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Ivo (Minna Wündrich) spends her days tending to terminally ill patients. In her capacity as a palliative care nurse, she’s not responsible for saving them — that’s the doctors’ concern — though this 40-ish single mother does her best to listen to their complaints and ease their pain. It can be a draining experience, both physically and emotionally, and Ivo sometimes bends the rules in ways that make her at once more relatable and less saintly than her job might suggest.

With “Ivo,” writer-director Eva Trobisch doesn’t dwell on the morality of her title character’s choices, focusing more on the tension between this woman’s optimism and the weight of her work. Trobisch’s tough, observational drama builds on the promise of her 2018 debut, “All Is Good,” about a young woman determined not to let a sexual assault derail her life. Here, the German filmmaker delivers another stripped-down,...

Paris-based Loco Films has taken on international sales for Eva Trobisch’s Ivo ahead of the film’s world premiere in Berlin’s Encounters section.

The German filmmaker’s second feature is a drama about tough end-of-life decisions told through the story of a palliative home-care nurse. It follows the titular Ivo who spends her time caring for many different kinds of patients and families as they face the end of their lives.

The German-language film is produced by Studio Zentral/Network Movie’s Lucas Schmidt, Wolfgang Cimera and Lasse Scharpen and co-produced by Trima Films.

It stars Minna Wündrich,...

Kirsten Niehuus, CEO at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, which funds films and TV series production in the Berlin region, and Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films, which promotes and supports the release of German films abroad, welcomed a wide array of guests to their garden party at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.

Three Medienboard-funded films are in this year’s Competition: Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” and U.S. helmer Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.”

Niehuus told Variety: “Those are three very different productions, but it shows the spectrum [of films] that Medienboard supports.” Tunisian films, like “Four Daughters,” need international co-production funding to get made, she said, and “we believe in world cinema, so were very happy [to back it].” Hausner is “one of the most impressive female filmmakers [in the world], and I think there should be more female filmmakers on the Croisette and every other ‘A’ festival,...

Elsa Zylberstein and Mathieu Demy have also joined the cast, as the UK shoot commences.

Danish actor Sidse Babett Knudsen and British-Egyptian star Amir El-Masry have joined the cast of Little Joe filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero, as the shoot commences in Oxford, UK.

France’s Elsa Zylberstein and Mathieu Demy are also set to star, alongside the previously announced Mia Wasikowska.

The first image from the production has also been released, featuring Hausner directing Wasikowska and newcomer Luke Barker.

Club Zero is an intense psychological drama set in an elite school and stars Wasikowska as a new teacher...

The relationship between a gay couple is tested to the limits by the death of their cat

Stefan (Lukas Turtur) and Andreas (Philipp Hochmair) live a charmed existence. Their affection and intimacy is explored with unexpected and explicit candour in this intriguing study of a relationship suddenly tipped off balance. The men, both involved in the music that twines together the film’s story, share their home with a much-loved cat, Moses. The sudden violent death of the animal changes everything between them. As an inciting event, it’s a troubling device and not fully persuasive. The languid pacing doesn’t help – we have plenty of time to question the authenticity of the act during the numerous shots of Andreas pensively tending his shrubs.

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Author: Andy Furlong

Tomcat, directed by Händl Klaus, is a challenging piece of work that captures the often-enigmatic unspoken tribulations of relationships and what they are able to potentially survive. The film tells the story of lovers Andreas (Philipp Hochmair) and Stefan (Lukas Turtur) who live a seemingly happy and passionate life together in Vienna with their tomcat named Moses. Their relationship is, however, thrown into a sense of disarray and turmoil after a completely unexplainable act changes everything they thought they knew about each other.

Tomcat is a difficult movie to penetrate; in many ways it is both painstakingly tedious yet at the same time it broaches a topic seldom seen in cinema. The film is structured in such a way that we view the couple’s lives before and after the aforementioned event. This approach, while necessary to examine key elements of the dynamic of the relationship and,...

The harrowing death of a pet cat marks the turning point in this disturbing piece of arthouse cinema, but it’s hard to care about the bereaved owners

Dangerously flirting with stereotypes perpetuated by the media and Austrian arthouse cinema itself, this Vienna-set film explores how brutal, inexplicable violence may lurk beneath the surface of even the most idyllic, hyper-bourgeois lifestyle.

Orchestral administrator Andreas (Philipp Hochmair) and his partner, French-horn player Stefan (Lukas Turtur), live and work together in seemingly perfect harmony. In their beautiful, light-filled home, they regularly entertain friends with delicious meals, make tender, playful love to jazz music, and caper about naked, occasionally pausing to caress and cuddle their handsome tabby cat Moses, who chose to live with them some time ago. More fool, Moses.

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