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The European Works in Progress Cologne (Ewip) couldn’t have come at a better time.

For a European art house industry in crisis — box office revenues for specialty films remain well below pre-pandemic levels while the cost of producing films has only gone up —the need for exciting new “content” in the form of films that will draw audiences back to the theatres, has arguably never been greater.

For the past three days, some of Europe’s top festival programmers and international sales agents have gathered in the western German city to check out arthouse productions at various stages of development that promise to be the breakout projects of the coming months.

Programmers from the Cannes, Berlin, Venice and San Sebastián festivals, as well as from Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Tribeca and elsewhere, as well as sales heavyweights including mk2, The Match Factory, Charades...

28 projects selected from over 150 submissions.

New features from Mexican director Amat Escalante and Mexican-San Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo are among the 28 feature projects selected for the fifth edition of European Work in Progress Cologne (Ewip), the industry pitching event held from October 17-19 in the run-up to Film Festival Cologne.

Escalante will pitch Lost In The Night, about a man searching for those responsible for his mother’s disappearance, who encounters an incompetent justice system.

The Mexico-Germany-Netherlands-Denmark co-production is produced by Nicolas Celis and Fernanda de la Peza for Tres Tunas Cine. Escalante has previously directed four features including Venice and Toronto 2016 horror The Untamed.

As a way of setting context for what I am about to subject you to let me say this: I am half German. My mother's family emigrated when she was six and - thanks to my father being kicked out of his family as a teen - my cultural experience growing up was largely German. I have many German aunts and uncles. We had German family visit every year. I have traveled to Germany on several occasions. And in the context of this range of experience I feel quite confident in saying that Germans are not funny people. They just aren't. Yes, there are exceptions - such as Jan Henrik Stahlberg, who I think is one of the greatest satirists on the planet when doing his own stuff - but on the whole, no. And when they try to be, well, more often than not the results are just vaguely uncomfortable and embarrassing.

[Post Updated with the freshly released German theatrical trailer.]

Jan Henrik Stahlberg has quietly ensconced himself as a great favorite of mine, the German satirist first claiming attention with the excellent and criminally under-seen Quiet As A Mouse before firmly entrenching himself as one of the truly great Swift-style social commentators with this year’s Berlinale entry Short Cut To Hollywood. I wrote about Stahlberg’s latest with great enthusiasm here but, at the time, couldn’t actually show you any of his work. No more! The trailer has arrived and is below the break for your perusal!

Here’s how I summed the film up in my review:

Fully into middle age with no skills and no discernable talent there is, of course, only one route for Johannes to take. He will go to America and become famous, America being the place where skill and talent are not prerequisites to fame. All you need is a plan. And Johannes very definitely has that.

Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.

Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.

Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.

All three films should give an added boost of star power to...

And here's the rest fo them which includes loads of world premiers, plenty of Asian flare, and lot's of film makers I've never heard of before..

Check the list after the break.

Panorama Main Programme

Dongbei, Dongbei (A North Chinese Girl) by Zou Peng, People’s Republic of China (Wp)

With Tian Yi-Wen, Wu Rui-Peng, Liu Xing-Ping

Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo (Raging Sun, Raging Sky) by Julián Hernández, Mexico (Wp)

With Jorge Becerra, Javier Oliván, Guillermo Villegas, Giovanna Zacarias

Rossiya 88 (Russia 88) by Pavel Bardin, Russian Federation (Wp)

With Petr Fyodorov, Vera Strokova, Kazbek Kibizov

Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen (Sleeping Songs) by Andreas Struck, Germany (Wp)

With Stefan Rudolf, Chulpan Khamatova, Traute Hoess, Paula Kalenberg, Barnaby Metschurat

Strella by Panos H. Koutras, Greece (Wp)

With Mina Orfanou, Yiannis Kokkiasmenos, Minos Theoharis, Betty Vakalidou

Vingança (Retribution) by Paulo Pons, Brazil

With Bárbara Borges, Erom Cordeiro, Branca Messina, Guta Stresser, Marcio...

COLOGNE -- Italian independent distributor Blu International has picked up the rights to Jan Henrik Stahlberg's political satire Bye Bye Berlusconi!, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival's Panorama section last month. Blu will release the film March 30, ahead of Italy's April 9 parliamentary elections. Jetfilm will release Bye Bye Berlusconi! on the same day in Germany. Bye Bye is certain to heat up the debate surrounding the country's prime minister and richest man, Silvio Berlusconi.

COLOGNE, Germany -- Daniel Burman, the Argentine director who won two Silver Bears at Berlin in 2004 with his social-realist comedy "Lost Embrace", is returning to the festival to open this year's Panorama section with "Family Law". The family comedy-drama stars "Lost Embrace" leads Daniel Hendler and Adriana Aizenberg. The lineup for Berlin's Panorama sidebar, announced Monday, was typically eclectic. Stand-out titles include Neil Jordan's "Breakfast On Pluto", featuring Cillian Murphy as a cross-dresser in the midst of the Irish "troubles"; John Hillcoat's dark Australian Western "The Proposition", starring Guy Pearce, Emily Watson and Ray Winstone; and "Stay", the Ewan McGregor-Ryan Gosling thriller directed by German-born Marc Forster. German up-and-comers are represented with three titles: the media satire "Bye Bye Berlusconi" from Jan Henrik Stahlberg, Vanessa Jopp's improvisational drama "Happy As One" and Andres Veiel's "The Kick".