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An adaptation of Edith Wharton novel The Custom Of The Country by Mary Queen Of Scots director Josie Rourke is among 16 new projects backed by the Düsseldorf-based regional film fund Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw (Fms).

€600,000 in production funding was allocated by Fms to Rourke’s planned adaptation of Wharton’s 1913 novel.

The tragicomedy of manners about a Midwestern girl attempting to ascend in New York society is currently structured as a German-uk co-production between Cologne-based Mo Co-Production, a single purpose company set up by augenschein Filmproduktion, with Charles Finch’s Rabbit Foot Films.

Finch was recently a co-producer of the...

Previously known as Desire of the Prey, C. May Borgstrom’s thriller has been renamed Spirit in the Blood, and Screen Daily shares a first look image from the film this morning.

Summer H. Howell stars alongside Sarah-Maxine Racicot, Michael Wittenborn and Greg Bryk in Spirit in the Blood from UK sales outfit Protagonist Pictures.

Summer H. Howell made her debut in Curse of Chucky back in 2013.

In the upcoming genre movie, “After a young girl is found dead in a secluded religious mountain community, a pack of teenage girls decide to fight against the evil spirits they believe killed her by embracing their own dark nature.”

Verena Gräfe-Höft produces for Junafilm, alongside Noah Segal for Elevation Pictures.

Stay tuned for a trailer and more info as we learn it.

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UK sales outfit Protagonist Pictures has unveiled a first look at C. May Borgstrom’s thriller Spirit In The Blood, previously known as Desire Of The Prey, which features a cast of Canadian newcomers Summer H. Howell (pictured) and Sarah-Maxine Racicot, alongside German actor Michael Wittenborn and Canadian Greg Bryk.

After a young girl is found dead in a secluded religious mountain community, a pack of teenage girls decide to fight against the evil spirits they believe killed her by embracing their own dark nature.

The Germany-Canada co-production is produced by Hamburg based Verena Gräfe-Höft for Junafilm, and Noah Segal for Elevation Pictures.

Filming is underway in Czech Republic, near Prague, on Netflix’s WWI feature All Quiet On The Western Front.

Edward Berger (Patrick Melrose) is directing the German-language version of the classic anti-war story. Producing is Malte Grunert of Amusement Park Film from a screenplay by Ian Stokell, Lesley Paterson and Berger. DoP is James Friend.

Cast is made up of Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Moritz Klaus, Aaron Hilmer, Edin Hasanovic, Daniel Brühl, Adrian Grünewald, Devid Striesow, Andreas Döhler, Sebastian Hülk, Alexander Schuster, Luc Feit, Michael Wittenborn, Michael Stange, André Marcon, Tobias Langhoff, Anton von Lucke u.v.a.

We first revealed the project last year. Netflix has today unveiled a first look at the production, which has been shooting since March.

One of the best-selling German novels of all time, Erich Maria Remarque’s poignant story follows three youngsters who voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervor,...

The Berlinale lineup already includes films from Jia Zhangke, Matías Piñeiro, and more, but now the competition slate has arrived and it’s an incredibly promising selection. Headed by Carlo Chatrian, it includes many of our most-anticipated films of the year with Christian Petzold’s Undine, Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran, Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days, Philippe Garrel’s The Salt of Tears, Abel Ferrara’s Siberia, and Caetano Gotardo & Marco Dutra’s All the Dead Ones, plus recent festival favorites: Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Check out the lineup below and return for our coverage.

Competition

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Germany / Netherlands

by Burhan Qurbani

with Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, Richard Fouofié Djimeli

World premiere

Dau. Natasha

Germany / Ukraine / United Kingdom / Russian Federation

by Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel

with Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo,...

The Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday morning revealed the main competition lineup and gala selections for festival’s 70th edition.

The festival, which begins February 20, will screen 18 films in competition, including movies from Sally Potter, Kelly Reichardt, and Eliza Hittman. Six are from female directors.

Among the gala presentations is Pixar’s” Onward.” The Dan Scanlon-helmed urban fantasy includes the voices of Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Kyle Bornheimer, Lena Waithe, and Ali Wong.

Here is the complete list:

Competition

“Berlin Alexanderplatz” (Germany/Netherlands)

Director: Burhan Qurbani

Cast: Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król, Annabelle Mandeng, Nils Verkooijen, and Richard Fouofié Djimeli

“Dau. Natasha” (Germany/Ukraine/United Kingdom/Russia)

Directors: Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel

Cast: Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo, Alexei Blinov, and Luc Bigé

“Domangchin yeoja” (“The Woman Who Ran”) (South Korea)

Director: Hong Sangsoo

Cast: Kim Minhee,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled its 2020 line-up, with 18 films playing in competition from directors such as Abel Ferrara, Sally Potter, Christian Petzold, Hong Sangsoo, Kelly Reichardt and Eliza Hittman.

Abel Ferrara’s Willem Dafoe starrer “Siberia” is a world premiere in competition, as is Sally Potter’s “The Roads Not Taken.”

Among the U.S. films at the Berlinale, Reichardt’s “First Cow” is an international premiere, and so too is Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”

Pixar’s latest animation, “Onward”, also has its international premiere out of competition in the Special Galas section.

Previous Berlin Silver Bear winner Christian Petzold’s latest, “Undine”, world premieres, while Iranian director Mohammed Rasoulof, who is not allowed to travel outside his home country, world premieres his latest, “There is No Evil.”

Six out of the 18 films in competition are helmed by female directors.

The 70th edition of the festival...

You can’t call a film “In My Room” if you don’t want Brian Wilson’s spare, melancholic verses for the Beach Boys song of the same title to spring to mind: “Now it’s dark and I’m alone/But I won’t be afraid/In my room.” That indeed captures the mood of Ulrich Köhler’s disquieting, wonderfully imagined survivalist drama — the catch is that the room in question turns out to be the entire world, uncannily depopulated and sprawling with possibility, yet often made to feel as small as the loneliest studio apartment. Tracing the uncertain course-correction of a nowhere-bound Berlin manchild after he finds himself, suddenly and inexplicably, the last man on earth, “In My Room” presents and accepts its partial apocalypse with unquestioning calm — an extreme contrivance that merely enables an elegant, exacting character study.

It’s been seven years since Köhler’s last feature “Sleeping Sickness,...

Chicago – If you need a little cinema therapy, it doesn’t get any better than “Toni Erdmann.” This subtle story builds to generate a joyful feeling, which defines the small-but-important survival guides for this thing called life. Writer/director Maren Ade has delivered the goods, and the film is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Academy Awards.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

The film features Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek as a daughter and father who are estranged, and come together again through the father’s “mission” to help his progeny enjoy life more. It is a reminder of the characters that populate our lives, and how they are designed with the perfect timing to remind us that there is more to life than just living. The film builds perfectly under Maren Ade’s sure hand, and the 162 minute length is no match for the culmination of the main moral to the story.

Toni Erdmann Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya Grade: B Director: Maren Ade Written by: Maren Ade Cast: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Vlad Ivanov, Trystan Pütter Screened at: Sony, NYC, 10/27/16 Opens: December 25, 2016 With “Toni Erdmann” Maren Ade offers a shaggy dog story, a comedic drama with serious intellectual and emotional resonance. The title character, whose name is actually Winifried Conradi, performs throughout most of the story with not only a nom de plume but with a fluid identity that changes with circumstances. “Toni Erdmann” is marvelously acted as a two-hander albeit with a cast of dozens, bringing to mind the oft [ Read More ]

The post Toni Erdmann Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Sandra Hüller with Toni Erdmann director/writer Maren Ade Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Maren Ade has teamed up again with costume designer Gitti Fuchs and editor Heike Parplies of her The Forest For The Trees (Der Wald Vor Lauter Bäumen) and Everyone Else (Alle Anderen) to bring us Germany's Oscar submission Toni Erdmann, starring Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton, meerkats (not from Ang Lee's Life Of Pi), Frauke Finsterwalder's Finsterworld, vintage Yves Saint Laurent, and corporate madness came up in my conversation with Maren Ade and Sandra Hüller.

Kent Jones with Maren Ade, Peter Simonischek and Sandra Hüller Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

With a supporting cast including Viktorija Malektorovych, Hadewych Minis, Lucy Russell, Michael Wittenborn, Ingrid Bisu, Thomas Loibl, and Trystan Pütter, Ade gives her characters a chance to rediscover themselves in song and skin-deep encounters of the third or fourth or fifth kind.

Here are the films opening theatrically in the U.S. the week of Friday, January 9th. (Synopses provided by distributor unless listed otherwise.) Beloved Sisters Director: Dominik Graf Cast: Florian Stetter, Henriette Confurius, Hannah Herzsprung, Claudia Messner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Andreas Pietschmann, Maja Maranow, Peter Schneider, Michael Wittenborn, Anne Schäfer, Philipp Oehme, Thomas Kornack, Klaus Lehmann Synopsis: "The summer of 1788 in Rudolstadt. Rebellious poet Friedrich Schiller and two penniless sisters, members of the Thuringian aristocracy, experience an unforgettable period together which will eventually bind them forever. Unhappily married Caroline von Beulwitz and her shy sister Charlotte von Lengefeld take seriously their oath to share everything – even the author of ‘The Robbers’. Charlotte marries Schiller so they may pursue their ménage à trios under the guise of convention. Caroline, whose novel Schiller publishes anonymously,...

Beloved Sisters producer Uschi Reich on Dominik Graf at the New York Film Festival: "It was very important for Dominik to work with the language." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Dominik Graf's Beloved Sisters (Die Geliebten Schwestern) starring Florian Stetter, Henriette Confurius and Hannah Herzsprung alongside Claudia Messner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Michael Wittenborn, Maja Maranow and Andreas Pietschmann, sharply re-invents the costume drama with an historical fiction centered around the ménage-à-trois love story between writer Friedrich Schiller (Stetter) and the sisters Caroline (Herzsprung) and Charlotte (Confurius) von Lengefeld.

I met up with producer Uschi Reich during the New York Film Festival to discuss her role in bringing the story to the screen. We also discussed Dominik Graf's voice and music, his relationship to Christian Kracht's novel Imperium and Frauke Finsterwalder's Finsterworld film, Caroline Link, the connection between Veit Heiduschka to Michael Haneke and Helge Sasse with Anton Corbijn's...