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The Berlinale has announced the full line-ups of its Panorama, Forum and Generation sidebars for the 74th edition running from February 15 to 24. (scroll down for full list)

Panorama will showcase 31 titles including one series and 25 world premieres.

Highlights include Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin’s Crossing, his first feature since 2019 Cannes breakout And Then We Danced, which opens the selection.

The drama revolves around a retired teacher whose search for her long-lost niece Tekla takes her to Istanbul where she becomes acquainted with a trans rights lawyer.

Other buzzy titles set for a world premiere include André Téchiné’s My New Friends, starring Isabelle Huppert as a solitary police officer, and and Myriam El Hajj’s documentary Diaries From Lebanon, following three people as they navigate their country on the brink of revolution.

A number of Sundance titles will also be making a Panorama splash including Nathan Silver’s Between The Temples,...

Be For Films, an independent film sales company based in Brussels, has acquired international rights to German filmmaker Michael Fetter Nathansky’s “Every You Every Me,” which has been selected in the Panorama section of the Berlinale.

“Every You Every Me” won two Work-in-Progress Awards, under its previous title “Mannequins,” at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The romantic social drama looks at the painful process of falling out of love and the initial magic of falling in love. It poses the question: What if the person you love the most suddenly becomes a stranger in your eyes? Nadine, a dedicated factory worker, tries to revive her relationship by reconnecting with her deepest emotions. But who did she once see in him that she can no longer find?

In a statement, the directors asks: “Do you know the feeling when you look at a strange man and find it bizarre how...

Netflix’s Sleeping Dog (Schlafende Hunde) is an original German limited series that features a talented cast. Written by Christoph Darnstädt, this six-episode crime thriller follows the story of a fallen cop with amnesia who teams up with a rookie prosecutor to investigate a supposedly closed and solved murder case. The further they find themselves in the case the more they realize how entrenched it is in a conspiracy within the police department and the justice system, endangering them. Netflix’s Sleeping Dog is based on the 2016 Israeli series The Exchange Principle (Ikaron HaHachlafa) by Noah Stallman and Oden Davidoff.

This is Netflix’s second collaboration with Real Film Berlin, their first being the critically acclaimed limited series Unorthodox, which was adapted from a real-life story. While the six tumultuous episodes are full of gripping and moving storylines, much praise has also gone to the talented cast, who have all...

Sleeping Dog (Schlafende Hunde) is a German series starring Max Riemelt. Created by Oded Davidoff and Noah Stollman, this entertaining thriller takes us into the world of lawyers, detectives, criminals, and unsolved cases.

It is perfect for those who seek a well-crafted police intrigue, with charismatic characters and a corollary story, primarily well-told in its entirety.

Plot

A new death awakens disturbing doubts about an old case supposedly closed. A former policeman who now lives on the street sets out to uncover the truth.

About the Series

“A Good Script” is the primary strength of “Sleeping Dog” built on well-constructed, real, and charismatic characters in a story that knows precisely what fascinating history to tell and how to make everything surrounding the main axis interesting.

Technically, it does not strive for aesthetics or the treatment of shots. There is a lot of handheld camera work, many sequences that want to be real and natural,...

Germany’s impressive crop of crime drama, mystery, suspense, apocalyptic catastrophe, royal intrigue and tales of the supernatural is certain to attract buyers at this year’s MipTV in Cannes.

The selections of series, TV movies and unscripted shows offer a wide range of content but also remain heavy on crime — a favorite German genre.

Among the new offerings is Beta Film’s fact-based title “I am Scrooge.” Produced by Zeitsprung Pictures, the Cologne-based company behind the hit Netflix spy thriller “Kleo,” “I am Scrooge” chronicles the true story of Arno Funke, a frustrated artist who found fame as a bombmaking extortionist in the early 1990s.

Identifying himself as Dagobert Duck — the German name for the Disney character Scrooge McDuck — Funke targeted some of Germany’s biggest department stores, beginning with Berlin’s KaDeWe in 1988, while continually outwitting police and even becoming a local folk hero. The six-part series stars Friedrich Mücke,...

Among the fantastic line-up of the 26th Raindance Film Festival is the exciting German thriller "Luna's Revenge" which premiered last night at the Vue Cinema in London's West End. In attendance were Lisa Vicari who plays the title role Luna and Branko Tomovic who stars as the dangerous and scary undercover agent Victor.  "Luna's Revenge", directed by Khaled Kaissar, also features Bibiana Beglau (The Legend of Rita), Rainer Bock (The White Ribbon), Benjamin Sadler (Luther), Carlo Ljubek (The Wilhelm Tell Legend), Annika Blendl (Rabbit Without Ears), Alexander Beyer (Deutschland 86) and Genija Rykova (Tatort). The German premiere was last year at the Munich Film Festival. The film tells the story of Luna, who is spending her summer...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Among the fantastic line-up of the 26th Raindance Film Festival is the exciting German thriller "Luna's Revenge". We caught up for a chat with Branko Tomovic who stars as the dangerous and scary undercover agent Victor.   "Luna's Revenge", directed by Khaled Kaissar, also features Bibiana Beglau (The Legend of Rita), Rainer Bock (The White Ribbon), Benjamin Sadler (Luther), Carlo Ljubek (The Wilhelm Tell Legend), Annika Blendl (Rabbit Without Ears), Alexander Beyer (Deutschland 86), Genija Rykova (Tatort) and Lisa Vicari (Dark) in the title role. The film tells the story of Luna, who is spending her summer vacation in an idyllic mountain chalet with her family, when their holiday harmony suddenly becomes a nightmare: Foreign men take...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Refugee Nelly in pursuit of 12 stamps: "The reality was that people either came out of the camps after one or two weeks."

I met with director Christian Schwochow in the lobby of the Malton Hotel, a couple of days before West (Westen), starring Jördis Triebel with Tristan Göbel, Alexander Scheer, Jacky Ido and Carlo Ljubek, opened this year's edition of Kino! Festival of German Films in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Over coffee, I found out that Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three from 1961, starring James Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive, and Christian Petzold's Romy Schneider costume research for Barbara cannot even start to compete with a candy wrapper as inspiration for an East German boy. See Stephanie Soechtig's vital documentary Fed Up. I was reminded that Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu were a successful comedy team and that the stigma of day care...

Jose here with a take on the Foreign Language Film Oscar race.

The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (read my review here) not only has the coolest name in AMPAS' foreign film shortlist, it might also go ahead and get Bulgaria its very first Oscar win.

First we must consider that this whole post might be irrelevant come Tuesday, but for now indulge me while I explain why I think this movie might make it to the final five and snatch the damn thing.

The movie doesn't have even have a Stateside release date yet (except for a film festival in Florida) but I've read many articles that proclaim they'd nominate the film merely because of its awesome title. AMPAS of course can't do that, because the people who vote for this category need to have seen all the movies.

Fortunately for them, they won't have to do that much thinking,...