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New Delhi, Dec 31 (Ians) Hero MotoSports Team Rally began its seventh consecutive Dakar Rally at the Sea Camp near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday.

The Hero MotoSports team features a stellar squad of four Rally Gp class riders — Franco Caimi, Joaquim Rodrigues, Ross Branch, and Sebastian Buhler.

According to information received here, starting their campaign on a strong foot at the 45th edition the Dakar Rally, the Team finished the 13-km long Prologue stage with three riders in the top 10 positions. Ross Branch achieved a spot on the podium with a 3rd place, followed by Joaquim Rodrigues in the 6th and Sebastian Buhler in the 8th positions. Franco Caimi is in the 20th position in the Rally Gp Class.

After a short start podium ceremony, riders completed the short 13-km special on the seafront, which gave the top 10 finishers an advantage of choosing their starting positions for the first stage...

There are lost-at-sea thrillers that make a virtue of the leanness of their narratives. J.C. Chandor’s “All Is Lost,” Wolfgang Fischer’s “Styx” and Chris Kentis’ legitimately traumatizing “Open Water” (not to mention Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” if we switch in space for ocean) all spun gripping tales of survival — or not — using minimal dialogue and very little character backstory. But the pitfalls of this less-is-more approach are laid bare in and stereotypes. In its familiarity, “Submersible” at least appropriately evokes such a sinking feeling.

We’re engulfed in the action immediately, when the film opens, as the rickety, makeshift sub codenamed “Guadalupe” is already mid-crisis. Its crew of three — secretive pseudo-captain Felix (Leynar Gómez), quiet, older engine maintenance guy Kleber (Carlos Valencia) and jittery, crazy-eyed wild card Aquiles (José Restrepo) — scrabble about the squalid, listing interior and decide in desperation to redistribute the weight on board by shifting their precious cargo around.

The U.S. lineup at Mubi next month has been unveiled, featuring films by Claude Chabrol, Paulo Rocha, Ulrich Köhler, and more. Notable new releases include Pedro Costa’s striking Locarno winner Vitalina Varela as well as the Julia Fox-led Pvt Chat (check out our extensive interview with director Ben Hozie here.).

As part of their series Thrills, Chills, and Exquisite Horrors, the Martin Scorsese favorite Wake in Fright joins Mubi, along with Fabrice Du Welz’s Alleluia, Nicolas Winding Refn’s underseen Fear X, and Ben Wheatley’s trippy A Field in England.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

October 1 | Alléluia | Fabrice Du Welz | Thrills, Chills, and Exquisite Horrors

October 2 | Styx | Wolfgang Fischer

October 3 | The Green Years | Paulo Rocha | Double Bill: Paulo Rocha

October 4 | Change of Life | Paulo Rocha | Double Bill: Paulo Rocha

October 5 | Your Day Is My Night | Lynne Sachs

October 6 | Hey, You!

Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 11am — 12pm Pdt, 2pm — 3pm Edt, 8pm — 9pm Cet. Watch ‘Styx’ by Wolfgang Fischer and join us for a discussion!

Continue reading on SydneysBuzz The Blog »...

Leading German production banner Augenschein Filmproduktion, is launching an in-house worldwide sales and financing division that will be spearheaded by former Telepool executive Jonathan Saubach (pictured).

The new division will be called Augenschein Sales and will focus on financing the company’s production slate through access to equity, market pre-sales and film funds in order to retain creative and financial control over projects.

In this new role, Saubach will report to Augenschein Filmproduktion founders Maximilian Leo and Jonas Katzenstein, and will be in charge of financing, packaging and worldwide sales of its film titles. He will also serve as an executive producer on Augenschein’s upcoming productions.

Saubach previously held senior sales, acquisitions and content executive roles for Telepool Gmbh, the German licensing, production and distribution company owned by actor Will Smith and Swiss investor Elysian Fields.

Augenschein Filmproduktion specializes in director-driven movies with global appeal and boasts more than...

German indie Augenschein, whose credits include Netflix sci-fi Stowaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500, is launching Augenschein Sales, an in-house worldwide sales and financing arm.

The new operation will be headed by Jonathan Saubach as Head Of Sales. The acquisitions exec joins from Will Smith-owned Telepool.

The new division will focus on combining the financing for the company’s production slate through access to equity, market pre-sales and film funds. Saubach will be in charge of financing, packaging and worldwide sales of the company’s film titles and will also serve as an executive producer on upcoming productions. He will report to Augenschein founders Maximilian Leo and Jonas Katzenstein.

During his ten-year tenure at Telepool the company acquired Ryan Gosling starrer Drive, The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, The Hitman’s Bodyguard starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman, the Has Fallen franchise starring Gerard Butler,...

Dubai-based Cercamon handles worldwide sales on Bronx-set tale.

Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Goldie, Sam de Jong’s coming-of-age story that premiered in Generation 14 Plus in Berlin and is being sold in Cannes by Dubai-based Cercamon.

‘Instagirl’ supermodel Slick Woods makes her acting debut as the titular character in the Bronx-set tale about a streetwise teen who discovers her true strength when her dream of becoming a dancer collides with harsh reality.

The drama, Dutch filmmaker de Jong’s follow-up to his 2015 feature debut Prince, screened at Tribeca Film Festival last month and hails from Twentieth Century Fox and Vice Films.

Andreas Dresen’s biopic wins six prizes from 10 nominations.

Andreas Dresen’s biopic Gundermann was the big winner at this year’s German Film Awards, taking home six Lolas at the weekend’s gala in Berlin after receiving a record 10 nominations.

The production by Pandora Film Produktion and Kineo Filmproduktion received the evening’s top award, the Lola in Gold for best feature film, as well as the Lolas for best director (Dresen), screenplay (Laila Stieler), lead actor (Alexander Scheer), production design (Susanne Hopf) and costume design (Sabine Greunig).

Accepting his Lola for best director - his third win in...

Susanne Wolff is a force to be reckoned with in Styx Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Wolfgang Fischer's impassioned Styx, co-written with Ika Künzel, shot by Benedict Neuenfels, and edited by Monika Willi, takes us on an unexpected journey. Rike is a German emergency doctor. She sails alone, heading to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, where Charles Darwin experimented with the coexistence of native and non-native flora and fauna.

Wolfgang Fischer on Susanne Wolff as Rike: "It was important that she's an emergency doctor, she's got the skills."

After a violent storm, Rike finds herself confronted with a leaky, sinking, overcrowded fishing boat carrying desperate refugees. One of them, a boy with a bracelet spelling out Kingsley (Gedion Oduor Wekesa), manages to swim over to her. What is she to do? The Coast Guard seem to be stalling...

Film posts Fri-Sun £31.5m, topping Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ previous watermark.

Today’s Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.29

Rank Film (Distributor) Three-day gross (Apr 26-28) Total gross to date Week 1 Avengers: Endgame (Disney £31.4m £43.4m 1 2 Dumbo (Disney) £1m £23.4m 5 3 Wonder Park (Paramount) £452,000 £3.8m 8 4 Red Joan (Lionsgate) £420,629 £1.5m 2 5 ‘Shazam!’ (Warner Bros) £398,000 £12.9m 4 Disney

Avengers: Endgame, the final entry in the current cycle of Marvel comic book films, lived up to its hype this weekend, tumbling box office records around the globe.

As part of its remarkable £930m ($1.2bn) global debut, the film posted a four-day £43.4m ($56.1m) opening in the UK.

‘Avengers’ will be a boost to UK cinemas after a dreadful previous weekend.

After a dreadful weekend at the UK box office last time out, with no films topping £1m across Friday-Sunday, this week sees the welcome arrival of Disney’s latest superhero blockbuster Avengers: Endgame.

The film is the final entry in the current cycle of Marvel comic book adaptations and has been hotly anticipated since the previous film, Avengers: Infinity War, was released in April last year.

That movie started with a mammoth £23.1m opening Fri-Sun, and took £29.4m including previews on the Thursday. It went on to...

Should a lone yachtswoman act when authorities tell her to sail away? Wolfgang Fischer’s drama steers into Europe’s migrant crisis with conviction

Our creatives continue to form more imaginative and compassionate responses to the issue of mass migration than our politicians. Like recent TV conscience-prickers Home and Don’t Forget the Driver, Austrian director Wolfgang Fischer’s quietly gripping second feature immerses us in the debate around freedom of movement.

Cinematically, it’s not unlike a clever rethink of Jc Chandor’s All Is Lost; that terrific survival drama exerted a form of white privilege by having Robert Redford wrestle tempestuous seas on his lonesome, with no one else around to steal his thunder or closeups. Fischer and co-writer Ika Künzel float the notion there might be something more compelling and provocative in the sight of a struggling sailor encountering others in far worse conditions. For the earlier film’s collision of hulls,...

The recipients were the producers of films nominated for best film, best doc and best children’s film.

More than €2m ($3.2m) in nomination premiums has been awarded to the producers of the films nominated for best film, best documentary and best children’s film at the 2019 German Film Awards, aka the Lolas, in Berlin today (March 20).

The best film nominees are Andreas Dresen’s Gunderman, Markus Goller’s 25 km/h, Caroline Link’s The Boy Needs Fresh Air, Aron Lehmann’s The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx and Christian Petzold’s Transit. Each of...

Susanne Wolff with Styx director Wolfgang Fischer on rescuing Kingsley (Gedion Oduor Wekesa): "I remember that we had a rehearsal to check out how difficult it is." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

When Volker Schlöndorff was filming Return To Montauk near Lincoln Center and on the steps of the New York Public Library with Stellan Skarsgård, Nina Hoss, Susanne Wolff, Bronagh Gallagher, Isioma Laborde-Edozien, and Mathias Sanders, he introduced me to the cast and his co-writer Colm Tóibín. At Film Forum before the Us theatrical premiere of Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx, I spoke with the director and his formidable star Susanne Wolff about the challenges of shooting on the high seas and how Jc Chandor's All Is Lost with Robert Redford did not encounter the same obstacles.

Susanne Wolff is Rieke in Wolfgang Fischer's Styx: "90% of the movie we shot on open ocean."

Wolfgang Fischer's impassioned Styx, co-written with Ika Künzel and shot by Benedict Neuenfels,...

A blunt, breathless, and astoundingly unsentimental morality play that’s told with the intensity of a ticking-clock thriller, Wolfgang Fischer’s “Styx” is every bit as ominous as its title suggests, and far less fanciful. A German emergency doctor named Rieke (Susanne Wolff) takes a well-deserved vacation from her long nights of saving lives, and flies to the sunny rocks of Gibraltar in order to fulfill one of her forever dreams. Completely by herself on an 11-meter yacht without any connection to the outside world except for the boat’s radio, she’s sailing to Ascension Island, a volcanic speck located halfway between West Africa and Brazil. Rieke longs to see the jungle that Charles Darwin once designed for the island: “Wild, untouched nature that was actually planned.” And she longs to do it alone. For a man, that might seem like a bit of bravado; for a woman, it...

Distributor plans a 2019 theatrical, digital, home entertainment and Svod release.

Film Movement Classics has acquired Us and English-speaking Canadian rights to Fritz Lang Indian Epic, the two-part cliffhanger comprising The Tiger Of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb.

The distributor plans a 2019 release as a theatrical double feature followed by digital and home entertainment release, and a launch on FilmMovement’s Svod platform, Film Movement Plus.

After more than two decades of exile in Hollywood, Lang triumphantly returned to his native Germany to direct the two-part cliffhanger in 1959 from a story he co-authored nearly 40 years earlier.

Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg,...

Simone Baumann to replace new Berlinale director Mariette Rissenbeek at German Films.

After months of speculation in the German film industry, independent producers Simone Baumann and Helge Albers have now been appointed as the new managing directors of German Films Service + Marketing and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, respectively.

Baumann, who has been representing German Films in Central and Eastern Europe since 2003 in addition to her role overseeing documentary production at Leipzig-based Saxonia Entertainment, was confirmed as the successor to the present incumbent Mariette Rissenbeek at a meeting of the promotion agency’s supervisory board in Munich yesterday (3 December).

55-year-old Baumann will...

Simone Baumann to replace new Berlinale director Mariette Rissenbeek at German Films.

After months of speculation in the German film industry, independent producers Simone Baumann and Helge Albers have now been appointed as the new managing directors of German Films Service + Marketing and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, respectively.

Baumann, who has been representing German Films in Central and Eastern Europe since 2003 in addition to her role overseeing documentary production at Leipzig-based Saxonia Entertainment, was confirmed as the successor to the present incumbent Mariette Rissenbeek at a meeting of the promotion agency’s supervisory board in Munich yesterday (3 December).

55-year-old Baumann will...

Benedikt Erlingsson’s film is Iceland’s foreign-language Oscar entry.

Benedikt Erlingsson’s eco-terrorist comedy-drama Woman At War has won the Lux prize, awarded by the European Parliament in Strasbourg today (Wednesday November 14).

Launched in 2007, the prize intends to shine ‘a spotlight on films that go to the heart of European public debate’, according to the European Parliament.

Woman At War was chosen ahead of Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx, which came second, with Mila Turajlic’s The Other Side Of Everything in third.

Director and co-writer Erlingsson was present in Strasbourg to collect the award, and commented, “I feel like a politician,...

Honorees to include Asghar Farhadi, Mary Harron and Gunnell Lindblom.

The Stockholm International Film Festival has revealed its 2018 programme, with the festival kicking off Nov 7 with the anticipated world premiere of Anna Odell’s X&Y, in competition.

Odell, the Swedish artist and filmmaker who last directed 2013’s award-winning The Reunion, returns starring as a fictionalized version of herself, collaborating with the celebrated actor Mikael Persbrandt to deconstruct themselves. The cast also features Trine Dyrholm, Sofie Gråbøl, Vera Vitali, Shanti Roney, Jens Albinus and Thure Lindhardt. New Europe handles sales.

Stockholm will close Nov 18 with The Favourite by Yorgos Lanthimos, from the Open Zone section.

Styx is on the final shortlist for this year’s Lux prize.

Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx, the drama that won several prizes when it premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, has been picked up for UK and Ireland distribution by recently-launched outfit 606 Distribution.

The Cornwall-based company has been set up by Pat Kelman, a filmmaker and actor, and acquisition and legal exec David Maddison.

It also has UK rights for the 2017 Venice premiere Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, and Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj’s ballet film Polina.

Styx premiered in Berlin’s Panorama section, where it won a...

Below you will find an index of our coverage from the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) in 2018, as well as our favorite films.Top Picksdaniel KASMANFeatures:1. What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (Roberto Minervini)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman)4. Green Book (Peter Farrelly)5. aKasha (hajooj kuka)6. Rojo (Benjamin Naishtat)7. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)8. Belmonte (Federico Veiroj)9. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)10. Hidden Man (Jiang Wen)Shorts:1. Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)2. Arena (Björn Kämmerer)3. Polly One (Kevin Jerome Everson)4. Colophon (Nathaniel Dorsky)5. Please step out of the frame. (Karissa Hahn)6. Wall Unwalled (Lawrence Abu Hamdan)7. Ada Kaleh (Helena Wittmann)8. Alitplano (Malena Szlam)9. Norman Norman (Sophy Romvari)10. Hoarders without Borders, 1.0 (Jodie Mack)Kelley DONG1. "I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians" (Radu Jude)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Our Time (Carlos Reygadas)4. Our Body (Han Ka-Ram)5. A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper...

The Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which British magistrates sent cavalry with drawn swords into a political gathering of Manchester civilians, is an event not likely to be recollected in tranquility; and Mike Leigh’s Peterloo (2018) goes full agit-prop, with apoplectic hanging judges, heartless aristocrats, mercenaries advocating “violence, hatred, destruction,” and local governors declaring “We must be brutal!” On top of the mustache-twirling, Leigh coarsens his storytelling to remove ambiguity: character is conveyed via TV-style shorthand; sympathetic characters foreshadow the coming catastrophe; the historical context is signposted in the dialogue. And yet the film is still deeply impressive, with more evidence of Leigh’s greatness than any of his films since Vera Drake (2004). Despite his reputation for kitchen-sink naturalism, Leigh has always favored exaggerated acting that isolates and intensifies character traits, and this stylization, coupled with his intelligence about social behavior, blows away the obstacles of historical adaptation as if they didn’t exist.

A strong showcase of German cinema was on offer at the Toronto Film Festival with a slew of films tackling such timely issues as sexual violence, the plight of refugees, the end of the Soviet Union and Germany’s recent turbulent history.

This year’s selections included works from such prominent names as Werner Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta, Christian Petzold, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and Sven Taddicken.

In Herzog and André Singer’s doc “Meeting Gorbachev,” the prolific filmmakers offer a portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, and his lasting impact on world politics.

In “Searching for Ingmar Bergman,” which also unspools in the Tiff Docs sidebar, von Trotta explores the Swedish director’s cinematic legacy.

Von Donnersmarck, who won the foreign-language film Oscar for 2006’s “The Lives of Others,” revisits East Germany in “Never Look Away,” which follows the life of an artist struggling...

Alan Alda will be awarded the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Dick Cavett Artistic Champion Award.

The festival established the award in 2017, honoring Cavett himself. The Hiff, now in its 26th year, opens Oct. 4 with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Kindergarten Teacher” and closes Oct. 8.

“Alan Alda is one of those now rare actors who in his career continues to distinguish himself on Broadway, in films and on television,” said Hiff co-chairman Alec Baldwin. “Of course, most people remember Alda for his starring role in the seminal TV series ‘M*A*S*H,’ but Alda is also great in the movies and on stage.”

Alda has won seven Emmys and wrote many of the episodes on “M*A*S*H.” He appeared in continuing roles on “ER,” “The West Wing,” “30 Rock,” “The Blacklist,” “The Big C,” “Horace and Pete,” and “The Good Fight.” He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role...

Thriller won awards after world premiere in Berlin.

Film Movement has acquired all North American rights from Beta Cinema to Wolfgang Fischer’s thriller Styx ahead of its Contemporary World Cinema slot in Toronto next month.

Styx premiered at the Berlinale and will receive its North American premiere in Canada before opening at New York’s Film Forum in February 2019.

Susanne Wolf stars as a German emergency room physician who embarks on a solo voyage across the Atlantic and must take matters into her own hands when she encounters a damaged boat containing dozens of refugees.

The film won the Heiner Carow Prize,...

Titles include Berlin winner ‘Touch Me Not’, ‘Cold War’ and ‘Paddington 2’.

The 49 films recommended for nomination for the 2018 European Film Awards have been revealed.

Scroll down for full list of titles

The list includes Adina Pintilie’s Berlin winner Touch Me Not and Cannes prize winners Cold War, Dogman and Happy As Lazzaro.

Films with UK involvement on the list include Michael Pearce’s Beast and Paddington 2.

The films were selected by the 20 countries with the most Efa members as well as a selection committee consisting of the Efa board and experts.

In the coming weeks, more than...

With the Venice Film Festival due to reveal its competition lineup tomorrow, parallel sections are getting a jump. Today’s roster unveiling is for the Venice Days section, or Giornate degli Autori — an independent section that resembles Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. In the mix are new films from Oscar nominee Rithy Panh, After Love‘s Joachim Lafosse, and Peter Medak with The Ghost Of Peter Sellers. The latter is billed as a Special Event and is a tragicomic documentary about the unraveling of 1973 pirate comedy Ghost In The Noonday Sun.

Panh will open the section with Graves Without A Name, the Cambodian helmer’s latest examination of the fallout of the Khmer Rouge. Lafosse is in competition with mother-son drama Keep Going starring Virginie Efira. Out of competition, the closing film is The Suicide Of Emma Peteers by Nicole Palo. In total, six of the official selection titles are directed by women.

Other selected titles include Happy As Lazzaro and U – July 22.

The films selected for the 2018 edition of the European Parliament’s Lux Film Prize have been revealed at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).

At an event hosted at Karlovy Vary’s Grandhotel Pupp on Sunday (July 1), the 10 films were unveiled by Evelyne Gebhardt, vice president of the European Parliament and fellow MEPs Helga Trüpel, Martina Dlabajová, Michaela Sojdrova and Bogdan Wenta, and Lux Film Prize coordinator Doris Pack.

The films are:

Border by Ali Abbasi (Sweden/Denmark) Donbass by Sergei Loznitsa (Germany/France/Ukraine/Netherlands/Romania) Girl...

Vienna-born filmmaker Wolfgang Fischer has signed with Gersh and Echo Lake, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned.

Fischer directed and co-wrote Styx, about a German doctor who, during a solo yachting trip, encounters a leaky vessel full of refugees. THR critic Boyd van Hoeij praised the film's assembly as "pro on all levels" and singled out Fischer for finding "exactly the right, understated tone" in its third act in particular. Styx premiered last month at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the European Cinema Label prize for best European film in the Panorama section.

Fischer is...

Further deals inked on The Happy Prince and Styx.

German sales outfit Beta Cinema is reporting strong business across its 2018 European Film Market (Efm) slate.

The company has closed a series of deals on three of its titles that premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s competition programme this year.

Thomas Stuber’s In The Aisles has gone to France (Kmbo), Spain (Surtsey), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Japan (Aya Pro), China (Lemon Tree), Taiwan (Flash Forward), Baltics (A-One), Greece (Strada), Turkey (Filmarti), Poland (Aurora), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe) and the former Yugoslavia (Discovery Croatia). Read Screen’s review here.

With the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival wrapped, we’ve highlighted our favorite films from the festival. Make sure to stay tuned in the coming months as we learn about distribution news for the titles. Check out our favorites below.

An Elephant Sitting Still (Bo Hu)

The trick to getting the most out of the Berlin Film Festival is to dig deep into its stupendous program spanning 400 films across a multitude of sidebars. Premiering in the Forum section which traditionally favors more experimental/radical forms of filmmaking, Chinese writer/director Bo Hu’s feature debut An Elephant Sitting Still is the work of raw, intimidating talent driven by a creative fury that would likely daunt most competition titles. Unmissable for anyone craving the gritty realism and independent spirit of pre-00’s Chinese cinema. Fair warning: this is decidedly not the feel-good movie of the year. – Zhuo-Ning Su (full review)

Grass (Hong...

Sometimes you don't need to actually say anything to tell a powerful story. Styx is a remarkable film that uses minimal dialogue to tell a very powerful story. We've seen these kind of films before, but they're still effective, and if the filmmaking is up to par, they can leave a lasting impression. Styx is a drama directed by German filmmaker Wolfgang Fischer that's about a woman who embarks upon a solo sailing voyage from Gibraltar to an island in the middle of the South Atlantic. She's interrupted when she encounters a boat full of refugees. To be curt, Styx is essentially a mix of All is Lost (the Robert Redford silent sailing film) meets Fuocoammare (the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning documentary film about rescuing refugees from boats). Wolfgang Fischer's film Styx opens with a very clean, wide shot of a car crash, following the victim as he is taken to a hospital.

Wolfgang Fischer's Styx, a stark drama exploring the refugee crisis, has won the European Cinema Label honor for best European film running the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. The award, handed out by the association of European arthouse cinemas, includes distribution support for Styx in its pan-European release.

Fischer's feature stars Susanne Wolff as a determined young German doctor who, while on a solo yachting trip, comes across a leaky trawler filled with desperate refugees. She is caught between her sense of duty and her desire to intervene, and the orders of an invisible coastguard telling her to...

Germany-Austria co-pro to benefit from exhibition support.

Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx has won the 2018 Europa Cinemas Label at the Berlin Film Festival.

The prize is selected by a jury of four exhibitors and the film will now receive promotional support from the Europa Cinemas network, with exhibitors in the network offered a financial incentive to include it in their programming.

The Label Jury consisted of Nora Kasza (Art+Cinema, Budapest, Hungary), Fréderic Cornet (Cinéma Les Galeries, Brussels, Belgium), Stanislav Ershov (Foundation Kino&Teatr, St.Petersburg, Russia) and Mustafa el Mesaoudi (Cinema/Rex Filmtheater, Wuppertal, Germany).

They issued the following statement:

“Styx is a simple but highly dramatic story that has a very clear and powerful message – we in Europe cannot ignore the refugee situation. We must face it and find solutions. Susanne Wolff is remarkably strong as a lone woman sailor in mid Atlantic who comes across a boatload of people in dire need of help. Great cinematography and sharp...

Migration isn’t just a hot-button issue in the political arena. It’s a hot topic in your local arthouse theater, too. At Berlin’s film festival, the subject is everywhere–from Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx and documentaries like Central Airport Thf–perhaps natural for the capital of a country now home to more than a million recent asylum-seekers from the middle east and Africa.

Local boy Christian Petzold’s audacious retelling of Anna Seghers’s World War II-set novel about refugees escaping Nazi-controlled France is a strange, beguiling creation that will be hard to beat in the competition line-up, and ranks as a rare period piece that utterly gets under the skin of contemporary concerns. It’s an engrossing, uncanny and somewhat disturbing film, and completes something of a trio of historical melodramas after Barbara and his worldwide hit Phoenix, but develops the themes of those in an adventurous,...

In some ways, Styx, about a thirtysomething female doctor from Germany who encounters a leaky trawler filled with refugees when on a solo yachting trip, recalls the Robert-Redford-lost-at-sea title All Is Lost. But whereas that film was mostly about the fight of a mute Redford against the elements, here the protagonist is faced with a concrete example of the Western world’s indifference towards the refugee crisis.

Not very subtly named after the ancient Greek river that separates our world from the underworld, this new feature from Austrian-born director Wolfgang Fischer is a stark, impressively pared-back parable that leaves most of the...

German outfit rounds out Efm slate.

German powerhouse Beta Cinema has rounded out its Berlin slate with the acquisition of three competition premieres: Emily Atef’s 3 Days In Quiberon, Thomas Stuber’s In The Aisles, and Milko Lazarov’s programme closer Aga (which plays out of competition).

Screen can unveil an exclusive first trailer for Aga, director Lazarov’s second feature after his Venice 2013 debut Alienation. The film follows two Yakuts struggling to adapt to the changing world around them. When one falls ill, the other must journey to find their daughter.

It was produced by Red Carpet in co-production with 42film, Arizona Productions, Zdf/Arte and Bulgarian National Television.

Source: Beta Cinema

3 Days In Quiberon is Atef’s fifh feature. The director’s latest work sees her turn her attention to the enigmatic Austrian-born film star Romy Schneider, exploring what happened during Schneider’s last interview and photoshoot, which took place at a spa in Brittany...

The Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama sidebar is now complete, bursting with 47 titles from 40 countries, and mixing documentary and features. Among the new additions today is Idris Elba’s directorial debut Yardie which just premiered at Sundance. Other selections announced include the Pedro Almodovar-produced Franco regime doc The Silence Of Others and Lemonade, produced by Romania’s Cristian Mungiu.

Also on deck are new works from Korea’s Kim Ki-duk, Human, Space, Time And Human; and Ursula Meier’s Shock Waves – Diary Of My Mind.

Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx will open Panorama Special on February 16. The nearly dialogue-free film film tells the story of a female doctor on a sailing holiday gone unexpectedly sour somewhere between Europe and Africa. The main program will open on the evening before with the previously announced River’s Edge from Isao Yukisada.

Below is the full...