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Exclusive: James McAvoy is set to star in Control, a high-concept action thriller that will be directed by Red helmer Robert Schwentke and backed by Studiocanal and The Picture Company. Shooting will begin in Berlin this summer.

Pic puts McAvoy back in action mode, where he has shone in films from Wanted to the X-Men installments to go with M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and Glass. McAvoy just signed on for the Blumhouse thriller Speak No Evil.

Control is adapted from the award-winning podcast Shipworm from Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie into a tense ticking-clock thriller revolving around a doctor who awakens one morning with an untraceable device planted in his head. He must follow a mysterious voice’s instructions or devastating consequences will unfold.

Robert Schwentke

The Picture Company’s Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce under their long-term overall deal with Studiocanal. It will be the fifth...

A collective of Afro-German filmmakers and industry professionals have published an open letter raising concerns about what they have described as the selection of “anti-Black” films at the recent Berlin Film Festival.

The group, represented under the title Schwarze Filmschaffende, which loosely translates to Black Filmmakers, identifies three Berlinale titles — Measures of Men, Seneca, and Helt Super! — as projects that depict, amplify, or peddle anti-Black sentiments.

The letter is addressed to the German Minister for Culture and Media, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, Berlinale artistic directors Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, and the German Film Academy.

Opening the letter, the group note that they not only aim to “denounce the existence and handling of these offensive, racist films” but also want to challenge the “systemic errors and the structural anti-Black racism embedded in the German film ecosystem.”

“As Black Europeans, we are therefore deeply concerned and affected by the selection,...

Germany’s impressive crop of crime drama, mystery, suspense, apocalyptic catastrophe, royal intrigue and tales of the supernatural is certain to attract buyers at this year’s MipTV in Cannes.

The selections of series, TV movies and unscripted shows offer a wide range of content but also remain heavy on crime — a favorite German genre.

Among the new offerings is Beta Film’s fact-based title “I am Scrooge.” Produced by Zeitsprung Pictures, the Cologne-based company behind the hit Netflix spy thriller “Kleo,” “I am Scrooge” chronicles the true story of Arno Funke, a frustrated artist who found fame as a bombmaking extortionist in the early 1990s.

Identifying himself as Dagobert Duck — the German name for the Disney character Scrooge McDuck — Funke targeted some of Germany’s biggest department stores, beginning with Berlin’s KaDeWe in 1988, while continually outwitting police and even becoming a local folk hero. The six-part series stars Friedrich Mücke,...

After such a well-attended comeback edition for the Berlinale, this week’s news that festival co-head Mariëtte Rissenbeek is stepping down next year came as a big surprise.

It turns out Rissenbeek will have reached retirement age (67) by March 2024, when her contract as executive director of the Berlinale expires. That leaves her with one more edition to prepare with her teammate Carlo Chatrian, the festival’s artistic director. The pair has formed a dynamic duo since being jointly appointed in 2018, succeeding Dieter Kosslick.

In an interview with Variety, Rissenbeek said that after next year’s festival, she’s decided she will dedicate herself to other things she enjoys, such as social and humanitarian work. She also spoke about her personal highlights during the 2023 edition and what’s next for the Berlinale.

“I didn’t feel like doing another five years. Even though it’s very rewarding, this job does take a lot of time,...

"Let go of all of that anger that's holding you back... from truly living your life." Good advice!! With the 2023 Berlin Film Festival wrapped up, it's time to look back and highlight a few of the films playing in the line-up. Below is a small but mighty collection of trailers currently out for films that premiered at this year's Berlinale - including Golden Bear winner Sur l'Adamant, the doc Hello Dankness about America, animated film The Siren, Norwegian drama Dancing Queen, Hungarian sci-fi White Plastic Sky, and plenty of others - a mix of documentaries and narrative features. Dive in and discover something that you've never heard of!! We already posted a few other trailers before the fest began: Seneca with John Malkovich, Christian Petzold's Afire, Korean film Kill Boksoon, The Echo (a terrific doc), and German film Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything. Aside from those, this trailer...

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." As much as this may be the perfect kind of ridiculous film to dismiss and forget, I can't stop thinking about Seneca. Made by German filmmaker Robert Schwentke, who has been working in Hollywood for years, he has returned to his roots to make something much more intelligent and so much angrier than his action blockbusters. It is an exceptionally wacky, weird, linguistically loquacious, intellectually stimulating, amusing, strange film that is just as indescribable as it is thought-provoking. I can already tell that most critics, actually most people at all who dare to watch this film, will hate it. It's heavy-handed and direct, especially at the end, which always upsets most people. Yet also so funky and, well, for lack of a better word – philosophical – that it just won't sit well with most viewers. Even if it is far from perfect,...

German director Robert Schwentke’s directorial career has swung in a few directions; he has made Hollywood actioners like Flightplan with Jodie Foster, the adaptation of The Time Traveler’s Wife and a film that almost defines the idea of a personal movie, based on his own diagnosis with testicular cancer. He has both written and directed Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes, an eccentric competition choice, even by the inclusive standards of the Berlinale – starring John Malkovich as the eponymous Stoic philosopher. Over two hours, he delivers what is largely a monologue: as a performance, it has at least the strength of dogged determination. As a film, however, Seneca is almost unendurable.

Shot in and around an open colonnaded pavilion constructed in the Moroccan desert, Seneca draws on Roman historian Tacitus’ account of the great thinker’s reluctant suicide in Ad 65. A celebrated public figure, Seneca is also on...

There is one thing to be said for Seneca — On the Creation of Earthquakes, which has its world premiere in Berlin this week. It may be the first major film set in ancient Rome in a couple of decades. But those who are hoping for a vivid adventure like Gladiator or Spartacus or even a campy hoot like Quo Vadis will be sorely disappointed by this bizarre effort to create a historical fantasia. John Malkovich has a rare starring role and acquits himself solidly enough. But it is harder to understand what motivated director Robert Schwentke, who has some successful films to his credit (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red, the Divergent series) but adds no luster to his resume with this head-scratcher.

Schwentke was born in Germany but has made most of his films in Hollywood. This German-financed effort was filmed primarily in Morocco and showcases a cast from all over the world,...

Actor John Malkovich is in Berlin to debut his latest pic Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes, and during a press conference Monday, he spoke to reporters about his relationship with his co-star, Julian Sands, who has been missing since January.

“Julian and I were very, very close,” Malkovich told reporters in Berlin.

“I’m a godfather to his first son from his first marriage to Sarah, who I know very well. I introduced him to his second wife, and we have been close since we met in 1983 on the set of The Killing Fields. It’s a very sad event.”

Related: Deadline’s Berlin Film Festival Coverage

Sands was reported missing on January 13 after he failed to return from a hiking expedition in California. Several searches by public and private parties have already been carried out. The actor is also an experienced hiker.

John Malkovich, Julian Sands, ‘The Killing...

Few directors have had as eclectic a career as Robert Schwentke. His 2002 German-language debut Tattoo — a slick Se7en-style serial-killer thriller — got the attention of Hollywood, and he initially appeared to be on the classic studio-director track, helming the Jodie Foster-starrer Flightplan, the all-star action hit Red and its sequel, and, most recently, the G.I. Joe movie Snake Eyes with Henry Golding and Andrew Koji.

But even from the start, Schwentke was a difficult director to pigeonhole. Best known for his action thrillers, he also took time to direct the romantic sci-fi drama The Time Traveler’s Wife with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, the supernatural comic-book adaptation R.I.P.D. with Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, and two films in the Divergent YA sci-fi franchise with Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.

He has also continued to make smaller, more personal, German movies. The Family Jewels, his 2003 follow-up to Tattoo, is...

In his dark historical comedy “Seneca,” Robert Schwentke explores themes of power, corruption and hypocrisy as he traces the fateful final days of the Roman philosopher and dramatist that followed his souring relationship with the despotic Emperor Nero.

The film stars John Malkovich in the title role, Tom Xander as Nero and an ensemble cast that includes Geraldine Chaplin, Louis Hofmann, Mary-Louise Parker and Julian Sands.

The story of a morally conflicted, opportunistic character grappling with tyranny run amok can be seen as a continuation of the subject matter at the heart of his acclaimed 2017 World War II drama “The Captain,” says Schwentke. Both “are concerned with individual choice within a totalitarian system. They both deal with the theme of collaboration, opportunism and survival and how tainted one can become.”

Schwentke says he was most intrigued by the stark contradictions of Seneca, who he describes as a “complex character and a paradox.

German cinema looks set for a major boom this year with a strong lineup of diverse works that span historical dramas, coming-of-age tales, high-octane nostalgia, animation and sci-fi fun.

The Berlin Film Festival is bowing a muscular selection of local titles, among them “Afire,” by Berlinale mainstay Christian Petzold (“Undine”), screening in competition. The films centers on a group of young people staying at a holiday house near the Baltic Sea during a hot, dry summer, exploring volatile emotions that start to sizzle when a wildfire spreads through the surrounding forest.

Likewise vying for the Golden Bear is Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic “Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey Into the Desert,” starring Vicky Krieps (“Corsage”) as the radical Austrian author. The film examines her relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch and her 1964 journey of self-discovery through the Egyptian desert.

“Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” by Emily Atef (“More Than Ever”) and...

2023 truly begins taking shape with next month’s Berlinale, which will run from February 16 to February 26 and feature more than a few of our most-anticipated films this year. Among them are Christian Petzold’s Afire (Roter Himmel), starring new muse Paula Beer; Hong Sangsoo’s In Water, which will appear in the Encounters section; and Philippe Garrel’s The Plough, once known as La lune crevée starring his three children Louis, Esther, and Lena, and (judging from the still) his first color feature since 2011’s A Burning Hot Summer. Meanwhile: Angela Schanelec will return with Music, and––six years after the wonderful Person to Person––it’s nice spotting a new feature from Dustin Guy Defa, The Adults.

Find the lineup below and head back next month for our coverage of the festival headed by Kristen Stewart’s jury.

Competition

20,000 Species of Bees (Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)

The Shadowless Tower (Zhang...

The Bentonville Film Festival set the lineup for its sixth edition Tuesday, with the festival co-founded by Geena Davis unveiling its spotlight and competition program of indie feature films, shorts and episodic titles.

The fest is set to run August 10-16 in the Arkansas city and is being engineered as a hybrid event because of coronavirus concerns, with digital screenings, panels and events to run alongside some on-the-ground premieres and conversations.

This year’s lineup includes four Spotlight pics including the U.S. premiere of Misbehaviour, starring Keira Knightley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, which tells the true story of protest and controversy at 1970 Miss World contest, and Parkland Rising, a documentary that looks at the students of Parkland, Fl, who started an international movement to call attention to the need for better gun laws.

As per usual, this year’s lineup focuses on underrepresented voices in film. Of the 68 titles, more...