News

Munich-based sales agency Arri Media Intl.’s has signed a North American distribution deal with Rock Salt Releasing for “Curveball – A True Story. Unfortunately.,” which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Berlinale Special Gala section this year.

The film, co-written and directed by Johannes Naber, is released in German cinemas on Nov. 26, and will be released in North America by Rock Salt in the first quarter of next year.

The film tells the true story of how the Iraq war, with the involvement of the German government and secret service, was started based on faulty intelligence.

Bioweapons expert Dr. Arndt Wolf of the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bnd) is obsessed with the idea that, despite Un inspections, anthrax is still being produced in Iraq. Back home in Germany, Wolf’s superior Schatz assigns him as case officer for the Iraqi asylum seeker Rafid Alwan because...

Farce is not a genre we commonly associate with the Germans, but then, as “Curveball” reminds us at the outset, this wildly atypical Teutonic satire — which plays like a cross between “Wag the Dog” and “Dr. Strangelove” in its portrayal of incompetence at the highest levels — is “A true story. Unfortunately.” More mea culpa than comedy, assuming/assigning responsibility for the role Germany played in helping George W. Bush settle a score with Saddam Hussein, director Johannes Naber’s nutso sendup of the unreliable intelligence source whose testimony served as the justification for the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003 has no trouble being outrageous. The challenge comes down to being funny in the process.

A few years back, Matthias Bittner made a very good documentary about Rafid Alwan, code name “Curveball,” called “War of Lies,” and that film takes a grim, serious-minded look at what motivated this former Iraqi...

Variety has been given exclusive access to the first clip from Berlinale Special Gala film “Curveball,” which is inspired by the true story of how the work of the German secret service led to the Iraq War.

“Curveball,” which will have its world premiere at the Berlinale, was directed by Johannes Naber, and written by Naber and Oliver Keidel. Arri Media Intl. will handle international sales on the film, which it will sell at the European Film Market.

The film centers on Wolf, a bioweapons expert working for the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bnd). He is obsessed with the idea that, despite Un inspections, anthrax is still being produced in Iraq. Wolf is assigned as the case officer for the Iraqi asylum seeker Rafid Alwan, who claims to have worked as an engineer for Saddam Hussein’s secret bioweapons program.

What is missing, though, is proof, but as Alwan’s...

$4.7m Swiss-German co-production is directed by Oliver Rihs.

Switzerland’s Contrast Film has started production on its most ambitious feature film to date, Storm directed by Oliver Rihs.

Screen can reveal an exclusive first look image from the film, above.

Storm started shooting on April 1 in Switzerland, Germany and Spain. The nine-week shoot will wrap on June 12. In Switzerland, the production shoots in Zurich and in eastern and central Switzerland; in Germany it shoots in the Black Forest and in the studio at Ludwigsburg; and in Spain, in Almeria in Andalusia.

The film has a budget of €4.2m ($4.7m) and...