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A new Netflix film inspired by the true story of German Ngo Jugend Rettet and its ship, the Iuventa, which saved thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean before it was impounded by Italian authorities in 2016, is in production.

The film, currently untitled, chronicles the journey of a group of young Berliners who find themselves unable to stand by and watch as countless refugees lose their lives attempting to reach Europe by sea. They launch a crowdfunding campaign to buy an old ship and venture to sea to rescue migrants.

Netflix offered a first look on Wednesday of its lead Louis Hofmann (Dark, All the Light We Cannot See), following the start of production in Berlin. The movie is now being shot in Malta.

Alongside lead actor Louis Hofmann, the cast also includes Mala Emde, Katharina Stark, Frederick Lau, Maria Dragus, Trevor Magaya, Kathy Etoa, Felice, Saibon Wang, Joone Dankou, Merlin von Garnier,...

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...

Auf Malta entsteht aktuell die nächste Regiearbeit von Markus Goller, der Louis Hofmann in einem noch unbetitelten Film inszeniert, der auf den Erlebnissen der Organisation „Jugend Rettet“ und ihrem Schiff „Iuventa“ basiert. Netflix wird den Film voraussichtlich 2025 starten.

Louis Hofmann in dem noch unbetitelten „Jugend rettet“-Film von Markus Goller (Credit: Netflix © 2024)

Markus Goller und Oliver Ziegenbalg haben einen schönen Lauf. Nachdem „Die Ironie des Lebens“ gerade noch in den Kinos läuft, arbeiten der Regisseur und der Drehbuchautor aktuell an ihrem ersten Filmprojekt für Netflix. In dem noch unbetitelten Film geht es um die Geschichte der Berliner Organisation „Jugend Rettet“ und deren Schiff „Iuventa“, mit dessen Hilfe tausende von Refugees im Mittelmeer gerettet werden konnten. Louis Hofmann, der für Netflix bereits in der ersten deutschen Originals-Serie, „Dark“, die Hauptrolle gespielt hatte und gerade erst in Shawn Levys Vierteiler „All the Light We Cannot See“ zu sehen war, übernimmt die Hauptrolle.

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...

Exclusive: Brittany Kahan Ward and Graciella Sanchez are leaving Echo Lake Entertainment after a decade as partners to join Tfc Management where they also will be partners.

The high-profile arrival of Ward and Sanchez — who launched and built Echo Lake’s talent management division, with Sanchez also serving as the Co-President — marks an expansion into on-camera talent representation for Tfc, founded in 2020 by UTA and WME partners Ben Jacobson and David Stone with initial focus on literary clients, including creators, showrunners, novelists, producers, and filmmakers.

Ward and Sanchez’s formidable roster of clients include Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Liz Hannah, Jd Pardo, Shira Haas, Ivana Milicevic, Marguerite Moreau, Phoebe Tonkin, Greg Smith, Alisha Wainwright, Momona Tamada, Golden Brooks, Colton Ryan, Marlo Kelly, Jordan Gavaris, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Jamila Gray, Maria Dragus, Lina El-Arabi, Tarryn Wyngaard and Floria Sigismondi. The majority of them are expected to follow them to Tfc.

During their stint at Echo Lake,...

If Maria von Trapp found Austrian convent life a little suffocating in “The Sound of Music,” she would have been fully asphyxiated — possibly by someone else’s hand — in the austere Catholic spirit-prison that houses “Serviam – I Will Serve,” where any green hills are from view, pain is a holy priority, and perceived problematic flibbertigibbets are solved by rather more ruthless means than a jaunty sing-song. Only the third fiction feature in 20 years from accomplished Austrian formalist Ruth Mader, this supremely well-made chiller announces itself upfront as a cut above your average nunsploitation exercise with its stark, stringent mise-en-scène and jabs of religious inquiry via surreal, Bible-based animated interludes.

Yet “Serviam’s” split impulses between conscientious Church critique and outright horror — complete with shrieking, doomy strings and twisted-sister jump scares — never coalesce into something that fully delivers on either score. What’s left is a very handsome mood piece...

“The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess,” BAFTA-winning French director Michel Ocelot (“Kirikou and the Sorceress”)’s anticipated new animated feature, has been sold by Paris-based Playtime to major territories.

The colorful film is playing at this week’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival where Ocelot is the recipient of the Honorary Cristal Award paying tribute to his laureled career.

Launched at the Cannes film market, “The Black Pharaoh, the Savage and the Princess” has already been acquired for Italy (Movies Inspired), Canada (Axia), Ex-yougoslavie (McF) and Portugal (Leopardo). The company is currently in talks with other buyers in the rest of Europe.

Ocelot’s film, which is produced by Christophe Rossignon’s well-established banner Nord-Ouest Films, tells three tales set in three different eras and worlds. In Ancient Egypt, a young king becomes the first black pharaoh to deserve the hand of his loved one. During the French Middle Ages,...

Exclusive: Talent manager Graciella Sanchez and literary manager Zadoc Angell have been named Co-Presidents of Echo Lake Entertainment’s management division.

Their promotion to these new leadership positions comes on the heels of the division’s growth to over 20 managers.

Mike Marcus will continue to serve as Chairman of Echo Lake Management, with Partner and Founder Doug Mankoff and twenty-year vet Andy Spaulding continuing to oversee parent company, Echo Lake Entertainment.

The Beverly Hill-based management company became the first to reopen its offices on June 15. Amidst the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has kept all of its assistants employed and even managed to grow, welcoming five new talent and lit managers.

“I am so proud of our team. Every single employee chose to get vaccinated, which made reopening all the more easy,” said Mike Marcus in a statement. “During the beginning of the pandemic, our managers stepped up, organized themselves,...

More films with Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench is something that the world needs. They starred together in Stephen Frears’ Victoria & Abdul in 2017 and now they reunite in the Andy Goddard-directed Six Minutes To Midnight which will be released by IFC Films in theaters and on demand starting today.

Written by Izzard, Goddard and Celyn Jones, Six Minutes To Midnight is based on true events from 1939. The film follows teacher Thomas Miller (Izzard) who has taken a last-minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis at the Augusta-Victoria College, Bexhill-on-Sea – a finishing school on the south coast of England.

Under the watchful eye of their headmistress Miss Rocholl (Dench), and her devout assistant Ilse Keller (Carla Juri), the girls practice their English and learn how to represent the ideal of German womanhood.

When the body of a former teacher is discovered, it triggers a...

Inspired by the real history of Bexhill-on-Sea’s Victoria-Augusta-College, a 1930s finishing school for the daughters of the Nazi elite, “Six Minutes to Midnight,” helmed by Andy Goddard, wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller, but merely manages a familiar pastiche peopled with stock characters that should divert less-discriminating viewers. The clunky plot, set circa August 1939, centers on an undercover British agent who infiltrates the school disguised as a new teacher. With the U.K. and Germany on the brink of war, his assignment is to discover if Deutschland plans on repatriating their young flowers of maidenhood and whether said Mädchen might serve as captive pawns in Britain’s diplomatic chess game.

After his predecessor mysteriously disappears, Thomas Miller becomes the school’s English master. He’s disdainfully welcomed by the school’s headmistress Miss Rocholl (a subdued Judi Dench) as a “journeyman” teacher. In a telling indicator of the lower-budget nature of this project,...

With a nod to Robert Donat’s Richard Hannay in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and an unintended wink to a bus trip in Torn Curtain with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, Andy Goddard’s Six Minutes To Midnight (co-written with Eddie Izzard and Celyn Jones) conjures up moments from cinema history. Leontine Sagan’s Mädchen in Uniform from 1931 may come to mind and when the German girls at the Augusta-Victoria College are singing in the staircase, The Sound Of Music is in the air.

The tautly wound historical thriller stars Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench with Carla Juri (of Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 and Frauke Finsterwalder’s Finsterworld), Jim Broadbent, Celyn Jones, Maria Dragus (of Michael Haneke’s White Ribbon and Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation), James D’Arcy, David Schofield, and Tijan Marei. Shot crisply by Chris Seager (Goddard’s Set Fire To The Stars,...

“England can be an unforgiving place if you happen to be German”

England, 1939.

17 days before the start of World War 2, English teacher Wheatley (Nigel Lindsay) goes missing from The Augusta-Victoria College for Girls in Bexley-on-Sea, the boarding school famous for housing the daughters and goddaughters of Nazi High Command. 6 days later Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) secures a job replacing Wheatley and from then on, tries to secretly find out what exactly happened. Inspired by true events, Six Minutes to Midnight is a period thriller written by Eddie Izzard, director Andy Goddard and co-writer Celyn Jones.

The film starts off strong, with fast-paced, intense scenes from Lindsey and Izzard. It’s accompanied by German composer Marc Streitenfeld’s beautiful score which is a delight to listen to throughout the film. This makes for a great start to the film, with an intriguing mystery to look forward to…or so you would hope.

Andy Goddard on Eddie Izzard’s Thomas Miller, who “is like Robert Donat, being a wrong man being chased.”

The tautly wound historical thriller Six Minutes To Midnight stars Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench with Carla Juri (of Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 and Frauke Finsterwalder’s Finsterworld), Jim Broadbent, Celyn Jones, Maria Dragus, James D’Arcy, David Schofield, and Tijan Marei. Shot crisply by Chris Seager with impeccable costumes by Lucinda Wright, Andy Goddard’s second feature film (co-written with Izzard and Jones) is set ominously at a finishing school in an English seaside town during the summer of 1939, where high-ranking German officials had sent their daughters to learn English.

Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) with Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench) Photo: courtesy of IFC Films

With a nod to Robert Donat’s Richard Hannay in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and an unintended wink to a bus trip in Torn Curtain...

Deutsche Telekom’s first major original, “Wild Republic,” is set to bow April 15 on the telco giant’s Ott service MagentaTV after production was postponed last year due to the ongoing pandemic.

The eight-part adventure series follows a group of young offenders who end up fending for themselves high in the Alps after a mysterious death disrupts the experiential educational program in which they are taking part.

Created by Jan Martin Scharf, Arne Nolting and Klaus Wolfertstetter, the series is produced by Lailaps Pictures, X Filme Creative Pool and Handwritten Pictures in co-production with Deutsche Telekom, Arte and Ard broadcasters Wdr, Swr and One.

“Wild Republic” was initially inspired by Erwin S. Strauss’ 1979 book “How to Start Your Own Country,” which explored the micronation movement of the 1960s, according to Lailaps CEO Nils Dünker. Eric Bouley, now managing partner at Handwritten Pictures, helped develop the original premise while working at Lailaps.

"My girls are not the enemy..." IFC Films has also debuted a new US trailer for the UK thriller set just days before WWII began called Six Minutes to Midnight, the latest from director Andy Goddard. We just featured the UK trailer for this yesterday, but there's even more footage in here. Set mostly at a finishing school on the south coast of England, the films tells the story of a teacher and a headmistress. 17 days before WWII, an English teacher and his camera disappear on a coastal boarding school with 20 German teen girls. Miller gets the job 6 days later, secretly trying to find out what happened. The film's impressive ensemble cast is lead by Eddie Izzard as Mr. Miller, with Judi Dench, James D'Arcy, Jim Broadbent, Kevin Eldon, Carla Juri, Nigel Lindsay, David Schofield, and Maria Dragus. It looks like this becomes an edge-of-your-seat thriller once ...

"It can often be hard to tell who someone really is..." Transmission Films in Australia has debuted a new official trailer for the UK thriller set just days before WWII began called Six Minutes to Midnight, from director Andy Goddard. Set mostly at Bexhill-on-Sea, a finishing school on the south coast of England, the films tells the story of a teacher and a headmistress. It's August 15th, 1939: 17 days before WWII, an English teacher and his camera disappear on a coastal boarding school with 20 German teen girls. Miller gets the job 6 days later, secretly trying to find out what happened. The impressive ensemble cast includes Eddie Izzard, Judi Dench, James D'Arcy, Jim Broadbent, Kevin Eldon, Carla Juri, Nigel Lindsay, David Schofield, and Maria Dragus. "An astonishing real-life tale Six Minutes to Midnight sees the very best in British screen craft allied with the brightest young acting talent ...

IFC Films are planning an autumn theatrical release in the Us.

IFC Films has added the UK-set thriller Six Minutes To Midnight starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench to its distribution pipeline after snapping up Us rights and plans an autumn theatrical release.

Andy Goddard, who directed multiple episodes of the Downton Abbey TV series, directed from a screenplay by his Set Fire To The Stars writer Celyn Jones, Izzard and Goddard.

IFC negotiated the deal with CAA and international rights-holder Lionsgate International on behalf of the filmmakers.

Based on actual events from 1939, Izzard plays a teacher to the daughters...

Six rising actors from the Baltic region talk international ambitions.

Six rising actors from the Baltic region are eyeing film projects, TV opportunities and European agents following an intensive three-day talent initiative at the third edition of Black Nights Stars at the Black Nights Film Festival now taking place in Tallinn in Estonia.

German-Romanian actress Maria Dragus has a number of high-profile roles to her name in features including The White Ribbon, Mademoiselle Paradis and Mary Queen Of Scots. She emphasised the need to maintain visibility.

“Having done lots of work doesn’t mean that, in the future, you’ll always have work,...

A third works in progress category, a new masterclass strand and an increased focus on TV among additions.

The industry activities of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival have been steadily expanding in recent years with more sessions and an increase in international guests headed to the Estonian capital for the 2019 edition which starts today, November 25.

Remaining relatively small has proven one of Tallinn’s greatest advantages, according to Marge Liiske, managing director of Industry@Tallinn and Baltic Event.

“Even French producers say it’s easier for them to approach French sales agents here than it is in Cannes,” she says.

Third edition of talent initiative designed to connect foreign casting directors with new talent.

Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Nov 15-Dec 1) has named the rising European actors who will participate in this year’s talent programme.

Six young actors from the Baltic Sea region have been selected to take part in the 3rd edition of Black Nights Stars, which is designed to connect foreign casting directors with new talent and boost their international visibility.

Selected from more than 30 candidates, the stars include:

Magdalena Berus (Poland) Maria Dragus (Germany) Mimosa Willamo (Finland) Povilas Jatkevičius (Lithuania) Risto Vaidla (Estonia) Franz Malmsten (Estonia)

At the festival,...

German Films, a body that promotes Teutonic talent and content, staged a panel discussion on “breaking boundaries” during the Berlin Film Festival, as part of the fest’s Drama Series Days section. Taking part were three of the participants of German Films’ 2019 Face to Face program – Fahri Yardim, Luise Heyer, and Maria Dragus. For all three breakthrough roles in independent films led to parts in major TV series, which have given them an international platform for their talent.

Dragus’ big break came early, when she appeared as a child actor in Michael Haneke’s film “The White Ribbon.” This took her to Cannes, where the film won the Palme d’Or, and the Oscars, where it was nominated for best foreign-language film. Dragus also won best supporting actress at the German Film Awards.

That success launched her acting career, which has included a recent role in a Hollywood movie, “Mary Queen of Scots,...

Receiving Variety‘s Achievement in International Film Award, Berlin Film Festival chief Dieter Kosslick bid a fond farewell to the event Monday as the end credits loom after his good humored and productive 18-year epic reign.

Speaking at the prize-giving event Monday at the Audi Berlinale Lounge – which overlooks the entrance to the fest’s main venue, the Berlinale Palast – to a hand-picked crowd of colleagues and industry friends, including actress Tilda Swinton – Kosslick said he was “honored” and “moved” to receive the award, as he gazed out wistfully through the window at the red carpet.

“It was 18 years of excitement and it was also really fun,” he said. In recent days, as people said goodbye, he had “become a little melancholic,” he said, but considered it to have been “a privilege” to run the festival.

Kosslick said this would have been beyond his wildest dreams when he started going...

Variety’s “10 Europeans to Watch” were feted at a party held by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg at Berlin’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel Saturday. Kirsten Niehuus and Helge Jürgens, managing directors of Medienboard, the regional film, TV and digital-media funding body, were the co-hosts for the evening, which attracted 2,000 party-goers.

Pictured above are Henry Chu, Variety‘s international editor (left), with six of the Europeans to Watch – (from left) Belgian director Bas Devos (“Hellhole”), German actress Maria Dragus (“Mary Queen of Scots”), German director Aron Lehmann (“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”), Austrian actress Valerie Pachner (“The Ground Beneath My Feet”), Dutch director Steven Wouterlood (“My Extraordinary Summer With Tess”), and German actor Fahri Yardim (“Dogs of Berlin”), with Niehuus (right).

Among the guests at the event were producers Martin Moszkowicz (“Resident Evil”) and Stefan Arndt (“Babylon Berlin”), and Tom Schilling, the lead actor in the Oscar nominated German film “Never Look Away,...

Berlin — Attendees of Berlinale’s Drama Series Days followed a busy and wide-ranging program on Monday with a packed opening reception, supported by Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and the Norwegian Film Institute, and with Variety as a media partner.

After a lively day of panel discussions and sessions focused on the future of television, guests partied at the chic Super Concept Space just steps from the red carpet of Zoo Palast. Among those in attendance were Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw CEO Petra Müller, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg managing director Kirsten Niehuus, Efm director Matthijs Wouter Knol, and Berlinale Series program manager Solmaz Azizi.

The growing excitement around the Berlin Film Festival’s popular TV strand, which moved to Zoo Palast last year to concentrate both screenings and industry activities in a single hub, is part of a natural evolution in the industry, according to Knol.

The Efm topper said that five years ago,...

Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, Guy Pearce, Maria Dragus, Eileen O’Higgins, Liah O’Prey, Izuka Hoyle, Brendan Coyle, Martin Compston, Gemma Chan, Ismael Cruz Córdova | Written by Beau Willimon | Directed by Josie Rourke

Mary Queen of Scots, directed by Josie Rourke, is a remake/retelling of the 1971 film of the same name Mary, Queen of Scots directed by Charles Jarrott. Rourke’s film stars two heavyweight leading actress titans of their craft in Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, as opposing queens Mary Stuart and Queen Elizabeth I battling out for the reign. This twenty-nineteen rendition is a highly intense scorcher of deliberating venomous proposal and political promise. Wrapped in a deeply controversial and disputed historical subject matter with questionable accuracy that thankfully doesn’t derail an otherwise immersive film.

Josie Rourke’s film looks and sounds stunning. Courtesy of the score from composer...

Teutonic promotional organization German Films has announced that its annual initiative supporting German filmmaking internationally, Face to Face With German Films, will focus on actors and actresses as the campaign enters its fourth year.

Six of Germany’s leading thesps – Maria Dragus, Christian Friedel, Luise Heyer, Jonas Nay, Jördis Triebel and Fahri Yardim – will represent the German film and television industry’s recent accomplishments through activities at next month’s Berlin Film Festival, including a panel event in association with Variety and Drama Series Days, the European Film Market program focusing on serialized content.

The initiative launched in 2016 with six German actresses headlining the campaign – including “Toni Erdmann’s” Sandra Hüller, and Paula Beer of “Frantz” and the Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated “Never Look Away.” In 2017, the second phase of the initiative launched during Cannes and featured six of Germany’s most exciting actors, including established names such as Alexander Fehling and Tom Schilling,...

Variety has unveiled its fifth edition of 10 Europeans to Watch, spotlighting 10 rising talents from across the continent who are poised for breakthroughs in 2019. The selection includes emerging actors, directors, showrunners and cinematographers from six countries whose dynamic talents are being showcased on screens big and small, and on both sides of the camera.

The group will be feted at the upcoming Berlin Intl. Film Festival with a luncheon in partnership with Dr. Hauschka at the Gorki Apartments on Feb. 9, and at the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg party that evening at the Ritz-Carlton.

The 2019 10 Europeans to Watch:

French cinematographer and director Marine Atlan has two films screening in Berlin: her directorial feature debut, “Daniel,” premieres in Berlin’s Generation Kplus section and she shot Panorama selection “Jessica Forever.”

German thesp Jonas Dassler toplines Fatih Akin’s Berlin competition pic “The Golden Glove.”

Belgian helmer Bas Devos, whose feature debut, “Violet,” won the Berlin...

Oscar winner Jim Broadbent has joined Judi Dench and Eddie Izzard in the 1930s-set thriller Six Minutes to Midnight.

The film, which has now begun production in the U.K., also stars Carla Juri (Blade Runner 2049, Someone Like Me), James D’Arcy (Dunkirk, Cloud Atlas) and Jones (Submergence, Set Fire to the Stars), with additional castmembers Maria Dragus (Graduation, Mary Queen of Scots), Tijan Marei (Ellas Baby, 4 Blocks) and Franziska Brandmeier (Am Tag die Sterne, Das Parfum).

Directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and written by Celyn Jones (Keepers, Set Fire to the Stars), Izzard and Goddard, Six Minutes to Midnight is based on ...

Oscar winner Jim Broadbent has joined Judi Dench and Eddie Izzard in the 1930s-set thriller Six Minutes to Midnight.

The film, which has now begun production in the U.K., also stars Carla Juri (Blade Runner 2049, Someone Like Me), James D’Arcy (Dunkirk, Cloud Atlas) and Jones (Submergence, Set Fire to the Stars), with additional castmembers Maria Dragus (Graduation, Mary Queen of Scots), Tijan Marei (Ellas Baby, 4 Blocks) and Franziska Brandmeier (Am Tag die Sterne, Das Parfum).

Directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and written by Celyn Jones (Keepers, Set Fire to the Stars), Izzard and Goddard, Six Minutes to Midnight is based on ...

Jim Broadbent, Carla Juri, James D’Arcy and Celyn Jones are also cast.

Principal photography has begun on Andy Goddard’s 1930s-set thriller Six Minutes To Midnight starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.

Filming will take place for six weeks in various locations across Wales. Lionsgate International is selling worldwide rights on the film, with Lionsgate UK releasing the film in the UK.

The screenplay is written by Celyn Jones, with Izzard and Goddard.

The cast also includes Jim Broadbent, Carla Juri, James D’Arcy and Jones. Additional cast members include Maria Dragus, Tijan Marei and Franziska Brandmeier.

Based on true events,...

Academy Award® winner Dame Judi Dench and Emmy Award® winner Eddie Izzard are to reunite on Andy Goodard’s Six Minutes to Midnight.

Dench and Izzard have previously acted together as mother and son in Victoria and Abdul. This new production, which has just commenced principal photograph with filming taking place over 6 weeks in various locations across Wales, is based on true events.

The film is set in the Summer of 1939. Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) has taken a last minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis at the Augusta-Victoria College, Bexhill-on-Sea – a finishing school on the south coast of England. Despite the storm clouds forming across Europe, the girls continue to learn deportment, Shakespeare, fitness and how to be a faithful member of Hitler’s League of German Girls.

Under the watchful eye of their headmistress Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench), and her devout assistant Ilse...

Production is underway in the UK on thriller Six Minutes To Midnight, starring Victoria & Abdul duo Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.

Filming will take place over six weeks in locations across Wales, UK. Lionsgate International is selling worldwide rights and Lionsgate UK will release in the UK.

Directed by Andy Goddard (Downton Abbey) and written by Celyn Jones (Keepers), Izzard and Goddard, the film also stars Jim Broadbent (Paddington), Carla Juri (Blade Runner 2049), James D’Arcy(Dunkirk) and Jones (Submergence), with additional cast members Maria Dragus (Graduation), Tijan Marei (Ellas Baby) and Franziska Brandmeier (Am Tag die Sterne).

Based on true events from 1939, the film follows teacher Thomas Miller (Izzard) who has taken a last minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis at the Augusta-Victoria College, Bexhill-on-Sea – a finishing school on the south coast of England. Under the watchful eye of their headmistress Miss...

The poroject is based on the classic Siegfried Lenz’s novel.

Wild Bunch has boarded German director Christian Schwochow’s adaptation of Siegfried Lenz’s classic novel The German Lesson (Deutschstunde) which begins shooting in North Rhine-Westphalia in March.

Schwochow, who has oscillated between TV and feature productions throughout his career, is at the Berlinale this year with his buzzed-about high-finance thriller TV series Bad Banks (pictured) which premieres in the festival’s TV sidebar.

One of the classic novels of post-Second World War German literature, The German Lesson explores human behaviour under a dictatorship through the tale of a young man who defies his police officer father to save the expressionist paintings of a neighbour from destruction during the Nazi reign.

Network Movie Film is producing alongside Senator Film with the support of Zdf. The picture sees Schwochow collaborate again with his mother Heide Schwochow who wrote the screenplays for three of his previous feature films: November...

Maria Theresia von Paradis was the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa’s Court Councilor and thus a young woman of standing despite the blindness that took her eyes before the age of five. Her father Joseph Anton and mother Maria Rosalia had the means to therefore teach her the finer things such as piano — a vocation to which she found expertise. The Empress allowed her a disability pension as financial assistance to help offset the strain of raising a daughter in the eighteenth century without prospects for marriage. But the pain in her eyes grew and every doctor hired to alleviate it only made matters worse. Franz Anton Mesmer became their last hope with his laughable method of healing via an invisible, odorless, and weightless magnetic “fluid.” It worked.

Paradis (Maria-Victoria Dragus) would eventually become a touring musician and composer who may have also been an inspiration to Mozart (she...

Movies love bad girls. Lashing out against the patriarchal establishment, kicking men to the curb, fighting for their right to existence. Put this in hand with youthful rebellion, and watch these women soar, sometimes (though not always) with a moral imperitive or point. Jakob Lass' Tiger Girl gives us two such bad girls, somewhat aimless, revelling in their youth and power, with little regard for the consequences.  Vanilla (Maria-Victoria Dragus) has flunked the police academy exam, and takes a job as a security guard. In the midst of a very bad day, she encounters Tiger (Ella Rumpf), a parking lot attendant and badass. Later that day, Tiger rescues Vanilla from a guy who is trying to force her home with him, and the girls become fast...

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

German-Romanian actress Maria Dragus has secured the role of Scottish noblewoman Mary Fleming, childhood companion of Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan), in the Josie Rourke-directed period drama Mary Queen of Scots. She joins Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth I along with Joe Alwyn, Martin Compston and Jack Lowden in the film from Working Title and Focus Features. Written by House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, based on John Guy’s 2004 biography The True Life of Mary Stuart…...

(l-r) Dr. Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni) talks to his daughter Eliza (Maria Dragus), director Cristian Mungiu’s drama Graduation. Courtesy of Sundance Selects ©

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu grabbed international attention and the Palme d’Or with his 2007 pregnancy drama Four Months, Three Weeks, And Two Days. That harrowing film presented a tour through Romanian creaky bureaucracy and a murky underworld of bribes and corruption in a story built on a controversial topic. In the director’s latest film Graduation, the subject is less heated, but it also explores the difficulties of life in Romania.

Graduation (“Bacalaureat”) centers on a doctor trying to ensure his straight-a student daughter’s best chance at a college scholarship in England, while showing the challenges and complexities of life in Romania. The subject is more universal – the desire of parents for the child to do well – but also paints a bleak picture of Romania life.

Graduation Opens In St. Louis On Friday, April 28th At Landmark’S Plaza Frontenac.

Sundance Selects invites you to an advance screening of Graduation.

Enter for the chance to win Two (2) seats to the advance screening on Tuesday, April 25 at 7Pm in the St. Louis area.

To Enter, Add Your Name And Email In Our Comments Section Below.

Official Rules:

1. You Must Be In The St. Louis Area The Day Of The Screening.

2. No purchase necessary. A pass does not guarantee a seat at a screening. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis. The theater is overbooked to assure a full house. The theater is not responsible for overbooking.

Acclaimed filmmaker Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) returns with this searing human saga about a father driven to extremes in order to protect his daughter’s future. Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni) is a seemingly honest doctor who regrets having settled in his native Romania,...

When Cristian Mungiu goes to the Cannes Film Festival, he’s an internationally renowned filmmaker, with the distinction of being the first Romanian to win the venerated Palme d’Or. That was over a decade ago, when Mungiu’s abortion thriller “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” took the festival’s top prize. His subsequent features, “Beyond the Hills” and “Graduation,” have also played in its Official Selection. Mungiu continues to travel the world and land raves for his sociopolitical cinema, which explores the country’s problems on an intimate scale.

But that hasn’t made it any easier to get his movies seen back home.

Read More: Cristian Mungiu’s ‘Graduation’ Trailer: Father-Daughter Relations Get Tense In The Cannes-Bound Family Drama

Ever since the success of his sophomore feature “4 Months,” Mungiu has self-distributed his work in Romania, reviving a caravan-style approach to screening movies in small towns that was once used...

Adrian Titieni in GraduationWinner of the Best Director prize at Cannes for Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, Graduation is a tense dramatic conflict between the private and public spheres. As in Antigone, here we have a member of family—a father (Adrian Titieni), in this case—who wants to protect another family member, his daughter (Maria-Victoria Dragus), from the moral role of the state. This intent leads him to act against the conventional morality of his time. Seeing no future in Romania, the sacrificing father cannot tolerate the fact that his daughter has not been accepted into a prestigious school in London and is ready to do everything in his power to save her life—even if it is immoral and corrupt. Graduation is a well-crafted drama that pays attention to every detail. Yet Mungiu has not attempted to exhaust his audience with a totally predictable narrative. Instead, he brings elements...

To director Cristian Mungiu, Romania is not just a country – it's a state of mind. The 48-year-old filmmaker grew up in a post-communist society, one where citizens still feel the boot of Soviet rule that ended nearly three decades ago with the overthrow of Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. His latest, Graduation, isn't quite on the landmark level of his searing 2007 abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, but this gripping film still sizzles with Mungiu's social-realist concern for people who believe they can't raise their position based on merit alone. In that sense,...

Graduation (Bacalaureat) Sundance Selects Director: Christian Mungiu Written by: Christian Mungiu Cast: Adrian Titieni, Maria Dragus, Lia Bugnar, Malina Manovici, Vlad Ivanov, Gelu Colceag Screened at: Dolby24, NYC, 3/15/17 Opens: April 7, 2017 If Christian Mungiu believes that corruption in government and dysfunction in society are unique to Romania, he is wrong. If he believes […]

The post Graduation Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Cristian Mungiu on Cannes Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux: "The only thing he has doubts about is that it's too clear who throws the stone."

Scenes of delicate opacity haunt Graduation (Bacalaureat). At a police lineup, one of the suspects of an assault is hidden from our view by the back of the head of Eliza, the victim (Maria-Victoria Dragus). From a bus, her father Romeo (Adrian Titieni) sees someone and follows that specter into the night and crosses over to a neighborhood soaked in sounds of invisible people and dogs. In a scene of real horror, Eliza's boyfriend Marius (Rares Andrici) shows himself willing to go a step further.

Maria-Victoria Dragus as Romeo's daughter Eliza

Cristian Mungiu is a Cannes Film Festival favourite - Palme d'Or win for 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days; Best Screenplay for Beyond The Hills and Best Actress honors to Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, and...

Author: Stefan Pape

Since the turn of the 21st century, Romanian cinema has thrived, as a new wave of filmmakers crafting distinctively naturalistic, minimalist endeavours, mostly casting a harsh light into working class society. And they’ve been recognised too, with Child’s Pose taking home top prize at the Berlinale back in 2013, and Christian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days doing the same in Cannes by winning the Palme d’Or. The helmer of the latter production returns now with his latest picture Graduation, and it’s completely, both tonally, and narratively, within this same movement, as fans of the Romanian New Wave are sure to find plenty to admire about this nuanced character drama.

Adrian Titieni plays Romeo Aldea, a doctor who strives, tirelessly, to give his teenage daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) a life he never had, hoping she will pass her forthcoming exams and be granted a...

One moment can change everything, and the journey to try to adjust a life that’s forever been rerouted can be perilous. This is what Cristian Mungiu explores in his upcoming “Graduation,” which won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

Read More: The 20 Best Movies Of 2017 That We’ve Already Seen

The latest from the mastermind behind “4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days” and “Beyond The Hills” stars Adrian Titieni, Lia Bugnar, Maria-Victoria Dragus, and Malina Manovici in the story of a young woman headed for college, but whose future is changed when she’s attacked.

Continue reading The Future Is Forever Changed In New Trailer For Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes-Winning ‘Graduation’ at The Playlist.

"A father will do anything to save his daughter's future." Sundance Selects + IFC Films have debuted the official Us trailer for a film titled Graduation, made by acclaimed Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu. Mungiu won the Palme d'Or at Cannes a few years ago for 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and this new film also premiered in competition at Cannes last year. Graduation (or Bacalaureat in Romanian) is about a father and his daughter, who is just about to graduate and go to a university in the UK. But an attack against her jeopardizes everything. It's a complex film about compromises and the implications of the parent's role. The cast includes Adrian Titieni, Maria Dragus, Rares Andrici, Lia Bugnar, Malina Manovici and Vlad Ivanov. This received fairly positive reviews at Cannes, but it's not better than Mungiu's other films. Here's the new official Us trailer (+ poster) for Cristian Mungiu's Graduation, direct...

Take a modern day, edgy Thelma & Louise and combine with it a female Fight Club, and you have Jakob Lass’ latest German flick, Tiger Girl! A Berlinale panorama special, this film is a daring, fast-paced, action packed story of Vanilla, a good girl gone bad, who receives her appropriate nickname by Tiger, a“new friend” and savior of sorts, whom she encounters during a time of duress. Tiger, played by the striking Ella Rumpf (quite reminiscent of a young Angelina Jolie), is a carefree, aggressive badass, who doesn’t take shit from anyone. She is a street-fighter with a conscience. Straddling the fine line between a menace to society and supergirls, the girls’ friendship is both strengthened and threatened as their various escapades test the limits of morality.

Pushing the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable, Jakob takes the same spontaneous Fogma approach in directing this film as he did with his last film,...

James Baldwin is voiced by Samuel L Jackson in Raoul Peck's Oscar nominated I Am Not Your Negro Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Kleber Mendonça Filho's Aquarius, starring Sônia Braga; Adrian Titieni and Maria-Victoria Dragus in Cristian Mungiu's Graduation (Bacalaureat); A Quiet Passion, directed by Terence Davies with Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson, and Raoul Peck's extraordinary documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, based on James Baldwin's 30 pages of notes for a book project titled Remember This House, which takes us on an American journey with the writings of Baldwin, are four highlights of this year's Glasgow Film Festival.

Graduation (Bacalaureat)

Graduation

Who throws the first stone in Cristian Mungiu's latest Romanian tale is a mystery - the first of many. Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a doctor in the hospital of a provincial town wishes nothing more urgently than for his daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) to be...

Graduation (Bacalaureat) director Cristian Mungiu: "Everything in the film has a real level and a real explanation." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The director of Beyond The Hills, starring Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, and Cannes Palme d'Or winner for 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days, explored his latest film with me when we met for a conversation at the 54th New York Film Festival. Graduation (Bacalaureat), co-produced by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, had its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where he shared Best Director honors with Olivier Assayas.

Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a doctor in the hospital of a provincial town wishes nothing more urgently than for his daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) to be awarded a scholarship to Cambridge so that she can leave for "civilised" England. All Eliza has to do, is pass the graduation exams with her usual, excellent grades.

Marius (Rares Andrici), Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) and Romeo...

This is the first great discovery of the 2017 Berlin Film Festival - it's an excellent film that deserves to break out. Tiger Girl is a low key indie comedy, directed by Jakob Lass, about two women who becomes friends and start taking out the patriarchal trash. It's essentially a "girls fight back" movie and it's so badass and so much fun. Ella Rumpf plays the woman known as "Tiger", a drifter who doesn't take crap from anyone, especially guys; and Maria-Victoria Dragus plays her friend she nicknames "Vanilla", a young woman who fails her entrance exam to the police academy. She's not tough enough, but through this friendship she learns how to kick ass and fight back. It close to being a dark comedy, but either way it's worth seeking out. This story could've easily been a cheesy mainstream comedy, with the worst kind of jokes, but thankfully it stays...