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"Everything I have to give is in this place." Picturehouse has debuted an official trailer for the upcoming UK release this summer of the German family drama film titled Dying – yes that's the direct translation from the film's original Sterben in German. This premiered at the 2024 Berlinale Film Festival and already won awards – including Best Film at the German Film Awards just last year. An epic and darkly funny symphony of family dysfunction, Dying follows the estranged members of the Lunies family as they wrestle with chaotic private lives. Lars Eidinger stars as an acclaimed conductor, juggling working and his parent and the rest of his family. It already played at tons of fests and has 100% on Rt for now. Dying is a brilliant and sharply comic portrayal of a family unraveling...with outrageous consequences. The cast includes Lars with Lilith Stangenberg, Corinna Harfouch, Robert Gwisdek, Ronald Zehrfeld, Saskia Rosendahl,...

Matthias Glasner’s “Dying” is three hours long but it passes by like a breeze. As its English title suggests, the film is more about the verb than the noun. It isn’t about the hopeless finality of death as much as it is about the process of dying. While it examines the effects of loss, it remains focused on following the gradual loss of life in whatever ways we choose to define it. Glasner’s script mainly revolves around six characters – four family members and two people related to them. Through their lives, Glasner explores ‘dying’ in different contexts and shows the gradual journey that precedes and/or follows a loss; be it of a person or our hopes, passions, or lifelong ambitions.

The film is divided into a few chapters and it ends with an epilogue. Splitting it into these individual chapters helps the film connect its different...

Rolling off Netflix’s Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Emmy-winning “The Empress,” the streamer has set its next German production, an untitled feature inspired by the true story of the migrant rescue ship the Iuventa. Louis Hofmann, the German breakout actor of “All the Light We Cannot See,” headlines the movie.

Markus Goller, whose latest film “Die Ironie des Lebensand” was a box office hit in Germany and sold over 1.2 million tickets, is directing the Netflix movie.

The film just started shooting in Berlin and Malta, chronicles the journey of a group of young Berliners who were part of the German Ngo Jugend Rettet. “Unable to stand by and watch as countless refugees lose their lives attempting to reach Europe by sea, they take action. Inexperienced but driven by passion and courage, they launch a crowdfunding campaign to buy an old ship. Venturing into the Mediterranean, they...

Netflix has unveiled upcoming movie about real-life German Ngo Jugend Rettet and its ship, the Iuventa, which rescued thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016 before it was impounded by Italian authorities.

In-demand actor Louis Hofmann – whose credits include Dark, Ripley, Masters of the Air, All The Light We Cannot See, and is soon to be seen in Monstrous Beauty opposite Bella Ramsay – leads the cast.

Netflix have unveiled a first image of the film which is currently shooting in Malta, after kicking off production in Berlin. The film follows in the wake of a number of successful German productions for Netflix including the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front and Emmy-winning series The Empress.

The movie tells the true story of the creation in 2015 of Jugend Rettet by a group of young Berliners who felt compelled to do something about the thousands of people who were dying...

Palme d’Or winning director Ruben Östlund’s next film The Entertainment System Is Down has been awarded €500,000 in production support from Berlin-Brandenburg’s regional film fund.

It is one of 30 feature films and series projects, from directors such as David Wnendt and Ulrike Ottinger, to share more than €7.2m in Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb)’s latest funding round.

Phlippe Bober’s Berlin-based Essential Filmproduktion received the €500,000 for Östlund’s second English-language production The Entertainment System Is Down, starring Daniel Brühl, Kirsten Dunst and Keanu Reeves. The long gestating project is set on a long-haul flight whose inflight entertainment system breaks down.

Three German regional film funds - Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, Fff Bayern and Hessen Film & Medien - have allocated more than €12m to new film and TV series projects in their latest funding sessions.

The fifth and final season of Babylon Berlin, scheduled to start production this autumn, received the largest sum of €2m from the funding committee of Düsseldorf-based Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw.

In total, the fund distributed €5.3m to 12 projects including Coin Film’s production of writer-director Jutta Brückner’s drama The Assistant, starring Corinna Harfouch and Sandra Hüller; Heimatfilm and Amour Fou’s co-production of Ulrike Ottinger...

Matthias Glasner’s Dying was the winner of the top prize at this year’s German Film Awards, clinching the Golden Lola in the best film category along with a cash prize of €500,000 for the producers to invest in a future project.

The production by Port au Prince Film & Kultur Produktion, Schwarzweiß Filmproduktion and Senator Film Produktion, which had its world premiere in competition at this year’s Berlinale where it won the best screenplay Silver Bear, also garnered another three statuettes: Corinna Harfouch (best lead actress), Hans-Uwe Bauer (best supporting actor), and Lorenz Dangel (best film score).

Glasner’s family drama,...

Fritz Wepper, the German actor who portrayed the German Jew Fritz Wendel in Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical masterpiece Cabaret and starred in his home country on the TV series Derrick and For Heaven’s Sake, has died. He was 82.

Wepper died Monday in a Munich hospice after a long illness that followed the life-threatening sepsis he suffered last year, his family announced.

An actor since childhood, Wepper landed the biggest international role of his career in Cabaret (1972), where he appeared alongside Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem and Joel Grey. As Wendel, he passed as a Protestant and fell in love with wealthy Jewish heiress Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson).

After the film’s success — it raked in eight Oscars in 1973 — Wepper turned down Hollywood offers and instead took a sidekick role as Harry Klein on the new German crime series Derrick, playing alongside Horst Tappert‘s titular homicide detective, a...

Matthias Glasner’s Dying leads the Lolas, the German Film Awards, with nine nominations, including for best feature film, director, screenplay, and score.

Additionally, Lars Eidinger has been nominated as best actor and Corinna Harfouch as best actress; Robert Gwisdek and Hans-Uwe Bauer have both been nominated for best supporting actor.

The family drama premiered in competition at the Berlinale last month and will be released in Germany by Wild Bunch on April 25.

The Lolas will take place at a ceremony in Berlin on May 3.

Timm Kröger’s second feature The Universal Theory, which premiered in Venice’s Horizons section last September,...

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Matthias Glasner’s Berlinale Competition Dying from The Match Factory.

The melodrama follows a woman secretly enjoying her husband’s deteriorating health before death knocks on her door as well, causing estranged family members to reconnect.

Corinna Harfouch, Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek and Anna Bederke lead the cast.

Dying picked up several prizes in Berlin including the silver bear in best screenplay. It scored a solid 2.8 on Screen’s critics jury grid.

‘Dying’: Berlin Review

The feature is written by Glasner who also produces with Jan Krüger and Ulf Israel.

Recommending that someone sits down to a three-hour drama named Dying is not the easiest sell, but Matthias Glasner’s film is a lot more sprightly and funny than it sounds on paper. Death is present but there’s also a hell of a lot of living going in this enjoyably complex, character-driven drama that isn’t afraid to tackle weighty subjects including suicide, addiction and terminal illness. Split into overlapping segments, three of which come from different perspectives of a single family, Glasner puts ideas including love and commitment under the microscope so we can see their intricate layering and contradictions.

Though an ensemble piece, the film largely revolves around orchestra conductor Tom Lunies (Lars Eidinger) - although it’s a while before that will become apparent. First, we meet his mother Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) in the middle of a crushingly awful morning. She is sitting in a mess of her own excrement,...

Writer-director Matthias Glasner’s Dying, a nuanced anatomy of a dysfunctional German family, begins with Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) prostrated on the living room floor covered in feces and unable to move. Meanwhile, her husband, Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer), aimlessly parades around their apartment in the buff. Clearly withdrawn from reality, he doesn’t register Lissy’s presence, let alone her distress, as he walks in front of her.

We’ll learn across this poignant and unforgiving saga of the origins and results of lovelessness that this is an average day in the life of the elderly couple. And while it’s easy to read this disturbing opening as a raw portrait of the predicaments of old age, the scene is ultimately understood as the embodiment of an entire family’s sad state of affairs: It always seems as if someone in the Lunies clan is drowning in shit and everyone else is looking the other way.

The Match Factory has unveiled multiple distribution deals for its Berlinale competition titles Dying by Matthias Glasner and Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky.

Dying has secured distribution in key territories including France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed.

Dying, which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, along with the...

The Match Factory has unveiled multiple distribution deals for its Berlinale competition titles Dying by Matthias Glasner and Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky.

Dying has secured distribution in key territories including France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed.

Dying, which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, along with the...

The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner’s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary “Architecton.”

“Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. Variety‘s review describes the film as “a profoundly affecting exploration of life and loss.”

The Match Factory closed deals for the film in France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film) and South Korea (Pancinema). A U.K. deal has also been signed with the buyer yet to be announced. Wild Bunch will be distributing the film in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.

The Match Factory has locked multi-territory deals on Berlinale titles Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dying by Matthias Glasner, which picked up the festival’s Silver Bear for Best Screenplay.

Alongside the Silver Bear, Dying also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas Prize and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. The pic has sold to France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Match Factory has said negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed. Deadline’s Stephanie Bunbury described the film as a “deep and darkly funny family drama.” The film stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, and Corinna Harfouch.

Elsewhere, Kossakovsky’s Architecton has sold to me Spain (Caramel Films), Italy (Be Water), Benelux (Cherry Pickers Filmdistributie...

The Berlin Film Festival kicked off its 74th edition February 15 with the opening-night world premiere screening of Small Things Like These, the Irish drama starring Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy. It started 10 days of debuts including for movies starring Rooney Mara, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Kristen Stewart and more.

This year’s Competition lineup features films from a swath of international filmmakers including Olivier Assayas, Mati Diop, Hong Sangsoo, Bruno Dumont and Abderrahmane Sissako.

The Berlinale runs through February 25.

Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.

Another End ‘Another End’

Section: Competition

Director: Piero Messina

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Renate Reinsve, Bérénice Bejo, Olivia Williams, Pal Aron

Deadline’s takeaway: The script, while ambitious, is laden with philosophical musings that often feel detached from the emotional core of the story. Another End...

Last night the Berlinale Film Festival welcomed the European Shooting Stars of 2024 on stage alongside actress Corinna Harfouch.

The Award Ceremony, hosted by Jenny Augusta, serves as the grand finale of an exhilarating four-day program. During this event, the brightest young actresses and actors come together with casting directors to showcase their talents and are introduced to the international media. The ceremony is the pinnacle of an unforgettable experience, marking the culmination of hard work, dedication, and passion for the craft.

The Shooting Stars were presented in a grand ceremony that preceded the screening of Claire Burger’s highly anticipated film ‘Langue Étrangère.’ The event was held in the presence of renowned personalities and dignitaries from the film industry.

Also in news – David Thewlis to star as Sherlock Holmes in ‘Sherlock & Daughter’

The ten European Shooting Stars 2024 joining the stage were Thibaud Dooms (Belgium), Margarita Stoykova (Bulgaria), Suzy Bemba...

The Berlin Film Festival hosted the 10 young European actors selected for the Shooting Stars program, run by European Film Promotion, at a gala event Monday.

The presentation of the Shooting Stars took place prior to the screening of Claire Burger’s “Langue Étrangère,” which plays in competition.

They were welcomed on stage at the Berlinale Palast by German actor Corinna Harfouch, who stars in the competition entry “Dying,” directed by Matthias Glasner.

The ceremony, hosted by Jenny Augusta, is the festive highlight and the closing event of the four-day program, where the talented young actors meet up with casting directors and are presented to the international press.

The Shooting Stars are Thibaud Dooms from Belgium, Margarita Stoykova from Bulgaria, Suzy Bemba from France, Salome Demuria from Georgia, Katharina Stark from Germany, Éanna Hardwicke from Ireland, Valentina Bellè from Italy, Džiugas Grinys from Lithuania, Kamila Urzędowska from Poland and Asta Kamma August from Sweden.

Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) is huddled on the floor in her nightgown, trying to ring her son. Her legs and nightgown are smeared brown with her regular nightly incontinence, but it is her husband who worries her: Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer) has wandered outside again, not sure where he is and wearing no pants. Her neighbor is at the door, insisting on being helpful, while Lissy just wants her to cut short this humiliation; has she spotted that even the phone is now daubed with excrement?

Old age ain’t no place for sissies, as Bette Davis famously said. The usual riposte is that it’s better than the alternative, but Matthias Glasner’s long, absorbing and intermittently very funny film calls that into question. Life, even before the debilities of age become its main feature, is the real difficulty.

Glasner’s story is a version of a traditional family saga, but...

Unabashedly sporting the most inauspicious of titles, a three-hour running time and a logline that features terminally ill elders and self-destructive descendants, German feature Dying (Sterben) looks like a hard sell on paper. And yet writer-director Matthias Glasner’s crisscrossing family drama manages to be exceedingly funny, often in some of its darkest moments, as well as expectedly sad.

Anchored by a nuanced, detailed performance by Lars Eidinger as Tom, an orchestra conductor juggling all manner of personal and professional commitments, and pitch-perfect turns by Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg and Ronald Zehrfeld as the rest of his combustible nuclear family, this richly rewards the time investment it requires. Sure, a few trims here and there wouldn’t have necessarily ruined it, and some might suggest this could work better as a multi-part limited series for upscale TV.

But it’s hard to imagine watching the musical performance set pieces anywhere...

Over three hours and five different chapters, Matthias Glasner’s “Dying” chronicles the travails of an estranged family of four: an elderly couple on the brink of death, their successful composer son and their alcoholic, ne’er-do-well daughter. The film casts a wide net over their experiences, and every leading performance is as impeccable as the last. However, Glasner’s formal rigidity prevents their stories from feeling intrinsically bound, leaving each of them with little to say.

The film opens in the German countryside with elderly couple Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) and Gerd Lunies (Hans-Uwe Bauer) being found helpless by a neighbor. Lissy’s litany of ailments render her only semi-mobile, and she often ends the day by soiling herself, while Gerd’s dementia leads him to wander naked into people’s homes. They can’t help each other, and their adult children are too preoccupied with their own metropolitan lives to get involved.

Ready for another deliciously outré performance from Lars Eidinger, everybody’s favorite German arthouse weirdo (known for his work in Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria, White Noise, and on and on)? Well, strap in for Sterben (Dying) from German director Matthias Glasner.

In the exclusive first trailer from The Match Factory (see below), Eidinger plays Tom, a Berlin conductor with more than a few personal issues to deal with.

Dying is a rare new feature from Glasner who, unlike his prolific star, has kept his filmography tight. (His last feature was 2012’s Gnade.) Judging by the trailer, and Glasner’s previous work, including 2006 Silver Bear winner The Free Will, Dying looks like another powerful mix of melodrama, wry humor and philosophical ponderings about the “big questions” of life and, given the title, of death.

“The name of the piece… is ‘Dying’,” a high-strung composer, played by Robert Gwisdek, instructs the orchestra.

The Match Factory has secured the rights for Berlinale Competition title “Dying,” by German director Matthias Glasner. Wild Bunch will be distributing the film in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.

Glasner credits include Golden Bear nominees “Gnade” (2012) and “Der Freie Wille” (2006).

The ensemble cast is led by Lars Eidinger, and also includes Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg and Ronald Zehrfeld.

“Dying” follows the very individual members of the Lunies family, who haven’t been a family for a long time. Lissy (Harfouch) is quietly happy about her demented husband Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer) slowly wasting away in a home. But her new freedom is short-lived: Diabetes, cancer and kidney failure mean that she doesn’t have much time left either.

Son Tom (Eidinger), a conductor in his early 40s, is working on a composition called “Dying,” while at the same time being made the surrogate father of his ex-girlfriend’s child. Tom...

The Match Factory has acquired world sales rights to Berlinale Golden Bear contender Dying by German director Matthias Glasner.

It is one of 20 films set to play in the Berlinale’s main Competition which was announced on Monday alongside the festival’s Encounters sidebar.

Glasner was previously in Competition at the Berlinale with Gnade and Der Freie Will in 2012 and 2006 respectively. More recent credits include directing episodes of Das Boot and TV movie Redemption Road.

German star Lars Eidinger co-leads the family drama following the very individual members of the dysfunctional Lunies family.

Corinna Harfouch co-stars at the mother who is quietly happy about her demented husband, played by Hans-Uwe Bauer, slowly wasting away in a home, until her new freedom looks set to be cut short by diabetes, cancer and kidney failure.

Eidinger plays a conductor in his...

The Match Factory has secured the rights for Berlinale Competition title Dying by German director Matthias Glasner.

Glasner’s previous films Gnade (2012) and Der Frei Wille (2006) played in competition at the Berlinale.

Dying’s ensemble cast includes Lars Eidinger, whose credits include All The Light We Cannot See and Irma Vep, and Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg and Ronald Zehrfeld.

It follows the Lunies family, who are forced to meet following a long estrangment. Hans-Uwe Bauer plays the father, living in a care home; Harfouch is the mother, living with diabetes, cancer and kidney failure. Their son played by Lars Eidinger,...

The German-based distribution and production company Port au Prince Film And Kultur Produktion has hired Roshanak “Rosh” Khodabakhsh as a producer and executive board member.

Khodabakhsh will start the role on March 1. One of her tasks will be to further expand and lead the company’s Berlin branch.

Khodabakhsh mostly recently spent three years at the German distributor-producer Dcm, where she was a producer. Prior to Dcm, Khodabakhsh spent six years as a freelance production coordinator and production manager on projects such as Netflix’s Sense8, UFA’s Charité, and the X Filme series Babylon Berlin. She has also worked with directors such as Tom Tykwer, Sönke Wortmann, Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove), Jan Schomburg (Divine), and Ilya Khrzhanovsky (Dau).

Port Au Prince Producer and Managing Director Jan Krüger previously collaborated with Khodabakhsh in 2009 on Ali Samadi-Ahadi’s Grimme Award-winning doc The Green Wave.

“I would like to thank Marc Schmidheiny,...

This year’s Berlin International Film Festival will look a bit different this year, with a virtual edition taking place March 1-5 for industry and press, then a public, in-person edition kicking off in June.

The complete lineup has now been unveiled, including Céline Sciamma’s highly-anticipated Portrait of a Lady on Fire follow-up Petite Maman, a surprise new Hong Sang-soo feature, the latest work from Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, along with new projects by Radu Jude, Xavier Beauvois, Dominik Graf, Pietro Marcello, Ramon Zürcher & Silvan Zürcher, and more.

Check out each section below.

Competition Tiles

“Albatros” (Drift Away)

France

by Xavier Beauvois

with Jérémie Renier, Marie-Julie Maille, Victor Belmondo

“Babardeală cu buclucsau porno balamuc” (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)

Romania/Luxemburg/Croatia/Czech Republic

by Radu Jude

with Katia Pascariu, Claudia Ieremia, Olimpia Mălai

“Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde” (Fabian – Going to the Dogs)

Germany

by Dominik Graf

with Tom Schilling,...

Day 3 of this year’s Berlinale announcements contain the line-ups for Encounters, Panorama and Perspektive Deutsches Kino. Check back in tomorrow for the Competition program.

Encounters was first introduced at last year’s festival to support new voices in cinema. A three-member jury will award Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award during the industry event in March, with the prizes handed out physically at the summer event.

The selection consists of 12 titles from 16 countries, including seven debuts. Scroll down for the full list.

Over in Panorama, there are 19 titles including 14 world premieres. Several titles arrive from Sundance such as Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK feature Censor and Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino will again present new views on German cinema, with six titles, all of which are world premieres. The full lists are below.

This week so far has seen the Generation, Retrospective, Forum, Forum Expanded and Shorts programs announced.

The 21st European Film Festival also awarded trophies to Disco, Scandinavian Silence, Sister and Lara, while the Cineuropa Prize went to Open Door. The French title Twelve Thousand has been crowned Best Film at the 21st Lecce European Film Festival, an event which unfolded entirely online this year, between 31 October and 7 November, in full compliance with anti-Covid health regulations. Awarding the Golden Olive Tree to Nadège Trebal’s film, the jury presided over by Katriel Schory and composed of Beatrice Fiorentino, Mathilde Henrot, Antonio Saura and Mira Staleva also honoured Disco by Jorunn Myklebust Syversen for its screenplay and Scandinavian Silence by Martti Helde for its photography. Meanwhile, Svetla Tsotsorkova’s Sister and Jan-Ole Gerster’s Lara found themselves joint winners of the Special Jury Prize. The latter also claimed the Sngci Award for Best European Actor, courtesy of Corinna Harfouch. For its part, the Mario Verdone Award, which is now.

Leonine is opening Russell Crowe thriller ‘Unhinged’ in Germany.

As cinemas begin to reopen again in many territories, Screen is tracking which films are being released in key territories each week.

Cinema reopening dates around the world: latest updates France, opening Wednesday July 15

The French box office entered its fourth full week of activity on July 15, following the reopening of cinemas on June 22 after their 14-week Covid-19 hiatus.

New films on release this week include Francois Ozon’s young adult drama Summer Of 85. Diaphana Distribution pushed the launch forward from France’s typical Wednesday release day to Tuesday, to...

This year’s German Film Award nominees for best picture include hard-hitting social dramas, tales of romance and cultural divides, family relationships and musical icons as well as works by a growing number of filmmakers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The German Film Academy, forced to revamp its 70th German Film Awards ceremony due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, will honor the country’s most acclaimed films during a special live TV presentation on April 24.

The German Film Awards ceremony, which in the past aired pre-recorded on Zdf, will be broadcast live for the first time on Ard’s Das Erste, due in part to its remade and shortened presentation. Doing away with its traditional gala event, the show will instead include guest filmmakers, musicians and presenters taking part via video feed from their homes.

Six films are vying for the best picture trophy, nicknamed the Lola, among them Burhan Qurbani’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,...

“When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,” directed by Caroline Link, an Oscar-winner with “Nowhere in Africa,” has attracted several presales ahead of its market premiere at Afm. The film’s sales agent, Beta Cinema, has also revealed a host of deals on other titles.

“Pink Rabbit,” an adaptation of the memoir of author and illustrator Judith Kerr — best-known for “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” — about her family’s flight from Germany as the Nazis rose to power, will have a wide release in Germany via Warner Bros. Sales agent Beta Cinema has pre-sold the film to Rai Cinema/01 (Italy), A Contracorriente (Spain), Huanxi Media Group (China), Moviecloud (Taiwan) and Blitz (former Yugoslavia).

Also on Beta’s slate is “Lara,” by Jan-Ole Gerster (“A Coffee in Berlin”), which piqued distributors’ interest following its premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won the Special Prize of the Jury and best actress for Corinna Harfouch.

Frauke Finsterwalder to begin shooting period drama in autumn 2020.

German sales outfit The Match Factory is to handle international sales on Frauke Finsterwalder’s Sisi – Kaiserin Elisabeth (working title), which aims to cast new light on the 19th century Empress of Austria.

It will tell the story of Elisabeth, who was nicknamed Sisi and would go on to become Queen of Hungary, thought the eyes of her lady-in-waiting.

Produced by Munich-based Walker+Worm Film, it will shoot on location in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Morocco from autumn 2020.

Finsterwalder has co-written the screenplay with her husband, the bestselling German author Christian Kracht.

Frauke Finsterwalder to begin shooting period drama in autumn 2020.

The Match Factory is to handle international sales on Frauke Finsterwalder’s Sisi – Kaiserin Elisabeth (working title), which promises to cast new light on the 19th century Empress of Austria.

Although it will tell the story of Elisabeth, who was nicknamed Sisi and would go on to become Queen of Hungary, the film will be told from the perspective of her lady-in-waiting, Irma.

Produced by Munich-based Walker+Worm Film, it will shoot on location in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Morocco from autumn 2020.

Finsterwalder has co-written the screenplay with her husband, the bestselling author Christian Kracht.

Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins got more than divine intervention at the 27th Hamptons Film Festival, they got the audience’s blessing.

Netflix’s “The Two Popes” took top honors as the Hiff Audience winner at the festival, which ran from October 10-14. It was joined by two docs as fan faves over the long holiday weekend. “Popes” star Pryce even made a surprise appearance at a screening Sunday night, telling the sold-out crowd, “It’s pretty cool to play the pope. I was nervous at first. I wanted to be honest to the man. I look a bit like him. The uncanny thing is I walk like him anyway. He has a dodgy hip and I have a dodgy knee.”

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Pryce said he was in awe of his co-star and fellow countryman Hopkins, who played Pope Benedict XVI. And...

Update, with Audience Awards The Hamptons Film Festival announced its Audience Award winners today, with Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes taking the Narrative Feature trophy and Ric Burns’ Oliver Sacks: His Own Life chosen by audiences as best Documentary Feature.

Fire in Paradise, directed by Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari, won the Audience Award for Best Short Film.

Also announced today, Trey Edward Shults, writer and director of the festival’s closing night film Waves, received the inaugural Zicherman Family Foundation Screenwriting Award, a $10,000 award presented to an early-career screenwriter “who has demonstrated singular vision and dedication to their craft.”

Previous, Monday Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day and the Sung-a Yoon documentary Overseas were awarded top honors today at the the 27th Hamptons Film Festival, the fest has announced.

Pálmason’s film won the Award for Best Narrative Feature, while Overseas received the Award for Best Documentary Feature.

What happens to a stage mother gone bad? Jan Ole Gerster’s accomplished sophomore film Lara shows the icy fate awaiting a talented pianist who, having transferred her ambitions to her son with martinet ferocity, finds herself excluded from his life and success. Lara is a drama that often borders on farce as we watch the insanely clever lengths to which the embittered mom, who has just turned 60, will go to undermine her son’s self-confidence on the eve of his big concert. The pic won the special jury award at Karlovy Vary, and Corinna Harfouch (Downfall) received best ...

What happens to a stage mother gone bad? Jan Ole Gerster’s accomplished sophomore film Lara shows the icy fate awaiting a talented pianist who, having transferred her ambitions to her son with martinet ferocity, finds herself excluded from his life and success. Lara is a drama that often borders on farce as we watch the insanely clever lengths to which the embittered mom, who has just turned 60, will go to undermine her son’s self-confidence on the eve of his big concert. The pic won the special jury award at Karlovy Vary, and Corinna Harfouch (Downfall) received best ...

Winners include Bulgarian-Greek comedy ‘The Father’ and Jan-Ole Gerster’s ‘Lara’.

Bulgarian-Greek comedy The Father won the Grand Prix - Crystal Globe at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6), which closed yesterday with its annual awards ceremony.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, The Father was selected by grand jury comprising Annemarie Jacir, Štěpán Hulík, Sergei Loznitsa, Angeliki Papoulia and Charles Tesson. The Crystal Globe comes with $25,000 prize money.

The film tells the story of a middle-aged man (Ivan Barnev) attempting to stop his widowed...

The 2019 installment of the sprawling Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6), held for more than 50 years at the sunny resort hub of the Czech Republic, boasted 12,521 accredited attendees, including 395 filmmakers, 1158 global industry professionals, and 605 journalists. They watched a selection of 177 films at 497 screenings.

Karlovy Vary, run by president Jiří Bartoška and artistic director Karel Och, runs three competitive categories. “The Father,” from Bulgaria and Greece, took home the Grand Prix, and “Lara,” from Germany, won three awards. The full list of winners is below.

Official Selection – Competition

Jury: Štěpán Hulík (Czech Republic), Annemarie Jacir (State of Palestine),Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine), Angeliki Papoulia (Greece), Charles Tesson (France)

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s “The Father”

Special Jury Prize

Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Director Award

Tim Mielants for “Patrick” (Belgium)

Best Actress Award

Corinna Harfouch, star of Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Actor Award

Milan Ondrík,...

The 2019 installment of the sprawling Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6), held for more than 50 years at the sunny resort hub of the Czech Republic, boasted 12,521 accredited attendees, including 395 filmmakers, 1158 global industry professionals, and 605 journalists. They watched a selection of 177 films at 497 screenings.

Karlovy Vary, run by president Jiří Bartoška and artistic director Karel Och, runs three competitive categories. “The Father,” from Bulgaria and Greece, took home the Grand Prix, and “Lara,” from Germany, won three awards. The full list of winners is below.

Official Selection – Competition

Jury: Štěpán Hulík (Czech Republic), Annemarie Jacir (State of Palestine),Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine), Angeliki Papoulia (Greece), Charles Tesson (France)

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s “The Father”

Special Jury Prize

Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Director Award

Tim Mielants for “Patrick” (Belgium)

Best Actress Award

Corinna Harfouch, star of Jan-Ole Gerster’s “Lara” (Germany)

Best Actor Award

Milan Ondrík,...

Patricia Clarkson on the red carpet for tonight’s prize-giving ceremony at Karlovy Vary Photo: Film Servis Karlovy Vary

The Bulgarian-Greek road comedy The Father took top honours, winning a Crystal Globe in tonight’s gala closing ceremony at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The films tells of a long-suffering photographer trying to cope with his father’s weird behaviour in the wake of his wife’s death. It is the fourth team project by writer-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov.

The Spanish film The August Virgin has won this year´s Award of The International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci). The citation read: "The award goes to a modest, unpretentious film, skilfully opening a number of issues and tackling a range of emotions while maintaining an inspiringly positive worldview."

The jury also honoured German psychological family drama Lara by Jan-Ole Gerster, which follows a protective mother’s...

Bulgarian drama Father, directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, took the Crystal Globe for Grand Prix at the closing Saturday of the 54th edition of the Karlovy Vary film festival.

An intimate family drama about a grieving father who has lost his wife of many years, the Bulgarian-Greek co-production contained elements of dark farce.

A special jury prize went to the producer and director of German director Jan-Ole Gerster's Lara about a mother attending her son's piano recital — something that has surprising unpredictable results. Corinna Harfouch, who played the title role, picked up best actress.

Best director ...

Bulgarian drama Father, directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, took the Crystal Globe for Grand Prix at the closing Saturday of the 54th edition of the Karlovy Vary film festival.

An intimate family drama about a grieving father who has lost his wife of many years, the Bulgarian-Greek co-production contained elements of dark farce.

A special jury prize went to the producer and director of German director Jan-Ole Gerster's Lara about a mother attending her son's piano recital — something that has surprising unpredictable results. Corinna Harfouch, who played the title role, picked up best actress.

Best director ...

The 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has wrapped today and set its winners with Bulgarian road-trip comedy The Father taking home the top prize Grand Prix Crystal Globe, which comes with cash prize of $25,000. Scroll down for a full list of winners.

The Czech festival’s special jury prize went to German drama Lara, while best director went to Tim Mielants for Belgian feature Patrick. Milan Ondrík won best actor for his role in Czech film Let There Be Light and Corinna Harfouch won the best actress accolade for the aforementioned Lara.

This year’s competition jury comprised Štěpán Hulík, Annemarie Jacir, Sergei Loznitsa, Angeliki Papoulia and Charles Tesson. As previously revealed, there were career Crystal Globes for Julianne Moore and Patricia Clarkson.

Full List Of Winners:

Grand Prix – Crystal Globe (25 000 Usd)

The financial award is shared equally by the director and producer of the award-winning film.

The Father / Bashtata

Directed by: Kristina Grozeva,...

Family angst and off-the-wall humor dominated the 54th Karlovy Vary film fest prize race, with Bulgarian-Greek road comedy “The Father” scoring the Crystal Globe Saturday eve in a gala closing ceremony at the Hotel Thermal.

The story of a long-suffering photographer trying to manage his father’s increasingly unhinged behavior in the wake of his wife’s death, the film is the fourth team project by writer-directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov.

The jury also honored German psychological family drama “Lara” by Jan-Ole Gerster, which follows a protective mother’s frustrations as her aloof son faces an upcoming piano recital. Lead actress Corinna Harfouch took the actress prize for her tortured turn in the film.

Tim Mielants won the director prize for “Patrick,” his study of hammer obsession by a socially challenged maintenance man for a Belgian nudist camp, while Milan Ondrik won the actor prize for Slovak-Czech family drama “Let There Be Light,...

What a difference a day makes. Allowing one’s characters to move from narrative point A to narrative point B in the same amount of time it takes for the Earth to spin 360 degrees should be an arbitrary undertaking, like having a film where everyone wears hats or can’t remember the Beatles, but that simple constraint has fired more than a few great filmmaker’s creative engines over the years. Spike Lee used a hot one as a pressure cooker. Linklater seems obsessed with the form. The limitation seems to ease some primal craving for order and patterns. They can also be a lot of fun.

Back in 2012, a charming discovery was added to the species. It was shot in monochrome, nodded to Woody Allen (when that was still a thing people did), bore the auspicious title Oh Boy (released rather bluntly stateside as A Coffee in Berlin), and...

German filmmaker Jan-Ole Gerster made a major splash with his critically acclaimed and award-heavy 2012 debut feature “Oh Boy” (“A Coffee in Berlin”), starring Tom Schilling (“Never Look Away”). In Gerster’s latest film, “Lara,” Corinna Harfouch portrays a woman, who, on her 60th birthday, plans to attend the premiere of piano concerto performed by her estranged son, played by Schilling.

Gerster spoke to Variety about the origins of the project, why Harfouch’s involvement was essential, re-teaming with Schilling, and the significant role of music in the film.

While currently focused on the launch of his new film at home and abroad, Gerster is pursuing as a possible next project an adaptation of Christan Kracht’s best-selling novel “Imperium.” Inspired by a true story, the book follows passionate German nudist August Engelhardt as he travels to German New Guinea in 1902 to set up a coconut farm and commune on a remote South Seas island.

‘Lara’ is simultaneously premiering at the Munich and Karlovy Vary film festivals.

German director Jan-Ole Gerster’s debut film Oh Boy (which was released as A Coffee In Berlin in the Us ) was a surprise critical and audience hit in 2012. The absurdist comedy following an aimless man wandering the streets of Berlin was his thesis film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (Dffb). It certainly marked out Gerster as a director to watch, premiering at Karlovy Vary and winning him the best debut film prize at the European Film Awards.

Seven years later and Gerster is back with his much-anticipated second feature Lara.