News

Danger Zone

Director: Vita Maria Drygas

Producer: Vita Żelakeviciute

Production companies: Drygas Film Production

Sales: Dogwoof

Documentary is a journey to places devastated by military conflicts, seen through the eyes of thrill-seeking tourists.

Delegation

(Generation 14plus)

Director: Asaf Saban

Cast: Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, Alma Dishy

Producers: Agnieszka Dziedzic, Yoav Roeh, Aurit Zamir, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad

Production companies: Koi Studio, Gum Films, In Good Co.

Sales: New Europe Film Sales

Three Israeli friends visit Holocaust sites in Poland before their stints in the army, and deal with love, friendship and politics.

Disco Boy

(Competition)

Director: Giacomo Abbruzzese

Cast: Franz Rogowski, Morr Ndiaye, Laëtitia Ky, Leon Lučev

Producers: Lionel Massol, Pauline Seigland

Production companies: Films Grand Huit, Dugong Films, Panache Productions, La Compagnie Cinématographique, Donten & Lacroix, Division

Sales: Charades

Aleksei reaches Paris to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, which allows any foreigner, even undocumented, to be granted a French passport.

Italy-based sales agent Lights On has acquired world rights for “Mammalia” by Romanian director Sebastian Mihăilescu, ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale Forum strand. It has debuted the film’s trailer (below).

In “Mammalia,” 39-year-old Camil (István Téglás) embarks on a dreamlike trip where the banal and the surreal merge. Struggling to come to terms with losing control – of his work, his social status, his relationship – Camil sets off on a search that leads him to question the basis of his identity as a man. He pursues his girlfriend (Mălina Manovici) into an increasingly bizarre and disturbing world of community and ritual before being confronted by a tragi-comic role-reversal that leads us to question everything.

Mihăilescu comments: “The film satirizes the way that classic binary gender roles are often rigidly defined in society, and it highlights the performative nature of gender identity, emphasizing the ways in which, by assuming our gendered role,...

Mammalia

Production on Sebastian Mihăilescu‘s debut film (it was known as Double Happiness then) in October of 2021 and it received an invite to Berlinale’s Forum section. The Romanian filmmaker’s Mammalia is described as a surreal drama exploring contemporary masculinity via a man who wakes to discover his penis has disappeared during the night. Bucharest is the film’s backdrop. Microfilm’s Diana Păroiu and Ada Solomon produced the film. The cast includes István Téglás, Mălina Manovici, Denisa Nicolae, Steliana Bălăcianu, Rolando Matsangos, Mirela Crețan, Andreea Gheorghe, Mircea Bujoreanu, Marian Pîrvu, Dan Zarug Mihai, and Elena Chingălată.

Gist: This follows a 39-year-old man who embarks on a dreamlike journey where the mundane and the fantastic intertwine.…...

John Malkovich starrer Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes and Alex Gibney’s untitled Boris Becker documentary are set to have their world premieres at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival next year. The projects are among the six titles which will play in the fest’s Berlinale Special Gala section, which also includes Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth and Cleopatra Coleman and Todd Field’s Tár.

Infinity Pool will get its European premiere at the festival while Field and Tár stars Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir will attend the festival to give a public talk as part of the Berlinale Talents section.

The festival also announced its first project from its Berlinale Series section: Zdf’s eco-thriller The Swarm (Der Schwarm), based on the eponymous bestseller by Frank Schätzing. The project follows an international group of scientists who do research...

"But we really must continue this discussion." Sovereign Film Distribution has debuted a new trailer for the UK release of Malmkrog arriving on VOD there starting in March. The film originally premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival, and also stopped by the New York Film Festival and many others. Malmkrog, which translates to Manor House (the alternate release title), is the latest film from acclaimed Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu and runs a full 3 hours, 20 minutes but gets into some intense discussions. The film is made up almost entirely of conversations between guests at a house. A landowner, a politician, a countess, a General and his wife, all gather in a spacious manor and discuss death, war, progress and morality. As the time passes by, the discussion becomes more serious and heated. Starring Frédéric Schulz-Richard, Agathe Bosch, Diana Sakalauskaité, Marina Palii, Ugo Broussot, and István Téglás. Critics have been raving...

Sovereign Film Distribution has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to writer-director Cristi Puiu’s Berlin and Seville winner “Malmkrog” (Manor House).

Puiu won the best director award at the Encounters section of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, in addition to best screenplay and the Golden Giraldillo Award for best film at the Seville European Film Festival.

An adaptation of Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov’s book “Three Conversations,” “Malmkrog” follows a politician, a countess, a general and his wife as they gather over the Christmas holidays in a manor house to discuss death, war, progress and morality. As the debate becomes more heated, cultural differences become increasingly apparent and the mood grows tense.

The film is billed as a unique mixture of “Downton Abbey” and Dostoyevsky, as it recalls the drawing room masterworks of Max Ophüls, and the stark cerebral work of Ingmar Bergman.

The cast includes Frederic Schulz-Richard, Agathe Bosch,...

"A sly and intricate crime drama." Magnolia has unveiled the official Us trailer for Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu's acclaimed film The Whistlers, which first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The film didn't win any awards, but it did win over critics, especially A.O. Scott (here's his review) who is quoted all over the marketing. This fun neo-noir stars Vlad Ivanov in the lead role, Cristi, a Romanian police officer who is secretly working inside the mafia. He heads to La Gomera Island to learn an ancestral whistling language. In Romania he is under police surveillance and by using this coded language he will continue to communicate with the mobsters to try and get Zsolt out of prison. Also starring Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazar, Agustí Villaronga, Sabin Tambrea, István Teglas, Cristóbal Pinto, and George Pistereanu. I caught this in Cannes and I had a great time - here's my glowing review,...