams of a new life in a new world are shattered when her wealthy husband is murdered and her new-born baby kidnapped. Frightened and lost, one man offers her hope and a new home — but at what cost?

MARKET 11:15 THE TUNNEL GANG

(Spain) Filmax International, 97mins.

Dir: Pepon Montero.

Cast: Arturo Valls, Raìl Cimas, Natalia de Molina, Manolo Solo.

A group of survivors are finally pulled

from the rubble of a collapsed tunnel, 15 days after their terrifying ordeal began.

Sounds like a typical happy ending to a film, right? But what happens after the cameras have gone?

CinemaxX 16

CinemaxX 18

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES

(UK) Independent, 103mins. Dir: Roger Goldby. Cast: Joan Collins, Pauline Collins, Franco Nero, Ronald Pickup.

A repressed British housewife and a washed-up Hollywood actress team up on a road trip that will change their lives forever.

CinemaxX 5

10:00 NO LAND’S SONG

(Germany, France) Illumina Films, 93mins.

Dir: Ayat Najafi. Cast: Sara Najafi, Parvin Namazi, Sayeh Sodeydi, Emel Mathlouti.

Defying censorship and taboos, the young composer Sara Najafi is determined to organise a concert.

Zoo Palast 2

THE WISE ONES

(Brazil) Globo, 80mins.

Dir: Fernando Meirelles, Quico Meirelles, Gisele Barroco, Guel Arraes.

Cast: Beatriz Segall, Juca de Oliveira, Othon Bastos, Joana Fomm.

A reflection on ageing and also rediscovering,

reinventing yourself and even beginning to live one of the best phases of your life.

Zoo Palast 4

WELCOME TO HINDAFING

(Germany) Global Screen, 90mins. Dir: Boris Kunz. Cast: Maximilian Bruckner, Andreas Giebel, Katrin Rever, Petra Berndt.

Follows the rise and fall of ballsy provincial mayor Alfons Zischl and his fictional village of Hindafing deep in the Bavarian backwoods.

Zoo Palast 3

10:30 AFTER YOU’RE GONE

(Russia) Central Partnership, 119mins.

Dir: Anna Matison.

Cast: Alexey Bezrukov.

Alexey Temnikov is a renowned ballet dancer whose career was cut short after sustaining an injury.

Twenty years later, he discovers his condition is degenerative and that he will soon lose the ability to walk. dffb-Kino

THE CHRISTMAS FAMILY IN THE LAND OF THE ELVES

(Denmark) Global Screen,

42 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

90mins. Dir: Carsten Rudolf. Cast: Pelle Krusbaek, Herman Knop, Alfred Bjerre Larsen, Paw Henriksen.

When eight-year-old Hugo accidently destroys his elffriend Pixy’s magic crystal ball, he and his siblings must travel to Elf Land, where they meet many unexpected obstacles.

Kino Arsenal 1

who, with a mind-boggling mix of mischievousness, courage and ingenuity, are forced to fend for themselves to escape Nazi barbarism.

CinemaxX 9

10:45 JUST TO BE SURE

(France) SND — Groupe M6, 95mins. Dir: Carine Tardieu. Cast: Francois Damiens, Cecile de France, Andre Wilms, Alice de Lencquesaing.

Erwan, 45, finds out his father is not his biological father. His real father is Joseph, a man his mother briefly knew. Unfortunately, Erwan had just fallen in love with Anna, Joseph’s daugther.

MGB-Kino

10:50 TWO LOTTERY TICKETS

STRANGERS

(US) Beachside Films, 52mins. Dir: Mia Lidofsky, Celia RowlsonHall. Cast: Zoe Chao, Meredith Hagner, Shiri Appleby, Jemima Kirke.

Newly single and bisexual Isobel rents her spare room in an effort to keep the home she loves.

Zoo Palast 5

10:40 A BAG OF MARBLES

(France) Gaumont, 113mins. Dir: Christian Duguay. Cast: Patrick Bruel, Elsa Zylberstein, Christian Clavier, Bernard Campan.

A true story about two young Jewish brothers in German-occupied France

(Romania) Romanian Film Center, 86mins. Dir: Paul Negoescu. Cast: Alexandru Papadopol, Dragos Bucur, Dorian Boguta.

Three men from a provincial town win the big lottery prize. But soon the ticket gets lost, so they embark on a journey to get it back.

CinemaxX 17

10:55 JUST CHARLIE

(UK) Media Luna New Films, 99mins. Dir: Rebekah Fortune. Cast: Harry Gilby, Scot Williams, Patricia Potter.

Football is Charlie’s joy.

Now the opportunity for him to play professionally has come along. But Charlie’s decision to reveal

his secret tears his once united family apart and puts his friends in turmoil.

(Macedonia) Wide, 105mins. Dir: Gjorce Stavreski. Cast: Blagoj Veselinov, Anastas Tanovski, Aksel Mehmet, Aleksandar Mikic.

A young man is on a quest to save his ill father with the help of one secret ingredient.

Kino Arsenal 2

CinemaxX 19

11:00 CONNI & CO.

(Germany) Beta Cinema, 104mins. Dir: Franziska Buch. Cast: Emma Schweiger, Heino Ferch, Til Schweiger, Iris Berben.

A story about the lively and adventurous Conni and her four-legged friend Frodo.

CinemaxX 14

HOTEL ROCK’N ROLL

(Austria) Dor Film, 102mins. Dir: Michael Ostrowski. Cast: Michael Ostrowski, Pia Hierzegger, Gerald Votava, Georg Friedrich.

Mao and her two happygo-lucky amateur rock star friends plan to let the spirit of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll live on in a recently inherited hotel.

Parliament

THE WOUND

(South Africa, Germany, Netherlands) Pyramide International, 88mins.

Dir: John Trengove. Cast: Nakhane Toure, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini.

Xolani, a lonely factory worker, joins the men of his community in the mountains to initiate a group of teenage boys into manhood.

CineStar 4

11:10 LETTERS FROM BAGHDAD

(US, UK, France) Rise and Shine, 95mins.

Dir: Sabine Krayenbuhl, Zeva Oelbaum. Cast: Tilda Swinton.

The story of Gertrude Bell, sometimes called the female Lawrence of Arabia.

CinemaxX 2

11:15

I’M GILDA

POP AYE

(Argentina) Filmsharks, 118mins. Dir: Lorena Mueoz. Cast: Natalia Oreiro, Lautaro Delgado, Angela Torres, Javier Drolas.

Reveals the untold story of how Miriam Alejandra Bianchi became Gilda — the superstar — whose tragic death turned her into a myth.

(Singapore) Cercamon, 102mins. Dir: Kirsten Tan. Cast: Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul.

On a chance encounter, a disenchanted architect bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. Excited, he takes his elephant on a journey across Thailand in search of the farm where they grew up together.

CineStar IMAX

MY FASHION

EFM Cinemobile

(Italy) Ahora! Film, 60mins. Dir: Marco Pollini. Cast: Pino

THE TUNNEL GANG See box, above

www.screendaily.com

WATER AND SUGAR. CARLO DI PALMA THE COLOURS OF LIFE

(Italy) Adriana Chiesa Enterprises, 90mins.

Dir: Fariborz Kamkari.

A galaxy of cinema luminaries pay tribute to the great Italian cinematographer.

CineStar 5

11:20

96mins. Dir: David Moreau. Cast: Sofia Lesaffre, Stephane Bak, Liah O’Prey, Harry Tanner.

Leila wakes up in an empty city. Where are her parents?

Where has everyone gone? Thinking she must be the sole survivor of a mysterious catastrophe, she wanders the strangely deserted streets.

DIVORCE FRENCH STYLE AXOLOTL OVERKILL

CineStar 2

CinemaxX 1

ALONE

(France) Studiocanal,

Samsudin, Jean Tan, Qian Kung, Yang BaoBei. Jean and Lin attend Alice’s birthday with a group of their college friends, only the house they’re at is haunted by a Malay woman who died decades ago. As celebration turns to nightmare, their friends disappear one by one.

For centuries people have searched for the legendary St Olav’s Shrine but to no avail. Now three friends are on its trail. The only problem is, ruthless treasure hunters are also in pursuit.

CinemaxX 18

CinemaxX 12

COLD

INSYRIATED

(US) Keshet International, 30mins. Dir: Emily Diana Ruth. Cast: Annalise Basso, Todd Lowe, Jim True-Frost, Marcus Johns.

Isla Wallis travels to her birthplace, where the town residents are anything but welcoming, and eventually learns of the grisly murder that happened in her childhood home.

(Belgium, France) Films Boutique, 85mins. Dir: Philippe Van Leeuw. Cast: Hiam Abbas, Diamand Abou Abboud, Juliette Navis, Moshsen Abbas.

(Germany) StudioCanal, 93mins. Dir: Fatih Akin.

Cast: Tristan Gebel, Anand Batbileg.

A coming-of-age story about Maik and Tschick, two 14-year-old outsiders who steal a car and embark on a life-changing road trip through Eastern Germany.

(Israel) Dori Media Group, 60mins. Dir: Shay Capon. Cast: Bat Hen Sebag, Muki.

A frustrated and stoned 30-year-old actress goes undercover, against her will, as a high school student to help her ex-boyfriend after he is busted for drug dealing.

Zoo Palast 2

Zoo Palast 5

PRISONERS

SEX DOLL

(Iceland) Global Screen, 91mins. Dir: Ragnar Bragason. Cast: Thora Bjorg Helga, Halldora Geirhardsdottir, Kristjbjorg Kjeld, Sigurdur Karlsson.

After a lifetime of mistakes, Linda is sent to serve time

(France, UK) Wild Bunch, 100mins. Dir: Sylvie Verheyde. Cast: Hafsia Herzi, Ash Stymest, Karole Rocher, Paul Hamy.

Virginie is young, independent, professional — a hooker. She’s in

CineStar 6

(France) Pathe International, 86mins.

Dir: Martin Bourboulon.

Cast: Marina Fois, Laurent Lafitte.

Divorcees Vincent and Flo are neighbours trying to start their lives over again. But things would be manageable if their children hadn’t decided to wage a war on their soonto-be step-parents.

11:30

Gonzalez-Perellon. Cast: Lowena McDonell, Julian Nicholson, Haydee Lysander, Marc Puiggener.

A girl who lives secluded in a house in the woods with only the company of her father and a wolfhound, finds a mysterious cubic device with the ability to change the past.

(Germany) The Match Factory, 94mins. Dir: Helene Hegemann. Cast: Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Arly Jover, Mavie Horbiger, Laura Tonke.

Mifti is 16, looks like she’s 12 and acts like she’s in her mid-30s. Wild, sad, sensible and in love, Mifti has to grow up, one way or another.

Zoo Palast 5

HAPPY BIRTH DEATH BLACK HOLLOW CAGE

(Spain) Reel Suspects, 106mins. Dir: Sadrac

(Hong Kong, China) Good Move Media, 89mins.

Dir: Don Hoe. Cast: Yana

CinemaxX 13

11:40 TRIO — THE HUNT FOR THE HOLY SHRINE

(Norway) Sola Media, 78mins. Dir: Eva Dahr.

Cast: Naomi Hasselberg Thorsrud, Bjornar Lysfoss Hagesveen, Henrik Hines Grape, Franziska Tornquist.

CinemaxX 5

in Iceland’s only women’s prison for a vicious assault that leaves her father in a coma. But no one knows that she harbours a dark secret.

Zoo Palast 3

12:10

12:00

DUMB

GOODBYE BERLIN

MAD ABOUT HER EFM market screenings: 13.02 at 2.00 pm Marriott Studio 14.02 at 10.55 am CinamaxX 16

APRIL FLOWERS EFM market screening: 13.02 at 9.30 am Marriott Studio Nothing is better than love.

Find the movie you are looking for #romace #comedy #hilarious

World Sales: SUMMERSIDE INTERNATIONAL Martin Gropious Bau stand #13 »

www.screendaily.com

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 43

SCREENINGS

command; it’s a great living. But now she’s met him. And he’s trouble.

MISTER UNIVERSO

(Austria) Be For Films, 90mins. Dir: Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel. Cast: Tairo Caroli, Arthur Robin, Wendy Weber.

The young lion tamer Tairo is unhappy with his situation. He uses the loss of his talisman to make a trip through Italy searching for the man who gave it to him a long time ago.

CinemaxX 15

UNWANTED

(Kosovo, Netherlands) 1244 Productions, 80mins. Dir: Edon Rizvanolli. Cast: Adriana Matoshi, Jason de Ridder, Niki Verkaar.

A lonely boy, living in Amsterdam with his Kosovan refugee mother, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away, threaten to shatter his life as well.

Marriott Studio

12:30 THE PLANET PETRILA

(Romania) Romanian Film Center, 80mins.

Dir: Andrei Dascalescu.

As miners in the Romanian town of Petrila go down the mine for the last time, artist and ex-miner Ion Barbu struggles with his mission to preserve Petrila’s coal mine as a cultural heritage.

Parliament

13:05 WATERBOYS

MARKET 14:00 MAD ABOUT HER

(Brazil) Summerside International, 90mins.

Dir: Marcus Ligocki Jr.. Cast: Bruno Garcia, Mia Mello, Mariana Ximenes.

Lucia is married to Gero, a politician who is

dazzled by the possibility of becoming governor.

Lucia is willing to support him but his indecision makes her flee to Rio de Janeiro.

There she rediscovers the joy of being single and pursuing one’s dreams.

Marriott Studio

CinemaxX 17

12:40

stolen car she goes on her quest for love.

01:54

CinemaxX 19

(Canada) TF1 Studio, 106mins. Dir: Yan an England. Cast: Antoine Olivier Pilon, Sophie Nelisse, Lou-Pascal Tremblay, David Boutin.

A high-school student who is pushed to the edge because of the pressure he endures.

CineStar 4

DAYVEON

(US) Visit Films, 75mins.

Dir: Amman Abbasi. Cast: Devin Blackmon, Dontrell Bright, Chasity Moore.

Mourning the death of his older brother, 13-year-old Dayveon becomes drawn to the camaraderie of a local gang while spending his days roaming around his rural Arkansas town.

CinemaxX 9

LITTLE WING

(Finland) Media Luna New Films, 100mins.

Dir: Selma Vilhunen.

Cast: Linnea Skog, Paula Vesala, Lauri Maijala, Santtu Karvonen.

Varpu is a child turned into an adult by force. In a

THE OTHER END

(Brazil) Pluto Film, 92mins. Dir: Felipe Sholl.

Cast: Karine Teles, Tom Karabachian, Denise Fraga, Emilio de Mello, Anita Ferraz.

Angela, 43, and Diogo, 17, want to be together.

Yet, social pressure almost destroys it all. dffb-Kino

12:45 CORPORATE

(France) Indie Sales, 95mins. Dir: Nicolas Silhol. Cast: Celine Sallette, Lambert Wilson.

Emilie is a bright, young workaholic manager in human ressources. One day, an employee commits suicide in front of her.

Admid the investigation, she is caught between her traumatised colleagues and her career ambitions.

CinemaxX 11

ONE LAST HEIST

(US) Voltage Pictures, 90mins. Dir: Ronnie Thompson. Cast: Matthew

44 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

Goode, Stephen Moyer, Joely Richardson, Clive Russell.

Based on the true story of the biggest robbery in British history.

CineStar 1 No press

WHERE IS KYRA?

(US) Great Point Media, 97mins. Dir: Andrew Dosunmu. Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Michelle Pfeiffer.

In Brooklyn, New York, Kyra loses her job and struggles to survive on her ailing mother’s income. As the weeks and months go by, her problems worsen.

This leads her on a risky and enigmatic path that threatens her life.

MGB-Kino

12:50 JASPER JONES

(Australia) Mongrel International, 101mins.

Dir: Rachel Perkins. Cast: Levi Miller, Angourie Rice, Aaron McGrath, Toni Collette.

Over one summer in 1965, Charlie is lured by adventure and mystery, experiences the trials of

teenage love and discovers what it means to be truly courageous.

CineStar 5

(Netherlands) Wide, 93mins. Dir: Robert Jan Westdijk. Cast: Leopold Witte, Tim Linde, Helen Belbin, Julie McLellan.

Victor and his son Zach have to sort out their relationship during a turbulent trip to Scotland, where Victor’s latest book is being promoted.

they cannot afford to get their own places.

CineStar IMAX

TOMMASO

(Italy) True Colours, 107mins. Dir: Kim Rossi Stuart. Cast: Cristiana Capotondi, Camilla Diana, Jasmine Trinca.

EFM Cinemobile

13:30 LADY OF THE LAKE

(India) Forum Office, 72mins. Dir: Haobam Paban Kumar. Cast: Sanatomba Ningthoujam, Thambalsang Sagolsam.

Loktak Lake is a unique ecosystem where people live in huts built on floating islands of biomass. After the authorities begin to displace the local residents, fisherman Tomba starts living in fear of becoming homeless.

CinemaxX 6

CinemaxX 2

STALIN’S COUCH

(France, Portugal) Alfama Films, 92mins. Dir: Fanny Ardant. Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Emmanuelle Seigner, Paul Hamy.

Stalin and his longtime mistress Lidia come to stay at a castle where they meet young painter Danilov. A troubled, dangerous and perverse relationship binds the three together.

CinemaxX 14

12:55 THE CHRONICLES OF MELANIE

(Latvia, Finland, Czech Republic) Eastwest Filmdistribution, 125mins.

Dir: Viestur Kairish. Cast: Sabine Timoteo, Edvins Mekss, Baiba Broka.

Latvia, 1941: Melanie and her son get deported by Soviet troops. In the famine and cruelty of Siberia, Melanie only finds hope in the letters she writes to her husband Aleksandr.

13:10

(Russia) Central Partnership, 132mins.

Dir: Valery Todorovskiy.

Cast: Margarita Simonova, Anna Isaeva, Alisa Freindlich, Valentina Telichkina.

The story of a provincial girl who dreams of becoming a ballerina and becomes a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre.

(Argentina) Filmsharks, 106mins. Dir: Ariel Winograd. Cast: Lali Esposito, Martin Piroyanski, Liz Solari, Benjamin Vicuea.

Camila and Mateo are a modern couple who seem perfect. At dinner with friends they contemplate the idea of a one night pass with a famous star free of guilt.

But what if you meet your one night pass?

CinemaxX 12

CinemaxX 18

THE BOLSHOI

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF OTTO BLOOM

(Australia) Global Screen, 84mins. Dir: Cris Jones.

Cast: Xavier Samuel, Matilda Brown, Rachel Ward.

The chronicle of the life and great love of Otto Bloom, an extraordinary man who experiences time in reverse, passing backwards through the years while remembering the future.

CinemaxX 16

CinemaxX 1

13:00

13:15

50 IS THE NEW 30

ROOM(H)ATES

(France) Gaumont, 94mins. Dir: Valerie Lemercier. Cast: Valerie Lemercier, Denis Podalydes, Patrick Timsit.

Marie-Francine finds herself single and unemployed. She has no choice but to return home to her parents… at the age of 50!

(France) EuropaCorp, 94mins. Dir: Dominique Farrugia. Cast: Gilles Lellouche, Louise Bourgoin, Manu Payet, Marilou Berr.

Yvan and Louise are getting divorced. The separation unfolds pretty calmly for both them and their kids… until the two realise that

CineStar 2

THAT’S NOT CHEATING

13:55 LITTLE SECRET

(Brazil) Ocean Films, 109mins. Dir: David Schurmann. Cast: Julia Lemmertz, Maria Flor, Fionnula Flanagan, Erroll Shand.

Based on a true story, three interlocked stories connected by a single secret converge to reveal the tragic yet beautiful lives of three families and how hope, dreams and destiny can unite people from very different backgrounds.

CinemaxX 17

14:00 THE KENNEDYS: AFTER CAMELOT

(Canada) Muse Distribution International, 92mins. Dir: John Cassar, Katie Holmes. Cast: Katie Holmes, Matthew Perry, Alexander Siddig.

For more than a half

www.screendaily.com

century, the world has been captivated by the Kennedy family. The series provides an engrossing look at the family’s life from 1968 to 1999.

Zoo Palast 5

MAD ABOUT HER See box, left

THE MANHATTAN FRONT

80mins. Dir: Morgan Simon. Cast: Kevin Azais, Monia Chokri, Nathan Willcocks.

Vincent struggles between sharing his time with his metal band, the rivalry he has with his father and the infatuated love story between himself and his stepmother. dffb-Kino

(US) Polyvinyl Films, 85mins. Dir: Cathy Lee Crane. Cast: Helen Highfield, Brandon Alan Smith, Sandra Glinka, Bochay Drum.

A German saboteur co-opts progressive labor politics to lead neutral America into World War I, uniting unlikely comrades in the trenches of New York’s cabarets and harbour docks on this fantastical journey guided by a young girl.

(Sweden, Denmark) Indie Sales, 90mins. Dir: Johannes Nyholm. Cast: Christian Andren, Johan Kylen, Anna Bjelkerud.

Rikard, an autistic 30-yearold man severely deformed, is convinced that his mum will take him back if he wins the Scandinavian petanque championship.

Nothing will stop him.

CinemaxX 15

CinemaxX 11

MARY KILLS PEOPLE

MALIGNO

(Canada) eOne, 88mins.

Dir: Holly Dale. Cast: Caroline Dhavernas, Richard Short, Jay Ryan.

A mother and her doctor, who also moonlights as an angel of death, help terminal patients to die on their own terms.

(Peru) Media Luna New Films, 87mins. Dir: Paco Bardales, Martin Casapia Casanova. Cast: Sofia Rocha, Fiorella Pennano, Gino Pesaressi.

After causing a bloody slaughter in a hospital, the most cruel and powerful forest spirit is trapped in a pavilion after a witchcraft ritual. Decades later the wall is broken, waking the evil force.

Zoo Palast 3

TEXT FOR YOU

(Germany) Beta Cinema, 107mins. Dir: Karoline Herfurth.

A woman who sends texts to her late fiance finds new love where she least expects.

Zoo Palast 2

14:20 A TASTE OF INK

(France) Versatile,

14:25 THE GIANT

CinemaxX 14

14:30 IT’S NOT THE TIME OF MY LIFE

(Hungary) Fandango Sales, 88mins. Dir: Szabolcs Hajdu.

Eszter, her husband and

their son are paid an unexpected visit. Eszter’s sister, husband and daughter have returned from a year in Scotland. It soon becomes clear that the two families had never been in tune with one another.

CinemaxX 19

14:40 A DECENT WOMAN

(Austria) FiGa Films, 100mins. Dir: Lukas Valenta Rinner. Cast: Iride Mockert, Martin Shanly.

A housemaid, working in an exclusive gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, embarks on a journey of sexual and mental liberation in a nudist swingers club.

Parliament

THE CONFESSION

(France, Belgium) SND — Groupe M6, 115mins.

Dir: Nicolas Boukhrief.

Cast: Romain Duris, Marine Vacth.

Lying on her deathbed, Barny wishes to confess her secret. During the Second World War in occupied France, Barny fell in love with a priest.

CineStar 2

EXODUS — WHERE I COME FROM IS DISAPPEARING

(Brazil, Germany) Wide House, 90mins. Dir: Hank Levine.

The intimate, dramatic stories of people and refugees from different parts of the world.

CineStar 4

STORM LETTER OF FIRE

(Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium) Incredible Film,

100mins. Dir: Dennis Bots. Cast: Davy Gomez, Juna de Leeuw, Yorick van Wageningen, Angela Schijf.

Twelve-year-old Storm is caught up in an exciting adventure when his father uses his printing business to print secretly forbidden texts. With an original Luther letter, Storm and his friend Marieke embark on a fearless fight for freedom.

NALU ON THE BORDER

(Brazil) Loco Films, 94mins. Dir: Cristiane Oliveira.

When Ruben realises his teenage daughter, Nalu, is becoming a woman, an ambiguous proximity arises between them. This new intimacy gives way to jealousy when Rosario, Nalu’s art teacher, enters their lives.

CinemaxX 13

Kino Arsenal 2

THE PARIS OPERA

14:45

(Georgia) WestEnd Films, 104mins. Dir: Rezo Gigineishvili. Cast: Merab Ninidze, Darejan Kharshiladze, Tina Dalakishvili.

A group of youths attempt to hijack an aircraft in Soviet Georgia. This is the true story of their failure and the aftermath.

(France, Switzerland) Les Films du Losange, 110mins. Dir: JeanStephane Bron.

Cast: Jerome Cuendet, Stephane Thibeaut, Juliette Mallon.

Turns the spotlight on great passions and life behind the scenes at one of the most prestigious performing arts institutions in the world.

CinemaxX 2

CineStar 6

15:00

15:05

HOSTAGES

KUNG FU YOGA

FOR BOTH OF US

(China) Golden Network Asia, 107mins. Dir: Stanley Tong. Cast: Jackie Chan, Aarif Lee, Lay Zhang, Sonu Sood.

A Chinese archaeologist joins an expedition to locate a long-lost Indian treasure.

(Turkey) ITV Inter Medya, 126mins.

Dir: Umur Turagay.

Cast: Serenay Sarikaya, Nejat Isler.

CineStar IMAX

ACCIDENTAL FAMILY

MR AND MRS ADELMAN

(France) Le Pacte, 120mins.

Dir: Nicolas Bedos. Cast: Doria Tillier, Nicolas Bedos, Denis Podalydes, Julien Boisserlier.

A love story between a famous writer and his muse.

MGB-Kino

donor. He decides to find the person who received his son’s heart.

EFM Cinemobile

DISCREET

(US) m_appeal — Raspberry & Cream, 80mins. Dir: Travis Mathews. Cast: Jonny Mars, Atsuko Okatsuko, Joy Cunningham, Bob Swaffar.

When an eccentric drifter learns that a brutal man from his past is still alive, the vengeance he seeks is undermined by personal demons.

CinemaxX 18

GUKOROKU — TRACES OF SIN

(Japan) Alpha Violet, 120mins. Dir: Kei Ishikawa. Cast: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Hikari Mitsushima, Keisuke Koide, Asami Usuda.

An investigative reporter immerses himself into a story about the shocking murder of a “perfect” family. His interviews the people involved, revealing a disturbing portrait of social elitism.

CinemaxX 15

CinemaxX 16

SPOOR

15:30

(France) Gaumont, 94mins. Dir: Gerard Jugnot. Cast: Gerard Jugnot, Francois Deblock, Isabelle Mergault.

Loic’s life is turned upsidedown the day his teenage son dies in a car accident.

Loic is devastated and discovers after this tragedy that his son was a heart

(Poland, Germany, Czech Republic) Beta Cinema, 128mins.

Dir: Agnieszka Holland.

Cast: Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Miroslav Krobot, Jakub Gierszal.

When a number of murdered hunters are found, eccentric animal activist Janina has her own explanation: the murders

Clare Crean | The Works International

Wendy Mitchell | Screen International

Incredibly well organised

It’s really impressive, the contacts that are here

CONNECT TO WHAT’S NEW AND WHO’S NEXT

GHENT I 8-11 OCTOBER 2017 CONNEXT.FLANDERSIMAGE.COM »

www.screendaily.com

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 45

SCREENINGS

were committed by the animals themselves, finally taking their revenge.

background, Elis Regina achieves unexpected success but it comes at a price. Elis is still today considered one of the greatest singers in Brazil and the world.

CinemaxX 10

15:40 PURGATORYO

CineStar 4

(Philippines) Reel Suspects, 82mins.

Dir: Roderick Cabrido.

Cast: Bernardo Bernardo, Kristoffer King, Jess Mendoza.

Ilyong’s corpse is taken to a sleazy funeral home.

The place is run by Violet, a greedy transsexual who has learned to survive by renting out dead bodies.

16:30

(France) Pathe International, 106mins.

Dir: Dany Boon. Cast: Dany Boon, Alice Pol. Johanna wants to be the first woman in France’s elite police unit. She finds herself training under the most misogynistic of officers: Eugene. While duty calls, they have to find a way of working together without killing each other.

CHOPIN NOCTURNE OP. 37, NO. 2 IN G

(Taiwan) Great Leap Forward Entertainment, 42mins. Dir: Jia-Kai Wu. Cast: Ying-Mei Hsu, Qin-Yu Pab. Marriott Studio

THE PEARL

(US) Cinephil, 97mins.

Dir: Jessica Dimmock, Christopher Lamarca.

Follows four middle-aged transgender women as they struggle to find recognition, refuge and love. dffb-Kino

15:50 TE ATA

(US) Bob’s Your Uncle, 105mins. Dir: Nathan Frankowski. Cast: Q’orianka Kilcher, Gil Birmingham, Grahm Greene, Mackenzie Astin.

The inspiring story of Mary Thompson Fisher, a woman who traversed cultural barriers to become one of the greatest Native American performers.

CinemaxX 17

THERE IS A LIGHT

(Italy) Rai Com, 93mins.

THE MISANDRISTS

(Germany) m-appeal — Raspberry & Cream, 92mins. Dir: Bruce LaBruce. Cast: Susanne Sachsse, Kembra Pfahler.

A secret cell of feminist terrorists plans to usher in a new female world order. When a young man running from the police enters the remote female stronghold, he reveals unexpected secrets.

REAL FAKE: THE ART LIFE AND CRIMES OF ELMYR DE HORY

MARKET 16:45 WALK WITH ME

(UK) WestEnd Films, 94mins. Dir: Marc J. Francis, Max Pugh.

Cast: Thich Nhat Hanh, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, ‘Walk

SUPERMAX

With Me’ is a cinematic journey into the world of mindfulness — the practice of bringing one’s attention to the present moment — and worldfamous Thich Nhat Hanh.

CinemaxX 2 No press

(Brazil, Spain, Mexico) Globo, 100mins. Dir: Daniel Burman. Cast: Santiago Segura, Cecilia Roth, Alejandro Camacho, Antonio Birabent.

Zoo Palast 5

16:15 ON BODY AND SOUL

CinemaxX 4

15:45

FALCONS SPECIAL SQUAD

16:35

RAID: SPECIAL UNIT

Dir: Fabio Mollo.

Cast: Luca Marinelli, Isabella Ragonese.

Paolo is a sceptical 30-yearold who works unwillingly as a sales clerk in a Turin department store. Mia is a backing singer in a band and lives her life haphazardly, which leads to her being practically homeless.

CineStar 1

16:00 CARDINAL

(Canada) eOne, 86mins.

Dir: Daniel Grou. Cast: Billy Campbell, Karine Vanasse.

Follows detective team Cardinal and Delorme on a chilling hunt for a brutal killer. Meanwhile, Delorme threatens to derail the investigation as she investigates Cardinal, who may have a dark secret of his own.

Zoo Palast 3

THE FURLOUGH

(Italy) Intramovies, 95mins. Dir: Claudio Amendola. Cast: Claudio Amendola, Luca Argentero, Valentina Belle, Giacomo Ferrara.

After years behind bars,

46 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

four convicts benefit from a 48-hour furlough. For each of them it is an opportunity.

CinemaxX 14

KING DAVE

(Canada) Media Luna New Films, 99mins.

Dir: Daniel Grou.

Cast: Alexandre Goyette, Karelle Tremblay, Mylene St-Sauveur, Kemy St-Eloy.

Dave is young and rebellious. A self-proclaimed king, influenced but not unconscious. Between violence, heartbreak and betrayal, he will put his finger through the wringer and rush forward, unable to stop.

CinemaxX 19

LINDY LOU, JUROR NUMBER 2

(France) Wide House, 85mins. Dir: Florent Vassault.

Lindy, a former juror, starts a journey through Mississippi looking for the remaining 11 jurors who sentenced a man to death, some 20 years ago. Her verdict still haunts her to this day.

CinemaxX 11 No press

(Hungary) Films Boutique, 116mins.

Dir: Ildiko Enyedi.

Cast: Geza Morcsanyi, Alexandra Borbely, Zoltan Schneider.

Out of pure chance, two introverted people share the same dream every night.

They are puzzled, doubting their beliefs and a bit frightened.

CineStar 5

PAULA

(Germany) The Match Factory, 123mins. Dir: Christian Schwochow.

Cast: Carla Juri, Arbrecht Abraham Schuch, Roxane Duran, Joel Basman.

Expressionist German painter Paula is determined to make her own rules and find her own unique style.

She travels alone to Paris, where she embarks on a long-awaited period of creative fulfilment and selfrealisation.

Zoo Palast 2

16:20 ELIS

(Brazil) MPM Film, 115mins. Dir: Hugo Prata.

Cast: Andreia Horta, Gustavo Machado, Caco Ciocler, Zecarlos Machado.

From a humble

CineStar 6

(Italy) Minerva Pictures, 105mins. Dir: Toni D’Angelo. Cast: Michele Riondino, Fortunato Cerlino, Pippo Delbono.

Two agents cross paths with the Chinese Mafia in Naples.

Kino Arsenal 2

CinemaxX 12

Nadezhda Markina, Anastasia Pronina, Alexander Pal. Consists of seven novellas, each telling its own story about love and loneliness, luck and hope.

(US) Cinevest Interactive, 82mins. Dir: Jeff Oppenheim.

The foundation of today’s multibillion-dollar art market still reverberates with the beautiful lies of one of the most prolific art forgers of the last century.

Marriott Studio

16:45 WALK WITH ME See box, above

17:00

CinemaxX 13

17:15 MILLENNIALS

(Germany) m-appeal — Raspberry & Cream, 70mins. Dir: Jana Burgelin. Cast: Anne Zohra Berrached, Leonel Dietsche, Jan Koslowski, Anna Hermann.

About the sense of life of 30-year-olds, finding their way in a world where everything seems possible.

CinemaxX 12

CAN HITLER HAPPEN HERE?

THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH

(US) Pilgrims 7 Corp, 75mins. Dir: Saskia Rifkin. Cast: Laura Esterman, Tracy Shayne, John Pirkis, Mark McCullough Thomas.

Meddling neighbours, ambitious social workers and real estate vultures conspire to torment an eccentric old lady. Or maybe they’re just trying to help?

(UK) The Works, 95mins.

Dir: Danny Huston.

Cast: Danny Huston, Sarita Choudhury, Jonah Hauer-King, Stacy Martin.

A random theft has put Tom’s life in a tailspin. A bag containing the last photograph with his son has been stolen from his London bookshop — a shared moment before he boarded an ill-fated flight to New York.

CinemaxX 18

GUARDIANS

(Russia) Planeta Inform Film Distribution, 94mins. Dir: Sarik Andreasyan. Cast: Alina Lanina, Sebastian Seesak, Sanjar Madiev, Anton Pampushniy.

Guardians — a group of superheroes created in the secret labs during the Cold War — gather to save the world from the villainous maniac August Kuratov.

CineStar IMAX

PETERSBURG. A SELFIE

(Russia) Indie Vision, 107mins. Dir: various.

Cast: Renata Litvinova,

MGB-Kino

17:10 HOME SWEET HOME

(Kosovo) Morea, 92mins.

Dir: Faton Bajraktari.

Cast: Donat Qosja, Arta Mucaj, Shkumbin Istrefi.

EFM Cinemobile

17:20 THOSE WHO MAKE REVOLUTION HALFWAY ONLY DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES

(Canada) Stray Dogs, 180mins. Dir: Mathieu Denis, Simon Lavoie.

Four twenty-somethings

www.screendaily.com

from Quebec reject the world in which they live. Three years after the collapse of the ‘Maple Spring’ protest movement, they resort to a form of vandalism that leads them to terrorism.

CinemaxX 16

17:30 A STROKE OF LUCK

(Spain) Filmsharks, 91mins. Dir: Nacho G Velilla. Cast: Carmen Machi, Leo Harlem, Carlos Santos, Belen Cuesta.

Inspired by true events, a town called Sin-City happens to have a group of husbands that have (or had) the winning ticket in a lottery.

THE BOOK OF BIRDIE

(UK) Reel Suspects, 91mins.

Dir: Elizabeth E Schurch.

Cast: Ilirida Memedovski, Suzan Crowley, Kathryn Browning, Kathryn Haynes.

Birdie is an innocent and imaginative teen placed in a convent for her own protection. Holy visions call to her, earthly pleasures tempt her and unusual fascinations lead her to a magical fate.

CinemaxX 14

CARAVAN 1915

(France) Wide, 90mins. Dir: Patrice Gautier. Cast: Patrick Chesnais, Michel Aumont, Fanny Cottencon, Didier Flamand.

(Turkey) IGF Ismail Gunes Film, 142mins. Dir: Ismail Gunes. Cast: Murat Han, Ipek Tuzcuoglu, Ayse Akin.

When the Armenians of Anatolia supported the Russians in their advance into Ottoman territory during the First World War, the Ottoman government responded by approving the forced Armenian deportation in 1915 to quash the revolts.

CinemaxX 4

CinemaxX 15

CinemaxX 11

ME AND EL CHE

S.U.M. 1

(Germany) Global Screen, 95mins. Dir: Christian Pasquariello. Cast: Iwan Rheon, Andre Hennicke.

A dark and desolate forest. The eerie Nonesuch, overpowering alien creatures, have forced humanity into hiding in a vast system of underground bunkers.

Parliament

(France, Germany, Belgium) Films Distribution, 118mins.

Dir: Raoul Peck. Cast: August Diehl, Stefan Konarske, Vicky Krieps, Hannah Steele.

Karl Marx, 26, embarks with his wife on the road to exile, and meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son who studies the sordid birth of the British working-class.

CineStar 1

17:40 BAUMSCHLAGER

(Austria, Israel) Dor Film, 105mins. Dir: Harald Sicheritz. Cast: Thomas Stipsits, Gerti Drassl, Meyrav Feldman.

Sudden peace in the Middle East? Unwelcome for many. That’s when we meet Baumschlager, a goodnatured, blundering Austrian UN officer who inadvertently becomes the plaything of various interests.

CinemaxX 17

www.screendaily.com

Porkanen, Esko Salminen.

Inspired by real-life events, three boys escape from Soviet Estonia to Sweden via Finland in 1984 to fulfil their dreams in the free world.

CineStar 4

(Germany) 90mins.

Dir: Jakob Lass. Cast: Ella Rumpf, Maria Dragus.

Margarete’s life is turned upside down when tough girl Tiger appears and starts saving her from pushy men.

18:30 GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM

(US) Cinephil, 103mins.

Dir: Jedd Wider, Todd Wider.

The story of Linda Bishop, a well-educated New Hampshire mother holed up in a farm house. Unable to leave it, she became its prisoner and remained there, trapped in her own mind, eventually starving to death.

CinemaxX 18

LITTLE HARBOUR

(France) Gaumont, 95mins.

Dir: Reem Kherici. Cast: Reem Kherici, Sylvie Testud, Nicolas Duvauchelle.

When you plan the wedding of your best enemy, don’t fall in love with the groom!

(Slovakia, Czech Republic) Loco Films, 85mins. Dir: Iveta Grofova. Cast: Vanessa Szamuhelova, Matie Baeiein.

Jarka, 10-years-old and living with a mother who is not yet ready to be a mum, spends most of her time alone.

Pushed by her desire for love and to form a family, she finds herself substituting a “mother” to raise two twin babies.

CinemaxX 10

CinemaxX 12

17:45 WEDDING UNPLANNED

18:00 DO IT RIGHT

THE YOUNG KARL MARX

Dir: Adriano Giotti. Cast: Francesco Maccarinelli, Nataly Beck’s, Federico Rosati, Francesca Renzi.

Simone and Marla are madly in love. They have loads of sex. Every day! When they run out of money, they decide to start selling what they do best: sex.

(France) Films Distribution, 97mins. Dir: Chad Chenouga. Cast: Khaled Alouach, Yolande Moreau, Laurent Xu, Daouda Keita.

When Nassim, 16, is placed in Madame Cousin’s foster care, he refuses to be assimilated with the other low-life residents. He invents a whole other life for himelf.

CineStar 2

TOM OF FINLAND

(Finland) Protagonist Pictures, 115mins.

Dir: Dome Karukoski.

Cast: Pekka Strang, Lauri Tilkanen, Jessica Grabowsky, Taisto Oksanen.

The life and work of one of the most influential and celebrated figures of 20th-century gay culture.

CinemaxX 2

18:45 COLUMBUS

PAULA

(Germany) The Match Factory, 123mins. Dir: Christian Schwochow. Cast: Carla Juri, Arbrecht Abraham Schuch, Roxane Duran.

Expressionist German painter Paula is determined to make her own rules and find her own unique style. She travels alone to Paris, where she embarks on a long-awaited period of creative fulfilment.

CinemaxX 19

18:20 SEX COWBOYS

(Italy) Wide, 73mins.

(US) Visit Films, 104mins.

Dir: Kogonada Kogonada.

Cast: John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes.

In an American town built on the promise of modern architecture, a local 19-yearold girl forms a close bond with a son visiting his dying father.

CinemaxX 13

THE DISSIDENTS

(Estonia, Finland, Latvia) Eyewell, 93mins. Dir: Jaak Kilmi. Cast: Mert Pius, Karl-Andreas Kalmet, Veiko

dffb-Kino

19:00 TIGER GIRL

Cinestar 6

19:05 BOOST

(Canada) Filmoption International, 103mins. Dir: Darren Curtis. Cast: Nabil Rajo, Jahmil French, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Fanny Mallette.

A thrilling look at the lives of two teenage best friends from Montreal who become entangled with the mob after a car they stole is involved in a fatal accident.

EFM Cinemobile

19:10 WALLERS LAST TRIP

(Germany) The Match Factory, 100mins.

Dir: Christian Wagner.

Cast: Knaup Herbert, Illig Rolf, Sibylle Canonica, Crescentia Dunsser.

An idyllic tributary valley in the Allgau. This is the place where they are planning to close down a train line — and with it the old track controller Waller, whose life story is closely knit with that of this section of train tracks.

CinemaxX 11

19:20 DREAM BOAT

(Germany) Cinephil, 92mins. Dir: Tristan Ferland Milewski.

CinemaxX 14

19:25 ROCK’N ROLL

(France) Pathe International, 123mins. Dir: Guillaume Canet. Cast: Guillaume Canet, Marion Cotillard.

Guillaume has everything a man could want. On the set of a movie, he is informed that he is no longer “rock ’n’ roll”, that he never was. He realises radical changes must be made. His entourage can only watch his crazy makeover.

CinemaxX 10

February 13, 2017 Screen International at Berlin 47

THE DINNER (US) Oren Moverman

★

★★

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

AVERAGE

★★★

SEBASTIEN JEDOR Radio France Internationale, France

★★★

ISABELLE REGNIER Le Monde, France

ON BODY AND SOUL (Hun) Ildiko Enyedi

KATJA NICODEMUS Die Zeit, Germany

★★

VERENA LUEKEN Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany

DJANGO (Fr) Etienne Comar

★★★★ Excellent ★★★ Good ★★ Average ★ Poor ✖ Bad

TIM ROBEY The Telegraph, UK

THE SCREEN JURY AT BERLIN

ANTON DOLIN Meduza, Russia

JURY GRID

★★

★★

★

★★★

★★

2

★★★

★★★★

★

★★

★★★

2.7

★

★

✖

★★

★★

1.3

Screen International office Scandic Hotel, Arctic Fox Suite, Gabriele-Tergit-Promenade 19, 10963, Berlin E-mail: firstname.lastname@ screendaily.com (unless stated) Editorial +44 7713 086 674 Editor Matt Mueller US editor Jeremy Kay (jeremykay67@gmail. com) Deputy editor Andreas Wiseman News editor Wendy Mitchell

FELICITE (Fr-Sen-Bel-Ger-Leb) Alain Gomis

★★★

★★

★★★

★★

★★★

★★★

★★★

2.7

WILD MOUSE (Austria) Josef Hader

Reviews editor and chief film critic Fionnuala Halligan (finn.halligan@ screendaily.com) Senior editor, online Orlando Parfitt Deputy editor, online and reporter Tom Grater

★★★

★★★

★★

★★

★★

★★★

★★

2.4

Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray

SPOOR (Pol-Ger-Cze-Swe-Slov) Agnieszka Holland

★★★★

A FANTASTIC WOMAN (Chile-Ger-US-Sp) Sebastian Lelio

★★★

★★★

★

★★★

★★★

★★★

★★★

★★★

2.8

★★★★

3.2

BRIGHT NIGHTS (Ger-Nor) Thomas Arslan

Northern Norway is the setting for this drama about a man who takes his son on a road trip in an attempt to rekindle ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ their relationship. Bright Nights is Arslan’s second film in a row to play in Competition, following Gold in 2013.

THE PARTY (UK) Sally Potter

Emily Mortimer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Cillian Murphy and Timothy Spall star in Potter’s dark comedy set in real time ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ at a London drinks party hosted by a woman to celebrate her husband’s promotion.

MR LONG (Jap-Ger-HK-China-Tai) Sabu

The new film from cult Japanese director Sabu stars Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as a killer who attempts to leave ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ behind the Japanese underworld and start a new life. Sho Aoyagi and Yiti Yao co-star.

THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (Fin) Aki Kaurismaki

Kaurismaki reunites with regular leading man Sakari Kuosmanen to tell the story of a travelling salesman who ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ encounters a Syrian refugee, played by Sherwan Haji, who is seeking asylum in Helsinki.

BEUYS (Ger) Andres Veiel

Veiel returns to the documentary genre for his latest project. Using previously unseen visual and audio recordings, ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ Beuys is an intimate portrait of German artist Joseph Beuys, focusing on the man, his work and his world of ideas.

COLO (Por-Fr) Teresa Villaverde

Portuguese filmmaker Villaverde makes her Berlin debut with her seventh feature, an intense drama that draws ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ attention to the lives of families in contemporary European cities.

RETURN TO MONTAUK (Ger-Fr-Ire) Volker Schlöndorff

Based on an original screenplay by Schlöndorff and Irish author Colm Toibin, Return To Montauk stars Swedish ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ actor Stellan Skarsgard and Germany’s Nina Hoss as former lovers who meet after a 20-year separation.

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE (S Kor) Hong Sang-soo

Shot in Germany and South Korea, On The Beach At Night Alone is about an actress who has given up everything ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ for her relationship with a married man. It marks Hong’s third appearance in Berlin’s Competition.

JOAQUIM (Bra-Por) Marcelo Gomes

The latest film from Gomes is set during the 18th century and is about a trusted soldier for the Portuguese colonial ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ rulers who plunder Brazil’s gold reserves. Julio Machado and Isabel Zuaa star.

HAVE A NICE DAY (China) Liu Jian

The first Chinese animated feature to screen in Competition at Berlin is a road movie about a man who robs his boss ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ to pay for his fiancée’s plastic surgery. This black comedy holds up a magnifying glass to life and social conditions.

ANA, MON AMOUR (Rom-Ger-Fr) Calin Peter Netzer

Netzer is back in Competition with his fourth feature, about a couple struggling with the impact of psychological ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ illness. He was the first Romanian director to win the Golden Bear, for his third feature, Child’s Pose, in 2013.

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

48 Screen International at Berlin February 13, 2017

Reporters Martin Blaney (screen.berlin@gmail. com), Melanie Goodfellow (melanie. goodfellow@btinternet.com), Geoffrey Macnab (geoffrey@macnab. demon.co.uk), Liz Shackleton (lizshackleton@gmail.com) Sub-editors Paul Lindsell, David Powning, Adam Richmond, Richard Young Advertising and publishing Publishing director Nadia Romdhani +44 7540 100 315 Senior sales manager Scott Benfold +44 7765 257 260 International account managers Ingrid Hammond +44 7880 584 182 (ingridhammond@mac.com) Pierre-Louis Manes +44 7768 237 487 Gunter Zerbich +44 7540 100 254 VP business development, North America Nigel Daly +1 213 447 5120 (nigeldalymail@gmail.com) Sales and business development executive, North America Nikki Tilmouth (nikki. screeninternational@gmail.com) Production manager Jonathon Cooke +44 7584 335 148 (jonathon.cooke@mb-insight.com) Production assistant Neil Sinclair +44 7826 942 693 (neil.sinclair@ mb-insight.com) Sales co-ordinator Rebecca Moran +44 20 8102 0829 Marketing executive Charlotte Peers +44 7817 995 756 (charlotte.peers@ mbi.london) Events co-ordinator Sophie Moar +44 7834 902 528 (sophie.moar@mb-insight.com) Managing director, publishing and events Alison Pitchford Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Medien, Herstellungs und Vertriebs gmbh DMP, c/o Motivoffset Prinzessinnenstr. 26, 10969 Berlin Screen International, London Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HJ Subscription enquiries +44 330 333 9414 help@subscribe.screendaily.com

0.0

www.screendaily.com

DANIELLE WEINBERG