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The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival is underway in the Greek port city, a gathering point for some of the biggest names in nonfiction filmmaking – and young talents eager to join those ranks.

The festival opened Thursday night with About a Hero, directed by Piotr Winiewicz and “narrated by Werner Herzog”.

If that characterization of About a Hero sounds unnecessarily opaque, consider that TiDF is paying not just heed but tribute to Artificial Intelligence at this year’s festival. “AI, an Inevitable Intelligence” as the theme has been dubbed, “invites the audience to embark on a fascinating journey that includes a selection of eye-opening documentaries, an impressive visual installation, a masterclass, a special two-language edition, as well as the Festival’s magazine First Shot,...

Taskovski Films Sales has picked up “Supernatural” ahead of its world premiere in the International Competition section of the 27th Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival. Ventura Durall’s film is an exploration of the boundaries between science and alternative healing beliefs.

“Supernatural” centers on André Malby, a well-respected shaman believed to have healed many people. He is revisited by a devoted believer convinced that he saved her life, and his estranged son, Mathu, an orthodox doctor who turned away from his father’s path.

Over time, Mathu has become the antithesis of his father. While Malby was a hedonist and a womanizer, Mathu is a conventional doctor who lives in harmony with his family. But his apparently tranquil existence begins to unravel when Anna, a well-known Spanish actress and a devoted believer in Malby, contacts him. She claims that his father saved her life through telepathic healing. This event forces Mathu...

The results of the first Eurimages Project Evaluation Session of 2024 have been unveiled and among the batch of European-based filmmakers to receive some much-appreciated coin we find Tarik Saleh’s Eagles of the Republic, Carla Simon’s Romería, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Agnieszka Holland’s Franz, Amanda Kernell’s The Curse, a Love Story and Hafsia Herzi’s The Last One. For the most part, these projects are expected to move into production as early as this spring and get major film festival premieres starting in 2025. 26 fiction films received coin with five docu projects. Here are the films:

Brave – Marie-Elsa Sgualdo (Switzerland) – €300 000

Desire Lines – Dane Komljen (Serbia) – €120 000

Don’t Let Me Die – Andrei Epure (Romania) – €150 000

Eagles of the Republic – Tarik Saleh (Sweden) – €500 000

Fed Up – Júlia De Paz Solvas (Spain) – €250 000

Finale Allegro – Emanuela Piovano (Italy) – €150 000

Franz – Agnieszka Holland (Poland) – €500 000

God Will Not Help – Hana Jušić (Croatia) – €390 000

Haven of Hope – Seemab...

New projects from directors including Agnieszka Holland, Carla Simon, Joachim Trier, Amanda Kernell and Tarik Saleh are among 26 features to receive backing from Eurimages’ in its latest round of co-production funding.

The 26 features – including five documentaries and one animation – have shared a total of €7m funding. Fourteen are to be directed by women.

Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s Franz Kafka biopic Franz received €500,000 ahead of an expected shoot in Czech Republic and Germany next month with newcomer Idan Weiss to play Kafka. Holland’s most recent film Green Border won the special jury prize in competition at Venice in 2023.

Spain’s Carla Simon,...

London-based sales outfit Taskovski Films has boarded Spanish documentary “Fauna,” soon to premiere at Visions du Réel and Hot Docs.

Pau Faus directs, while Sergi Camerón produces for Nanouk Films. Faus, Cameron and Julia R. Aymar are also credited as writers.

In the film, set on the outskirts of Barcelona, two realities collide as an old shepherd constantly finds himself in front of a high-tech laboratory for animal experimentation. Afflicted with a bone disease, he witnesses his profession disappearing, while the scientists are busier than ever researching a Covid vaccine.

“It’s a visionary, multi-layered look into contemporary life of humans in the confusing times of pandemic, which left us all lacking many essential answers. Told as a dreamy pastoral tale, the film is challenging the most actual questions of relation between humans and nature,” CEO Irena Taskovski told Variety.

“We have been collaborating with Nanouk Films in the past...

Barcelona-based Nanouk Films and Funicular Films and Spanish pubcaster Tve are partnering to produce “This is Not Sweden,” a dark comedy half hour which marks the first Spanish show to be presented at the Göteborg’s Festival’s TV Drama Vision.

Set in the idyllic Vallvidrera, a suburb in the foothills of the Collserola mountains surrounding Barcelona, the eight-part series explores parenting and other family-related issues by focusing on a young couple ­– Mariana and Samuel – who has just moved there and wants to raise their children in contact with nature.

“This is Not Sweden” is created by actor-director Aina Clotet, a Malaga Fest best actress winner for “Someone’s Daughter” and by producer Sergi Cameron. Clotet will direct along with Coll, who won a best new director Goya for “Three Days with the Family.”

“‘This is Not Sweden’s’ international appeal has always been a key objective for Aina, Marta and myself.

A psychologist is forced to confront the fallout of a past romance in a neo-noir from Ventura Durall lacking visual punch

This is a Catalan neo-noir from director Ventura Durall that has a certain literary class: it’s wrapped in Hitchcockian shadow, fascinated by questions of identity, desire and time. But it’s a shame that Durall doesn’t find his torrid and sophisticated story the visual register it deserves, leaving The Offering with a humdrum televisual ambience that’s a bit unsatisfying.

Violeta (Anna Alarcón) is an apparently thriving psychologist who is one day confronted with a client, Rita (Verónica Echegui), who makes a disturbing revelation: she has discovered that her husband Jan (Alex Brendemühl) is still obsessed with his first love from 20 years back … Violeta. The increasingly brazen Rita tries to manoeuvre her into meeting Jan, ostensibly to cure their marital problems. As Violeta pop pills and prevaricates,...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Warner Bros. announced the Jan. 7 theatrical release for “Operation Mincemeat”; Nigerian Oscar submission “The Milkmaid” to headline BFI African Odyssey; Sovereign Film Distribution picks up Spanish thriller “The Offering”; BBC Music documents Glastonbury presents Live at Worthy Farm; and “Friends: The Reunion” heads to Zee5 in India.

Premiere

John Madden’s Colin Firth and Kelly Macdonald-starring WWII drama “Operation Mincemeat” will release in the U.K. and Ireland on Jan. 7, 2022, just in time for awards season, as reported by Deadline. Warner Bros. is distributing in most of Europe, including the U.K. and Ireland, with Netflix taking North American and Latin American rights in a $15M deal struck in March. Possible theatrical plans or a platform release date have not yet been announced by the streamer for those territories.

“Operation Mincemeat” is the film adaptation of Ben McIntyre’s novel, adapted by screenwriter Michelle Ashford.

Spain took the spotlight at the Marche du Film on Tuesday afternoon with a Cinema From Spain panel in which sales agents were given a platform to present one of their features currently selling in the market.

Moderated by Tito Rodríguez, marketing policy director at Spain’s Institute of Cinematography and the Audiovisual Arts (Icaa), the presentation was broken up into four blocks with one dedicated to each of the participating companies: Latido Films, Filmax, Moonrise Pictures and Bendita Films.

Latido Films

A particularly current proposition, Latido presented “Tales of the Lockdown,” a new anthology feature which will launch on Amazon Prime Video in Spain next month. Five of Spain’s top filmmakers were enlisted to remotely directed five variations on a theme, life under quarantine. Latido head Antonio Saura was joined by producer Alvaro Longoria of Morena Films, director Fernando Colomo, director-actor Carlos Bardem and actor Sara Sálamo.

Each...

Variety highlights a selection of Spanish titles being moved at this year’s Cannes Marché du Film.

All The Moons

(Arcadia Motion Pictures, Kowalski Films, Pris & Batty, Ilargia Films, Noodles Production)

A period drama about an orphan girl rescued by a mysterious woman who grants her immortality as a vampire.

Sales: Filmax

The August Virgin

(Los Ilusos Films)

A Karlovy Vary Fipresci Prize winner, film revolves around a woman who spends the summer in Madrid. Jonás Trueba’s latest movie, already bought for the U.S. by Outsider Films.

Sales: Bendita Film

Between Dog And Wolf

(El Viaje Films, Autonauta Films, Blond Indian Films)

Berlinale Forum player portrays soldiers from Castro’s Cuban Revolution still training, nearly 60 years later, in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra. Directed by Irene Gutiérrez.

Sales: Bendita Film

The Consequences

(Sin Rodeos, N279 Entertainment, Potemkino, Érase Una Vez)

Writer-director Claudia Pinto Emperador’s follow-up to her 2013 feature debut,...

Cesc Gay’s “The People Upstairs,” David Victori’s “Cross the Line,” Kike Maíllo’s “A Perfect Enemy” and David Matamoros and Ángeles Hernández’s “Isaac” are among a robust 11-feature pack offered by Upcoming Catalan Films at Cannes’ online Marché du Film.

An acclaimed Catalan director of dramedy focused on middle-aged, urban, often lost characters, in “The People Upstairs” Gay (“Truman”) depicts an ordinary situation— a couple having dinner with neighbors — in which a friendly time together gradually slips towards emotional upheaval.

Mario Casas-starrer “Cross the Line” is director David Victori’s (“The Pact”) second feature. A one-night thriller, it follows a more or less good guy dedicated to taking care of his sick father who, after his dad passes, decides to get his life back on track. In the process, he “asks questions of himself he never imagined he would,” Victori explains.

“A Perfect Enemy” is the newest thriller from Kike Maíllo.

Last weekend’s fourth edition of the Spanish Independent Film Festival and Market in Albacete saw El año del descubrimiento scoop the coveted Work in Progress award. On 25, 26 and 27 October, Abycine Lanza, the Albacete International Film Festival’s market for independent cinema, returned for a fourth year, the twenty-first for the festival itself. The coveted Work in Progress award, in the form of a €7,000 grant towards post-production costs, was presented to El año del descubrimiento, the second solo feature by Murcian director Luis López Carrasco (El futuro). The project is funded by Lacima Producciones (Spain) and Alina Film (Switzerland) — find out more here. Carrasco’s film beat off competition from three other finalists: La ofrenda, by Ventura Durall (The Two Lives of Andres Rabadan), starring Alex Brendemühl and Verónica Echegui — another Spanish–Swiss co-production, this time between Nanouk Films, Fasten, Suica Productions and Bord Cadre; Pedra Pàtria, a...

San Sebastian — Fasten Films will produce “El Nieto” (‘The Grandson’), Nely Reguera’s sophomore outing. Greece’s Homemade Films and Spain’s producer-distributor Bteam will co-produce.

A Barcelona-based company founded by Adrián Monés, formerly a producer at Filmax), Fasten Films is the company that has co-produced Emmy winner Justin Webster’s non-fiction series “The Prosecutor, the President and the Spy,” which had its world premiere on Monday, playing San Sebastian’s Zabaltegi showcase.

Reguera is currently co-directing— alongside Inés de León— Netflix original TV series “Valeria.”

Premiered at San Sebastian film festival in 2016, Reguera’s dramedy debut “Maria (And The Others)” garnered plaudits from reviewers and audiences. The feature snagged best film at Miami’s HBO Ibero-American Competition among other international prizes.

Alongside further female directors like Carla Simón (“Summer 1993”), Belén Funes (“The Daughter of the Thief”), Celia Rico (“Journey Around a Mother’s Room”), Laura Ferrés (“The Desinherited...

Tom Devriendt rounds up 10 new feature films and shorts, some of which are already making the rounds of the film festival circuit

This is a random selection of 10 films we don't know much about, yet, but which we hope to see once completed or screened at the nearest film festival. The Door of No Return (La Puerta de No Retorno) follows Santiago Zannou who accompanies his father, Alphonse, to his homeland, Benin, 40 years after he left it. Trailer above.

Finding Mercy (which premiered at the Tri Continental Film Festival in Johannesburg last month) is about retrieving a childhood friendship in a newly independent Zimbabwe:

Meanwhile in Mamelodi is a documentary by Benjamin Kahlmeyer on life in a Pretoria township during the 2010 World Cup:

Healers, directed by Thomas Barry, highlights the work of The Umthombo Youth Development Foundation and tells the story of how a doctor and a matron at a...

Barring any late additions or surprises, the full lineup for the 2012 edition of the Sundance Film Festival (January 19 through 29) is now complete. We've seen the the Competition and Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, Next <=> and New Frontier lineups, the Premieres and the Documentary Premieres. Today's the festival's unveiled its Short Film program. Once again, straight from the release:

U.S. Short Films

This year's 32 U.S. short films were selected from 4,083 submissions.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (Director: Todd Sklar, Screenwriters: Todd Sklar, Alex Rennie) — Jim and Dave are brothers who haven't spoken in years and don't like each other very much, but are forced to come together for a week when their dad dies in Kansas City. A limited edition 1992 Skybox Series Alonzo Mourning rookie card is a point of contention.

The Arm (Directors and screenwriters: Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis) — In an...