News

September 5 took top honors at the German Film Awards, or Lolas, held in Berlin Friday night.

Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life thriller, based on the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics, picked up nine Lolas, including for best director, best editing, best cinematography, best sound design, best screenplay, best makeup and best production design.

Leonie Benesch won best supporting actress for her performance as a translator for the U.S. television network broadcasting the attacks live to the world. September 5 premiered at the Venice film festival last year before becoming an awards contender and landing a best original screenplay Oscar nomination for Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder and Alex David.

Accepting his best director prize, Fehlbaum praised his German team, and, with a side swipe at Donald Trump and his promised tariffs on “foreign films,” noted that “they can raise the tariffs as high as the want, there is not reason to make films anywhere else [than here].”

Wolfram Weimer,...

Oscar contenders September 5 and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Andreas Dresen’s historic drama From Hilde, With Love are the frontrunners for this year’s German Film Awards, also called the Lolas, Germany’s equivalent of the Oscars.

September 5, Tim Fehlbaum’s real-life thriller based on the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Munich Olympics, picked up 10 nominations, including for best film and best director, as well as a supporting actress nom for Leonie Benesch, who plays a translator for the U.S. television network broadcasting the attacks live to the world.

Second and third in the running are Dresen’s From Hilde, With Love, which picked up seven Lola nominations, including for best film and best director, with Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig right behind with six.

Rasoulof’s depiction of an Iranian family torn apart by conflicting loyalties to an increasingly oppressive Tehran regime,...

German producer Dorothe Beinemeier of Red Balloon Film has won the €25,000 Hamburg production award for international cinema co-productions at the 10th anniversary of the Hamburg Production Awards on September 30.

Beinemeier co-produced Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays, about which the jury said: “It approaches all its characters with great empathy and grants us insights into a world where everyone is trapped.” The jury was comprised of

Happy Holidays won the prize for best screenplay at Venice’s Horizons section last month; Beinemeier’s further co-producer credits include Bruno Dumont’s The Empire and Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Yunan.

Furthermore,...

Picture Tree International (Pti) has boarded Vena, the debut feature of German writer-director Chiara Fleischhacker.

The gritty social drama is in the late stages of post-production, and Pti will launch a first trailer at the Cannes Film Market.

Weltkino is to distribute the film in Germany, and has set a tentative release date for late autumn 2024.

The film stars Emma Nova, whose credits include The Tobacconist and Manta Manta Legacy; 7500’s Paul Wollin; and The Reader and Hannah Arendt’s Friederike Becht.

Nova plays a woman grappling with an unexpected pregnancy alongside her boyfriend (Wollin). Both seek solace in...

OneGate Media Lands Sales Rights To Amazon’s ‘German Crime Story’

Exclusive: OneGate Media has taken international sales rights to German Crime Story: Deadlock (aka German Crime Story: Tied Up), the upcoming Prime Video drama original. The Neue Bioskop Television true-crime series, inspired by the notorious Acid Barrel murders in Germany in the 1990s, debuts on Amazon’s streaming SVoD service in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy in January 2023. Oliver Masucci stars as serial killer Raik Doormann, with Michael Proehl and Dirk Morgenstern (Kahlschlag) heading the writing team, which also includes Max Eipp, Dinah Marte Golch and Mark Monheim. Florian Schwarz directs and Dietmar Güntsche is producing. “The Acid Barrel Murders in Hamburg are one of the most harrowing and spectacular crimes in Germany’s criminal history,” said Tania Reichert-Facilides, Managing Director of Germany-based distributor OneGate. “Media “Captivatingly told, with strong characters that take you back to the 80s,...

Royals

“The Wedding of the Century,” a documentary about the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, will bow on BBC and ITV’s streamer BritBox in July in time for the event’s 40th anniversary.

On July 29, 1981, a record 750 million people in 74 countries tuned in to see the couple exchange vows at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Video technology then couldn’t quite capture the details in all their glory, and all except for one media outlet captured the event on poor quality standard definition video tape.

British Movietone shot the ceremony on 35mm film, which has now been upgraded to 4K resolution. The restored footage is the centerpiece of the documentary from Touchdown Films, which also includes unheard anecdotes from the day and interviews with key insiders involved in planning the event.

Appointments

BBC Studios – Americas has promoted Chris Cole to executive VP, strategic partnerships, and...

Drama stars Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth.

Mubi has acquired all UK and Ireland rights to Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island, which will world premiere in Competition at Cannes next month.

The London-based streaming platform and distributor struck the deal with Paris-based Kinology, which is handling international sales, and plans to release the film theatrically.

French filmmaker Hansen-Love wrote the drama about a US filmmaker couple, played by Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps and UK actor Tim Roth, most recently seen in The Misfits and drama series Tin Star.

The couple retreat to the mythical Faro island for the summer,...

IFC Films has acquired North American rights to “Bergman Island,” the English-language debut of Mia Hansen-Løve (“Things to Come”) which will world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film stars Mia Wasikowska (“Maps to the Stars”), Tim Roth (“Once Upon a Time in America”), Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”) and Anders Danielsen Lie (“Personal Shopper”).

Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema (“Annette”) is producing “Bergman Island” alongside Rodrigo Texeira at Rt Features, with co-producers Erik Hemmendorff, Genevieve Lemal, Dietmar Güntsche and Julio Chavezmontes. “Bergman Island” marks CG Cinema’s third collaboration with Hansen-Løve, following “Eden” in 2014 and “Things to Come” which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016.

IFC Films has previously collaborated with Hansen-Løve on her critically acclaimed sophomore outing “Father of My Children,” as well as “Goodbye First Love” and “Things to Come.”

A melodrama with genre elements, “Bergman Island” follows a couple of American filmmakers,...

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, ahead of the film’s world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The acquisition marks IFC’s fourth collaboration with the writer/director, on the heels of the features Father of My Children, Goodbye First Love and Things to Come.

Bergman Island centers on romantically involved American filmmakers Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth), watching as they retreat to the mythical island of Fårö for the summer. Amidst the wild beauty of the landscape where Ingmar Bergman lived and filmed his most acclaimed works, the pair hope to find inspiration for their upcoming films. As days spent separately from Tony pass by, Chris’s fascination with the island grows, and memories of her first love come to the surface. Lines between reality and fiction then begin to blur, and tear the couple further apart.

Exclusive: The Operative is heading for U.S. movie screens after Vertical Entertainment acquired North American rights to the spy thriller toplined by Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman and Cas Anvar. A third-quarter 2019 release is being eyed for the pic, which world premiered in February out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Written and directed by Yuval Adler based on the novel The English Teacher by Yiftach Reicher Atir, the plot centers on Rachel (Kruger), a rogue spy from Israel’s Mossad, who vanishes without a trace. The only clue to her whereabouts is a cryptic phone call she places to her former handler, Thomas (Freeman). Thomas must retrace her steps to determine what threats her knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program may pose to their operation, while also working to protect her.

Endeavor Content, which is handling international distribution rights, negotiated the deal for the filmmakers with Peter Jarowey and Josh Spector at Vertical.

Producers aiming for Cannes berth.

Edward Noeltner’s Cinema Management Group (Cmg) has licensed rights to North America and Germany on the documentary Ingmar Bergman – Legacy Of A Defining Genius.

Oscilloscope Releasing will distribute in North America, while Michael Kölmel and Dietmar Güntsche’s Weltkino will handle Germany and Austria.

Weltkino distributes the Oscar-nominated animation Loving Vincent, which Cmg represents worldwide and has crossed 250,000 admissions in four weeks of limited release.

Laurent Petin and Michele Halberstadt’s Arp Selection boarded Ingmar Bergman – Legacy Of A Defining Genius last autumn. Other distributors include Gianluca Chakra’s Dubai-based Front Row for the Middle East, and Fatih Oflaz’s Medyavizion for Turkey. In China, Lemon Tree Media Company will release the film, while Cinemex acquired all rights for Mexico excluding pan-Latin pay TV and Svod. Cinemax is also distributing Loving Vincent on behalf of Fabrica de Cine in Mexico.

Margarethe von Trotta and Felix Moeller directed Ingmar Bergman – Legacy Of A Defining...

I better caveat this post before I say anything else by saying that if you’re a keen skier and for whatever reason, aren’t going to go away this season, after watching the trailer that Jon posted a few days ago you’ll very much want to go! I know as I’m very much in that boat!

Chalet Girl looks like one of those rom-coms which will have the same ending as all the rest of them but it probably won’t stop me watching it! The movie is written by Tom Williams, Produced by Wolfgang Behr, Pippa Cross, Dietmar Güntsche, Harriet Rees, directed by Phil Traill and stars Felicity Jones and Tamsin Egerton, Sophia Bush, Brooke Shields, Bill Nighy al with Ed Westwick from Gossip Girl.

Here’s the new poster for the movie which hits UK cinemas 18th February.