Berlin Day 5

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TODAY

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SCREENINGS

» Page 20

UNITED STATE S OF LOVE A F I L M B Y T O M A S Z WA S I L E W S K I

World Premiere: Friday, 19th Feb, 16.00 BUYERS! Visit New Europe Film Sales’ EFM stand located at Martin Gropius Bau, Booth 141 (1st floor) for market screenings schedule.

MAÑANA presents in co-production with TVP S.A., COMMONGROUND PICTURES & FILM VÄST a TOMASZ WASILEWSKI film UNITED STATES OF LOVE starring JULIA KIJOWSKA, MAGDALENA CIELECKA, DOROTA KOLAK, MARTA NIERADKIEWICZ, TOMEK TYNDYK, ANDRZEJ CHYRA & ŁUKASZ SIMLAT production manager ROBERT FELUCH costume designer MONIKA KALETA make up EWA KOWALEWSKA production designers KATARZYNA SOBAŃSKA & MARCEL SŁAWIŃSKI sound designer CHRISTIAN HOLM editor BEATA WALENTOWSKA director of photography OLEG MUTU RSC co-financed by THE POLISH FILM INSTITUTE co-producers ZBIGNIEW ADAMKIEWICZ, ARTUR MAJER, JONAS KELLAGHER, SIMON PERRY, KATARINA KRAVE produced by PIOTR KOBUS & AGNIESZKA DREWNO written and directed by TOMASZ WASILEWSKI

Co-funded by

RIO CORGO

BY MAYA KOSA / SERGIO DA COSTA

SCREENINGS IN BERLIN Mon Feb. 15 Wed Feb. 17 Fri Feb. 19 Sat Feb. 20 Sun Feb. 21

21:30 19:30 16:30 19:15 12:00

CinemaxX, Market Screening CineStar 8, Premiere Delphi Filmpalast Akademie der Künste Zoo Palast 2

World Rights: Close Up Films, Geneva | T +41 22 808 08 46 | flavia@closeupfilms.ch | www.closeupfilms.ch Press: Makna Presse | Chloé Lorenzi +33 608 16 60 26 | Pauline Gervaise +33 671 74 98 30 festival@makna-presse.com | www.makna-presse.com

Connect with SWISS FILMS at EFM, Booth # 115 | T ++49 30 400 425 431 | info@swissfilms.ch

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15 2016

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Solution shares Secrets

BY JEREMY KAY

Bling

Bling deals sparkle for Celsius

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

Celsius Entertainment has licensed animation Bling to Momentum Pictures for English-speaking territories including North America, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The family film, about a robot that has to save his city, features the voices of Taylor Kitsch, Carla Gugino, James Woods, Jennette McCurdy and Jason Kravitz. The deal was concluded by Jessica Labi, VP of acquisitions at Momentum Pictures, and Celsius’s Thierry Wase-Bailey.

Additional deals include Scandinavia (Scanbox Entertainment), Israel (Filmhouse), Turkey (Filmdom Media), the Middle East (Shooting Stars) and Greece (Odeon).

The completed feature is produced by Korean animation studio Digiart (Shark Bait) in association with Korean VFX outfit Digital Idea. Lee Kyung-ho and Lee Wonjae directed a script by Chris Denk.

Entertainment One relaunched the Momentum brand last year as a multi-platform label specialising in digital and ancillary exploitation.

The Solution Entertainment Group has licensed key territories at EFM to its upcoming all-star spy thriller Official Secrets.

Paul Bettany, Natalie Dormer, Martin Freeman, Anthony Hopkins and Harrison Ford star, while Tahar Rahim is circling the project and Gillian Anderson is in active talks to join the cast.

SND has acquired rights for France, Notorious Pictures for Italy, Corbi for Spain and Swen Group International for Latin America.

story about a journalist who uncovers an NSA plot to accelerate the 2003 invasion of Iraq. UTA Independent Film Group packaged the film and represents US rights.

Sara and Gregory Bernstein adapted Official Secrets from Marcia and Thomas Mitchell’s book The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War: Katherine Gun And The Secret Plot To Sanction The Iraq Invasion.

Elizabeth Fowler produces the film, and Wilson and partner Myles Nestel are executive producers. » The Solution profile, page 16

Theeb snapped up ahead of Oscars

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Fortissimo Films has closed several additional deals on Oscarnominated Jordanian feature Theeb, including sales to Jour 2 Fete for France and JIFF Distribution for Australia.

Naji Abu Nowar’s award-winning drama has also gone to China (Lemon Tree), New Zealand (Rialto

Distribution), Greece (Neo Films), South Korea (Entremode) and Hong Kong (Edko).

In addition, Paris Filmes has acquired theatrical rights for Brazil and will release Theeb on February 18. Jour 2 Fete plans a French theatrical release for later this year.

The film started its awards run by picking up the best director Oriz-

zonti prize at Venice in 2014 and has been released in the UK (New Wave Films), US (Film Movement), Benelux (Cinemien) and Norway (AS Fidalgo Film Distribution).

In addition to its Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film, it also has Bafta nominations for best foreign film and outstanding debut by a UK writer.

Yosuke Kubozuka, page 2

NEWS Grenade grabs lead Silence star Yosuke Kubozuka joins Elizabeth Banks drama » Page 2

REVIEW 24 Weeks Anne Zohra Berrached does not give her characters — or her audience — an easy ride » Page 10

FEATURE Hungary reborn Oscar front-runner Son Of Saul’s success helps Hungarian film enjoy a new dynamism » Page 18

SCREENINGS

» Page 20

Winners take Bafta masks As Screen went to press, the EE British Academy Film Awards were set to kick off in London, with Steven Spielberg’s Bridge Of Spies and Todd Haynes’ Carol leading the nominations with nine apiece. Early winners included Brooklyn, which picked up outstanding British film.

» Full coverage at ScreenDaily.com

Hubert Boesl

BERLIN BRIEFS Little Men, big deals Ira Sachs’ Generation Kplus selection Little Men has been sold

by Mongrel International to Scandinavia (Non-Stop), Australia (Rialto) and Spain (Golem).

Magnolia Pictures recently acquired US rights and Altitude took UK rights.

Finland finds its Tom Logan Lerman, director James Schamus and Sarah Gadon at a photo call for Indignation, playing in Panorama

United nets sales hat-trick Polish drama United States Of Love has secured three of deals ahead of its world premiere in Competition here on Friday. Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film

The Solution’s co-founder and partner Lisa Wilson and her team have also closed deals in Portugal (Cinemundo), the Middle East (Eagle Films), Greece and India (Tanweer), South Africa (Times Media Films), Taiwan (IPA), Turkey (Aqua/Pinema Group), Indonesia (PT Prima) and Singapore (Shaw Organisation). Entertainment In Motion picked up airline rights and talks are ongoing with other major territories.

Production is set for May in the UK. Justin Chadwick directs the

TODAY

to Greece (Strada), Spain (Golem) and ex-Yugoslavia (MCF).

Set in Poland in 1990 during the first year of freedom from communism, the film tells a story of four women of different ages who

decide it is time to change their lives. It marks the third feature of director Tomasz Wasilewski after In A Bedroom (2012) and Floating Skyscrapers (2013).

United States Of Love is a PolandSweden co-production of Manana, Commonground Pictures, Film i Vast and TVP. It is an EAVE-developed

project, which was presented at CineMart and Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Naszewski confirmed offers from the UK, France, Switzerland and Benelux are on the table.

New Europe is the sales agent behind Cannes’ Un Certain Regard winner Rams.

Michael Rosser

Pekka Strang was revealed as the title lead in Dome Karukoski’s Tom Of Finland in Berlin yesterday.

Protagonist Pictures is handling international sales on the project, which shoots in the spring.

Kusturica on jury duty Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica is to head the jury for the Golden Goblet Award at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (June 11-19). Kusturica has twice won Cannes’ Palme d’Or.

News

Dogwoof fetches Kate Plays Christine Documentary-drama Kate Plays Christine, which screens here in Forum tonight, has been snapped up for international sales and UK distribution by Dogwoof.

The film, which won director Robert Greene the US documentary award for writing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, was secured in a deal with New York-based production company 4th Row Films. UK-based Dogwoof will present the title to buyers at EFM. The agreement excludes North America.

The film follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares for the role of Christine Chubbuck, who killed herself on television in 1974.

Producers are Susan Bedusa and Douglas Tirola for 4th Row Films. Executive producer is Christos V Konstantakopoulos.

Michael Rosser

Kubozuka grabs Grenade

By Jeremy Kay

Rising Japanese actor Yosuke Kubozuka will star opposite Elizabeth Banks in the drama Rita Hayworth With A Hand Grenade.

Mimi Steinbauer’s Radiant Films International is in talks with buyers at EFM and UTA Independent Film Group handles North American rights.

Kubozuka has a key role in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Peter Himsel

2 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Silence, opposite Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson.

He also starred in Japanese hit Go. Rita Hayworth With A Hand Grenade centres on a Second World War photographer who is shot down and stranded on a South Pacific island, where she embarks on an extraordinary 30-year friendship with a marooned Japanese soldier.

Robert Graf, who served as

executive producer on Berlinale opener Hail, Caesar!, produces.

Director Sloane U’Ren is expected to begin shooting in the autumn from a screenplay by Antony Neely.

“Yosuke is one of Japan’s most exciting and well-known actors and is set to become an international star,” said Steinbauer. “He is perfect casting for our leading man opposite Elizabeth Banks and we are excited to have him attached.”

Streep talks up new possibilities This year’s Competition jury chief Meryl Streep gave a 90-minute talk to open Berlinale Talents.

Discussing her career, she told a crowd of young film-makers: “We’re in a new time of possibility for woman on screen that imagines them as vital and interesting into later years.”

BFI LFF unveils dates, prize

By Michael Rosser

The BFI London Film Festival has confirmed its 60th anniversary edition will take place across the UK capital from October 5-16.

The festival will also see the launch of a new award to support emerging UK film-makers. The $73,000 (£50,000) IWC Schaffhausen Filmmakers Bursary Award in association with the BFI is designed to benefit a British writer, director or writer-director whose first or second fiction feature premieres at LFF. The prize is given with no strings and no deliverables, instead being designed to provide the chosen film-maker with the freedom to develop their projects.

Submissions will be assessed

by LFF director Clare Stewart, BFI Film Fund director Ben Roberts and four senior film executives, as well as a decision-making board.

www.screendaily.com

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News

JFF opening night at Sultan’s Pool

JFF launches competition

By Michael Rosser

Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF) is to launch an international competition strand with a cash prize and has revealed the first two titles.

The 33rd edition, which runs July 7-17, will include a juried prize of $20,000 underwritten by the New Jersey-based Wilf Family Foundation. JFF artistic director Elad Samorzik is on the lookout for titles at Berlin.

The competition will showcase around 10 titles. The first selected are Runar Runarsson’s Sparrows and Tobias Lindholm’s A War. JFF said it hoped the competition would raise visibility for international features it feels have potential for distribution, but have yet to secure a release in Israel. With the addition of the new prize, JFF will hand out $200,000 in awards.

The festival will also add another outdoor screening venue to its official locations.

Buyers fall for 9ers’ Trap Korean sales agent 9ers Entertainment has closed deals on Hong Won-Chan’s Cannes title Office and Bong Man-Dae’s erotic thriller Trap.

Trap has gone to Germany and Austria (Donau Film), Japan (Klockworx), Hong Kong and Macau (Sundream), Taiwan (Moviecloud) and Philippines (Viva Communications).

Office has gone to Japan (Nikkatsu), China (Lemon Tree), Hong Kong (Edko Films), Thailand (Mono Film) and Philippines (Viva). The thriller tells the story of a manager who kills off his colleagues.

Trap tells the story of a writer attempting to finish his screenplay in a boarding house.

Liz Shackleton

Infinitum has taste for Sweet Requiem Shrihari Sathe’s Infinitum Productions has boarded Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s second narrative feature, The Sweet Requiem.

Scripted by Sonam, the film follows a young Tibetan woman living in exile in Delhi, whose life is unexpectedly shattered when she runs into a man from her past. Sarin and Sonam will codirect, while Sathe will produce alongside Sarin.

Sarin and Sonam’s first narrative feature, Dreaming Lhasa

(2005), was executive produced

by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Gere and premiered at Toronto International Film Festival. Their credits also include award-winning documentaries such as The Sun Behind The Clouds (2010) and When Hari Got Married (2012).

The Sw eet Requiem was selected for the DrishyamSundance Institute Screenwriters’ Lab in 2015, as well as Busan’s Asian Project market and Film Bazaar in Goa. Cast and

Colombia at Copro Village

Double Dutch whips up trade for thriller Man Vs

By Melanie Goodfellow

By Jeremy Kay

Paris Coproduction Village, aimed at connecting international projects with French and other European partners, will spotlight Colombia for its third edition (June 8-10).

Three projects will be invited to the co-financing event and there will be a conference on co-producing with the territory.

Double Dutch International has closed a raft of sales at EFM on found-footage thriller Man Vs, led by a deal with Metrodome for the UK. DDI president Jason Moring and his team have licensed rights to the horror film in Japan (At Entertainment), CIS (Top Film), pan-Asia pay TV (Fox Interna-

By Liz Shackleton

locations have been finalised and the film will shoot on location in India later this year.

Sathe previously produced and directed award-winning Indian film 1000 Rupee Note and co-produced Afia Nathaniel’s Dukhtar and Partho Sen-Gupta’s Sunrise.

His latest production, Elisabeth Subrin’s A Woman, A Part, which he produced with Scott Macaulay, premiered in the Tiger Competition at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam.

tional), Middle East (Gulf Films), Turkey (Sinema TV) and Thailand (Major Katana).

Man Vs follows a TV reality series host who must survive for five days in remote woods without his crew — before learning he is not alone.

Adam Massey wrote and directed the film, which stars Chris Diamantopoulos.

EFP’s SHOOTING stars 2016 Jella Haase Germany Debora Brune

Biggest inspiration?

I used to listen to a lot of demo tapes in my childhood and I loved imitating those characters from the records.

I kind of already practised acting there somehow.

Big break?

Working with David Wnendt on Combat Girls. He is an unbelievably inspiring director and I learned so much through him. And [Bora Dagtekin’s German box-office hit]

Fack Ju Göhte. My character, Chantal, has become like my second identity, which is surreal sometimes.

Next up?

I’m busy working on the release of my next projects: Looping, which premiered at Max Ophuels film festival in January, and German TV crime thriller Dresden Tatort. Fack Ju Göhte may continue in 2016 with part three, and I’m reading a lot of scripts.

Sarah Cooper

Paramount boards GMPF train

By Martin Blaney

Paramount Television’s Berlin Station is set to become the first international TV series to benefit from the recently created German Motion Picture Fund (GMPF).

David Goldman, Paramount’s

4 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

EVP, business affairs and strategy, revealed the funding on an international TV panel here ahead of EFM’s second edition of its Drama Series Days.

The 10-part spy series by Paramount and Anonymous Content

for EPIX has been shooting in Berlin since last autumn with a cast including Rhys Ifans, Richard Armitage and Richard Jenkins.

The $11m (¤10m) GMPF incentive scheme, which can pay out up to 20% of eligible German costs as a non-repayable grant, was launched last December.

berlin briefs Off Course remake on Spanish outfit DeAPlaneta has closed a deal for remake rights of rom-com Off Course (Perdiendo El Norte) with Cattleya for Italy.

DeAPlaneta also made sales on its comedy The Misfits Club to France (Family Films) and Italy (Mediaset).

Topkapi lands Jalali Dutch producer Topkapi has boarded the latest feature from Iran’s Babak Jalali. The director, who won the top prize at Rotterdam last month with Radio Dreams, is now working on Land, sold by Bac Films, which deals with alcoholism within a nativeAmerican community.

Terence Davies

Davies reveals pair of passion projects

By Geoffrey Macnab

UK director Terence Davies, whose feature A Quiet Passion screened to a warm reception here in Berlin over the weekend, has revealed further details of his next two projects.

Davies is working with UK production outfit Leopard Drama on an adaptation of Mother Of Sorrows by US novelist Richard McCann. This consists of 10 interwoven stories of a family living in the suburbs of Washington DC after the Second World War. The script is complete and the film is now being financed and cast. Davies is also developing Benediction, a biopic of First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon, with BFI support. That film is planned to enter production in 2018.

“I am in the process of researching and writing that,” Davies said.

A Quiet Passion tells the story of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson. The film, which sold recently to Metrodome for the UK, is represented in the market

by Double Dutch International. » A Quiet Passion, reviews, page 15

www.screendaily.com

EFM 2016

SCREENINGS 12.02 | 2:40 pm ▶ CinemaxX Studio 14 16.02 | 11:00 am ▶ CinemaxX Studio 12

Contact in EFM: Martin Gropius Bau, 23 Nerea Bautista Duarte | nbautista@deaplaneta.com | +34 638 800 011

NEWS

Raven sees deals in the Desert Genre movie It Came From The Desert, from War Of The Dead director Marko Makilaakso, has racked up deals here at EFM. Raven Banner has confirmed sales to Germany (Tiberius), Italy (Minerva), France (Zylo), Latin America (Borsalino), Philippines (Crystalsky), China (HGC), Australia and New Zealand (Monster Pictures), Taiwan (Moviecloud) and Turkey (Roll Caption).

Production is set for spring on the actionadventure computergame adaptation. Roger Pictures produces and Tero Kaukomaa (Iron Sky) is the executive producer.

Geoffrey Macnab

SE Asian alliance hosts EFM launch

BY LIZ SHACKLETON

Film ASEAN, a new organisation that brings together the lead government agencies for film development in the 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has held its official launch at EFM. “Southeast Asia is a market of 650 million people — we foresee future co-productions in the region. We’re presenting ourselves as a region with common identities,” said Film ASEAN president Briccio G Santos.

Film ASEAN has already started to roll out several development initiatives across the region, including screenwriting and film craft workshops, screenings of

CCAM’s Rahmat Adam and Briccio G Santos

Southeast Asian films, archiving and subtitling and translation services.

The body also aims to attend international markets including Hong Kong’s Filmart and Cannes. In Berlin, it has a pavilion outside the Martin-Gropius-Bau, which is housing representatives from the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia.

Creative Content Association Malaysia (CCAM) has brought several projects

with international potential to EFM to find co-producers, co-investors and sales agents. These include Dawn Raid: The Hands That Rattled The Queen, which Malaysian actor and film-maker Bront Palarae plans to direct.

The film recounts events in 1981 when plantation owner Guthrie Group, originally a UK trading company, was brought under Malaysian control after the government engineered a raid at the London Stock Exchange.

The English-language project has secured development funding from Malays i a’s N a t i o n a l F i l m Development Corp (FINAS).

Edinburgh makes progress Edinburgh International Film Festival is to introduce a works-in-progress section and has revealed its next country focus.

The works-in-progress event will offer up to seven UK narrative feature titles to an invited audience of sales agents, financiers, festival programmers and distributors.

The festival, which celebrates its 70th edition, has also revealed this year’s country focus will be Finland. Working in association with the Finnish Film Foundation, Edinburgh will present a programme of new Finnish features as well as industry activity and special guests from across the country’s production landscape.

Film festival chiefs from Venice, Cannes and Toronto were among those supporting an #ISupportBIFF event in Berlin yesterday. The campaign is raising support for Busan International Film Festival, which has been under government pressure since it screened controversial doc The Truth Shall Not Sink With Sewol in 2014.

EFP’S SHOOTING STARS 2016 LOU DE LAAGE FRANCE my acting dreams come true.

Big break?

Working on Breathe with Mélanie Laurent.

Next up?

I am working with Mélanie again, but this time on stage.

Sarah Cooper

iProductions to plough millions into Arab films

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris’ iProductions is making its EFM debut with its first feature and has revealed plans to invest around $8m in Arab films.

Amgad Sabry, CEO of the Cairo-based production company that launched in 2014, is in Berlin for meetings with festival programmers and buyers about its first feature, Mawlana. iProductions is set to invest around $8m in 10 features a year.

The company recently

6 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

boarded Egyptian director Hadi El Bagoury’s Hepta: The Last Lecture, an adaptation of a bestselling novel

by Mohamed Sadek tackling the seven stages of love.

Aside from Egypt-set fare, the company is also looking to invest in productions throughout the Arab world and is in talks to board Saudi Arabian and Jordanian productions.

“Our aim is to produce films touching on contemporary topics and burning, sometimes controversial, issues,” Sabry told Screen.

Eric Guillemain

Biggest inspiration?

My parents showed us the films of Chaplin, Jacques Demy and Jean Cocteau, films that projected us, even then, into a dream world. Then I got lucky and met a children’s drama teacher who made

Takeaway ordered for France FilmSharks has licensed French remake rights on the hit Latin comedy Chinese Takeaway (Un Cuento Chino) to 22h22 Films. Hector Cabello Reyes will direct Benoit Poelvoorde, Alexandra Lamy and Pitobash Tripathy in Brussels through the end of March.

FilmSharks has also acquired worldwide remake rights to The Commonwealth (La Comunidad).

Jeremy Kay

www.screendaily.com

© Filip Van Roe

Shooting Stars are Europe’s best up-and-coming actors, selected annually by an international jury.

© Debora Brune

share your personal impressions #Berlinale ShootingStars

Martha Canga Antonio Belgium

© Eric Guillemain

Introduced at the Berlin International Film Festival February 12 – 15

Jella Haase Germany

© Federico Ferrantini

© Janita Sassen

Lou de Laâge France

Honoured with the European Shooting Stars Award donated

by TESIRO. www.shooting-stars.eu berlinale.shooting-stars.eu

Reinout Scholten van Aschat The Netherlands

© Sarah Robine

© Ona Pinkus

Sara Serraiocco Italy

Kacey Mottet Klein Switzerland

Daphné Patakia Greece

© Ruben Vega

Participating EFP members Croatian Audiovisual Centre, EYE International/ The Netherlands, Flanders Image/ Belgium, German Films, Greek Film Centre, ICA A / Spain, Icelandic Film Centre, Istituto Luce Cinecittà /Italy, Swiss Films, UniFrance films.

© Magnús Reynir Jónsson

© Ana Mihalić

María Valverde Spain

Tihana Lazović Croatia

European Film Promotion info@efp-online.com www.shooting-stars.eu

Atli Óskar Fjalarsson Iceland

With the support of

European Shooting Stars Main Partner

Co-Partner

Third Partner

Event Partners

medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH

Special Thanks

EFP is supported by

BERLIN DAYS

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Q&A MICHAEL GRANDAGE GENIUS

Mustang

Rearing an awards thoroughbred

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Awards season observers trying to spot future best foreign-language film contenders in next year’s Academy Awards should keep an eye on the upcoming acquisitions of Cohen Media Group, here at EFM. The New York-based distributor — which specialises in arthouse fare, much of it French produced — was in the Academy’s foreign-language race in 2015 with Timbuktu and this year is back with Mustang.

The track record is not by chance, says Cohen Media’s head of acquisitions John Kochman, who is in attendance here. “Aside from looking for a film that’s going to work with an audience and critics, we’re always looking for that movie with Oscar potential,” he says. “When we saw Mustang in Cannes, we were thinking about that from the moment we negotiated [the deal] in the final days of the festival — how to release the film in such a way to support a nomination.”

A November 20 release date in the US was a key part of the company’s strategy to position Mus-

Genius

Mustang’s Deniz Gamze Erguven at the European Film Awards

tang. “We wanted the film to be talked about as early as possible in the Oscar season,” says Kochman.

“We brought Deniz [Gamze Erguven] and the girls over to Toronto and then to the US for the release, so they had been to North America twice by the time the nominations came around.”

Aside from making it onto a foreign-language shortlist that includes Son Of Saul, Mustang is also one of the front runners in France’s national César awards in Paris on February 26, with nine nominations.

‘Aside from looking for a film that is going to work with an audience and critics, we’re always looking for that movie with Oscar potential’ John Kochman, Cohen Media

8 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Michael Grandage, who was artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse theatre from 2002-12, makes his film directing debut with Genius, an adaptation of A Scott Berg’s prize-winning novel about the relationship between famed literary editor Max Perkins and authors such as Thomas Wolfe and Ernest Hemingway. Colin Firth is Perkins, Jude Law plays Wolfe and Dominic West is Hemingway.

The film, which is here in Competition, also features Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney and Guy Pearce, and was produced by Grandage, James Bierman and screenwriter John Logan, with Riverstone Pictures financing and FilmNation Entertainment handling worldwide sales.

You must have had film directing offers before. What appealed about Genius?

A lot of film offers came my way during the 10 years I was at the Donmar but I was running a theatre. With this script, I saw huge parallels between what a theatre director does and what Max Perkins does in the story. An editor and a director have this extraordinary talent in front of them and the job is to somehow help bring it before a public. My way into Genius was how

beautifully it articulated the role of certain creative people behind the creative source.

What was most daunting about stepping behind the camera for the first time?

Everything. I was going completely out of my comfort zone. The only part of the process I felt in control of was a dialogue with actors.

I knew I wanted to make this a film about really investigating passionate performances at a level we would examine in the theatre.

I also spent a year and a half properly investigating so I at least knew what end of the camera to look into. Sam Mendes, my predecessor at the Donmar, and Kenneth Branagh, who I’ve worked with a lot in the theatre — I just basically spent a lot of time with them and visited their sets.

Which sets did you visit?

When I first started this process, Ken was filming Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and then he went on to Cinderella so I got onto

both of those sets with him. On Jack Ryan, he brought me along to see a scene, then got me back and followed the scene right the way through to the final edit. Also, because he was in Jack Ryan and because I’ve directed him before, he very sweetly said: “OK, I’m going to go into this scene, will you stay beside the camera and tell me what we’re going to do here?”

Are you developing other films?

I’d like to direct again and the play I did recently with Nicole Kidman in London’s West End [Photograph 51, about the female scientist Rosalind Franklin who helped discover the structure of DNA] lends itself beautifully to a filmic structure. I’ve got Nicole committed to it. The writer of the play, Anna Ziegler, has done a first draft of a screenplay and it’s opened the film up beautifully. It’s too early to say it’s happening on this date but there is certainly a commitment from me and Nicole to make the story as quickly as possible.

Michael Grandage

Interview by Matt Mueller

www.screendaily.com

LAST PRIVATE SCREENING FOR BUYERS, BY INVITATION ONLY TODAY, Monday 15th at 11:20 at Dffb-Kino

THE CHOSEN Spy-thriller/ English / 2016 / 124’

OUR LOVERS Romantic Comedy / Spanish / 2016 / 80’

BARCELONA CHRISTMAS NIGHT

LAST PRIVATE SCREENING FOR BUYERS,

BY INVITATION ONLY

LAST MARKET SCREENING

TOMORROW, Tuesday 16th at 9:30 at CinemaxX 2

TOMORROW, Tuesday 16th at 17:00 at Kino Arsenal 2

Romantic Comedy / Spanish-Catalan 2015 / 104’

FILMAX INTERNATIONAL AT EFM: Marriott #272-270 filmaxint@filmax.com www.filmaxinternational.com

Reviews Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan

finn.halligan@screendaily.com

24 Weeks Reviewed by Wendy Ide The second feature from Anne Zohra Berrached addresses one of the most difficult decisions that a woman may have to make in her life. Astrid (Julia Jentsch) must choose whether or not to have a late-term abortion when she discovers her unborn child’s health is severely compromised. It is a emotive subject and Berrached does not give her characters — or her audience — an easy ride.

Through a combination of unflinching, highquality performances and some assiduous button-pushing, Berrached has put together a wrenchingly affecting picture. But while tears will be shed — and plenty of them, if the Berlinale press screening was anything to go by — the considerable emotional impact of 24 Weeks (24 Wochen) does not quite obscure the fact there are several questionable directing decisions here.

The hot-button topicality of the picture should ensure it will play a role in the ongoing debate about a woman’s right to choose to abort a viable foetus. It will also present a considerable marketing challenge. While the Palme d’Or win did not hurt the prospects of Christian Mungui’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, it was the film’s taut quasi-thriller structure that mitigated the bleak subject matter for audiences.

The emotional journey of 24 Weeks forces us to identify deeply with Astrid’s anguish and as

Letters From War Reviewed by Jonathan Romney Sceptics may object that war on screen has rarely looked as beautiful as it does in Letters From War, the black-and-white feature by Portuguese director Ivo M Ferreira. But this extraordinary non-narrative work illustrates the ability of the imaginative spirit — embodied here by a novelist in a combat zone — to find beauty and hope even amid horror and the soulcrushing tedium of the military condition.

Based on the letters from Angola of novelist Antonio Lobo Antunes, this film is a hugely ambitious evocation of Portugal’s recent colonial past and a mesmerising experiment in reconciling hard realism at its most detailed with formal experimentation on a near-abstract level.

The film’s extraordinary visual signature, its richness as a historical statement, plus a potent emotional charge should tweak the interest of arthouse buyers and fest programmers alike, especially given the resurgence of interest in Portuguese art cinema, as represented by Miguel Gomes, Pedro Costa et al.

10 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

» 24 Weeks p10 » Letters From War p10 » Being 17 p12 » National Bird p12

» While The Women Are Sleeping p14 » Joseph’s Son p14 » All Of A Sudden p15 » A Quiet Passion p15

Competition Ger. 2016. 102mins Director Anne Zohra Berrached Production company zero one film International sales Beta Cinema, beta@betacinema.com Producer Thomas Kufus, Melanie Berke, Tobias Büchner Screenplay Carl Gerber, Anne Zohra Berrached Cinematography Friede Clausz Editor Denys Darahan Production design Janina Schimmelbauer, Fabian Reber Main cast Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Mädel, Johanna Gastdorf, Emilia Pieske

such it can be a gruelling viewing experience.

Any theatrical deals will be made in the knowledge that even within the sector, this will be a tough sell. Reviews will be crucial.

Astrid (Jentsch) is a successful television comedian; Markus (Bjarne Mädel), her boyfriend, is also her manager. Their domestic harmony is established in a tracking shot that follows Astrid as she chases her daughter around the garden. The camerawork becomes increasingly agitated as the couple struggle to come to terms with the news their unborn son has Down’s Syndrome and a serious heart defect.

Astrid and Markus decide initially to proceed with the pregnancy but as she learns more about her child’s grave health problems, Astrid starts to have doubts. As their relationship begins to suf-

Competition Por. 2016. 105mins Director Ivo M Ferreira Production company O Som e a Furia International sales The Match Factory, info@matchfactory.de Producer Luis Urbano Screenplay Ivo M Ferreira, Edgar Medina, based on the book by Antonio Lobo Antunes Cinematography Joao Ribeiro Production designer Nuno Mello Editor Sandro Aguilar Main cast Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira, Joao Pedro Vaz, Joao Pedro Mamede

This is the third feature from former documentarist Ferreira, following Em Volta and April Showers. Lieutenant Antonio (Miguel Nunes) is a young army medical officer posted to the then-Portuguese colony of Angola in 1971. Throughout the film, images of his experience in the field are set to voice-over readings of his letters to wife Maria-Jose (Margarida Vila-Nova), pregnant at home in Portugal and occasionally glimpsed in the couple’s bookfilled apartment. The letters are heard sometimes in Antonio’s voice, but more often in hers, creating a sense of merging between the

fer, Astrid and Markus face added pressure from the fact that, as a celebrity, her pregnancy is considered public property.

Berrached’s approach is naturalistic and, at first at least, spiked with spirited flashes of humour. Which is why, when on two occasions she has Jentsch gaze directly into the camera, it is slightly jarring, chipping away at the fourth wall and lifting us momentarily out of the film. More troubling is the use, at key moments, of footage of a foetus in utero. Given the uncompromising candour of the rest of the film, this pointed reminder that the life of an unborn child hangs in the balance can feel like a manipulation too far.

Screen Score

★★★

separated and deeply enamoured spouses.

Starting from images of Antonio’s journey to Africa on a troop ship, Ferreira and a team including production designer Nuno Mello create painstakingly detailed and realistic images of the lieutenant’s experience, from stretches of heat-baked, mosquito-bitten boredom to moments in which the intensity and futility of war come alive.

While the film’s view of the Angolan conflict is seen strictly through the lieutenant’s eyes, this is in no way a Portuguese equivalent of those Vietnam movies which present that conflict as purely an American trauma. Both Antonio and his equally intellectual captain (Joao Pedro Vaz) are more than lucid about the misguidedness of Portugal’s last-ditch attempt to hold onto its colonies, with Antonio recording his own gradual conversion to left-wing politics.

While the film’s intensely aesthetic, non-narrative drift may not be to all tastes, Ferreira has pulled off a substantial contribution not only to Portugal’s cinematic musings on its colonial past, but to war cinema in general.

Screen Score

★★★★ www.screendaily.com

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REVIEWS

National Bird Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Being 17 Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

COmpetition

Whether working on a small canvas or exploring the more expansive scope of his ensemble pieces, veteran director André Téchiné can usually be counted on to provide a psychological and dramatic depth that makes him one of the greats of contemporary French cinema. Back on more stable ground following the awkward prestige-chic of 2014’s true crime story In The Name Of My Daughter, Téchiné’s latest is a compact drama that nevertheless flourishes against a huge, imposing mountain backdrop.

Co-scripted by Céline Sciamma, director of Water Lilies and Girlhood, Being 17 manifestly benefits from her insight into the problems of young people searching for their social and sexual identities. This, combined with Téchiné’s controlled vision and superb direction, makes the new film a quietly potent proposition. While it won’t massively expand Téchiné’s regular audience, Sciamma’s involvement, together with strong youth and gay angles, will certainly keep commercial prospects buoyant.

As the end credits note, the film is loosely inspired by New Wave, a 2008 TV film by former Téchiné actor Gaël Morel. The story takes place over a year, with one school term per ‘chapter’, in a small community in the Pyrenees.

Sandrine Kiberlain plays Marianne, a doctor married to Nathan (Alexis Loret), an army helicopter pilot currently stationed in a Middle East combat zone. Their teenage son Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) is a high-school student, more cerebral than physical, and is in the throes of a simmering enmity with classmate Thomas (Corentin Fila), which soon comes to blows.

Withdrawn loner Thomas is the adopted son of a couple who run a remote mountain farm. You don’t have to be a Téchiné scholar to guess at the underlying psychological causes of the two boys’ enmity; suffice to say that Marianne’s attempts to reconcile the two warring lads opens a web of contradictory emotions for all concerned.

As well as showcasing a striking debut by sometime model Fila as the moody Thomas, the resemblance of Kiberlain and Klein as mother and son makes for inspired casting. Young Swiss actor Klein made his mark in Ursula Meier’s Home (2008) and Sister (2012), and here he is maturing into a compelling and brave actor, with his tough, emotionally nuanced rendition of teenage confusion. Kiberlain is as fine as ever, while Loret brings a bullishly male touch to the usually absent father.

Screen Score

Fr. 2016. 116mins Director André Téchiné Production companies Fidélité Films, France 2 Cinéma, Wild Bunch International sales Elle Driver, sales@elledriver.eu Producers Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier Executive producer Christine de Jekel Screenplay André Téchiné, Céline Sciamma Cinematography Julien Hirsch Production designer Olivier Radot Editor Albertine Lastera Music Alexis Rault Main cast Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila, Alexis Loret

Sonia Kennebeck’s debut feature documentary is an indictment of the US drone programme in Afghanistan through the testimony of three military whistle-blowers.

It is not interested in excuses or justifications. Nor is it by any means a comprehensive examination of this modern killer. Yet, anger isn’t the over-riding emotion here. It’s sadness, as these broken individuals face up to their individual culpability in a long-distance killing machine that is both inhuman and inhumane.

Kennebeck, whose picture was executive produced by Wim Wenders and Errol Morris, would like to hold the US authorities to account; National Bird shows that there is indeed a horrible reckoning, but it comes mostly from within. This is a personal film about guilt.

Kennebeck’s documentary feels like another piece in the puzzle of a broken America. The US is by no means the only country to engage in drone warfare though, and the fact this is not addressed here harnesses her argument to the domestic agenda.

Kennebeck melds the testimony of her whistle-blowers with footage shot in Afghanistan of the survivors of the notorious February 21, 2010 drone attack in which 27 innocent civilians, including one child, were killed.

Heather is possibly the most striking. A troubled young girl who wanted to get out of Pennsylvania and travel the world, she joined the airforce, not realising “one of the only options for travel is Afghanistan”. She became a drone imagery analyst; although she never pulled the trigger, she was charged with identifying targets.

Lisa, who is older, “lost my humanity working on the drone programme”. She goes to Afghanistan to distribute seeds and try to find forgiveness. Daniel is an activist; he is also mentally fragile. Kennebeck pairs their guilt with the pain of the Afghani survivors.

Kennebeck and her testifiers were forced to square up to almighty forces to produce this, as has every whistleblower who has come up against the US military. Legally they are hamstrung in what they can say, but the true extent of the drone programme is unknown, the numbers unverifiable. The failure to mention drone strikes which — if not legitimate — fall short of the atrocity of February 2010 hurts the film. The killing of ‘Jihadi John’, for example, is a grey area and a foray into it might have helped National Bird’s overall credibility.

Berlinale Special US. 2016. 96mins Director Sonia Kennebeck Producer Ines Hofmann Kanna International sales ro*co films international, christine@rocofilms.com US sales Submarine, info@submarine.com Executive producers Wim Wenders, Errol Morris Cinematography Torsten Lapp Editor Maxine Goedicke Music Insa Rudolph Title song ‘National Bird’

by Sole and DJ Pain 1

★★★

12 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

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PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN

by Rosie Stapel Screenings: Sun Feb 14 22:00 Wed Feb 17 17:00

MGB MGB

STRIKE A POSE

by Ester Gould & Reijer Zwaan Screenings: Mon Feb 15 17:00 Tue Feb 16 12:00 Wed Feb 17 17:45 Fri Feb 19 14:30 Sun Feb 21 17:30

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REVIEWS

Joseph’s Son Reviewed by Dan Fainaru

While The Women Are Sleeping Reviewed by Kohei Usuda Wayne Wang joins Gus Van Sant (The Sea Of Trees) and Martin Scorsese (The Silence) in choosing Japan as the setting for their latest films. While The Women Are Sleeping, however, is a fully fledged Japanese production financed by Dentsu and Toei Company with a local cast that includes some of the country’s top talents: actordirector Takeshi Kitano, Hidetoshi Nishijima (whose credits include Kitano’s Dolls and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s upcoming Creepy) and Shiori Kutsuna (The Assassin).

Based on the short story by Spanish author Javier Marias, this does not quite reach the artistic heights of Abbas Kiarostami’s similarly themed Japanese-language drama Like Someone In Love but it marks a return to form for the director of The Joy Luck Club. A strong visual aesthetic combined with the presence of Kitano should lead to healthy returns at home, while the name value of this pairing, accompanied by good notices, should encourage overseas marketability among arthouse audiences.

Set in a coastal resort town, the film begins with novelist Kenji (Nishijima) arriving at a luxury hotel for a weeklong vacation with his wife Aya (Sayuri Oyamada). On the first day, Kenji is captivated by a mysterious couple: an elderly man named Sahara (Kitano) and his beautiful young lover (Kutsuna).

Kenji’s occupational curiosity gets the better of him and he finds himself shadowing the pair around town, developing a complicit relationship with Sahara, the old man with a murky past who somehow holds sway over his much-younger lover. Kenji’s entanglement with Sahara turns into a series of sinister games involving repressed sexual desires, obsessive perversions, infidelity and voyeurism.

The film’s slow-burning narrative returns time and again to Kenji sitting in front of his laptop in his hotel room — purportedly writing his next novel — which becomes the film’s framing device. Is Sahara’s psychotic character a figment of Kenji’s fervid imagination, or a character in his next book?

Wang, a 67-year-old veteran of both Hollywood and the independent sector, inspires strong performances from his all-Japanese cast, led by the charismatic ‘Beat’ Kitano. Appearing in a film not his own for the first time in 12 years, Kitano delivers a masterclass, portraying an ambivalent character bordering on sanity and madness.

14 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Panorama Special Jap. 2016. 103mins Director Wayne Wang Production company Creative Associates International sales Toei Company, international@ toei.co.jp Producer Yukie Kito Executive producer Toichiro Shiraishi Screenplay Michael K Ray, Shinho Lee, Mami Sunada Cinematography Atsuhiro Nabeshima Editor Deirdre Slevin Production design Norifumi Ataka Music Youki Yamamoto Main cast Takeshi Kitano, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Shiori Kutsuna, Sayuri Oyamada, Lily Franky, Hirofumi Arai

French film-maker Eugene Green (Pont Des Arts, La Sapienza), best known as a stage and film director with a limited but faithful following in more refined circles, will most probably not see his latest film suddenly cross over to a mass market, even if it is co-produced by the Dardenne brothers. Arthouses, however, should not miss the chance to programme Joseph’s Son (Le Fils De Joseph).

Open-minded audiences will discover a surprisingly refreshing, intelligent and often entertaining, tonguein-cheek take on the nature of family bonds, using references from the Old and New Testament, with modern characters nicely fitting the mythical moulds without suspecting there is anything even remotely symbolical or divine about their existence.

Those familiar with Green’s films will have to stumble, once again, through somewhat stodgy direction, with actors facing the camera and dutifully reciting their dialogue, but once accustomed to the artifice, it evolves into a style of its own. The story itself is not immediately related to either the Old or New Testament, but the film’s division into seven chapters bearing titles such as ‘The Sacrifice of Abraham’, ‘The Golden Calf ’, ‘The Carpenter’ or ‘The Flight to Egypt’ are suggestive enough to leave no doubt about the inspiration.

Vincent (Victor Ezenfis), the 15-year-old son of single mother Marie (Natacha Régnier), is tormented by her refusal to reveal the name of his biological father. Rummaging through her papers he discovers that it is Oscar Pormenor (Mathieu Amalric), a morally abject, pompous publisher who asked Marie, at the time, to get rid of a pregnancy he had no interest in.

Vincent intends to wreak his revenge on Oscar, but in the process gets to meet Pormenor’s brother, Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione), a disinherited prodigal son who hopes to atone for his past sins but is rejected by his rich sibling. Walking through Paris and engaging in long conversations on art and life, Vincent and Joseph become closer until the younger man brings his older friend home to meet his mother, in the not-so-secret hope of seeing him become the father he never had. Having parents called Marie and Joseph would be just perfect.

Régnier, Rongione and Amalric, who have already been in a number of Green’s films, seem perfectly comfortable with the kind of whimsical performance he expects from them while Ezenfis has just the right kind of wounded, rebellious innocence required by his part.

Forum Fr-Bel. 2016. 115mins Director/screenplay Eugene Green Production company Coffee And Films International sales Les Films de Losange, b.vincent@ filmsdulosange.fr Producers Francine Jacob, Didier Jacob, Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne Cinematography Raphael O’Byrne Editing Valérie Loiseleux Production design Paul Rouschop Music Adam Michna Z Otradovic, Emilio de Cavalieri, Domenico Mazzocchi Cast Victor Ezenfis, Natacha Régnier, Fabrizio Rongione, Mathieu Amalric, Maria de Medeiros, Julia de Gasquet, Jacques Bonnaffé

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A Quiet Passion Reviewed by Lee Marshall

All Of A Sudden Reviewed by Jonathan Romney Pricking the bubble of bourgeois complacency is something that European art cinema can be counted on to do with stalwart regularity, but the operation is handled with particular grace in All Of A Sudden (Auf Einmal), a first German-language feature from Turkish writer-director Asli Ozge. Ostensibly a mystery thriller — although the real enigma revolves around psychological and social motives rather than the inciting incident as such — Ozge’s drama unpeels the layers of its protagonist, and of his social milieu, to increasingly uncomfortable effect.

Driven by unimpeachable intellectual seriousness, this distinguished piece could strike a chord in discerning arthouse markets, although it could benefit from a rather less flimsy-sounding English-language title.

Ozge made her mark with 2009 debut Men On The Bridge. Following another Turkish feature, Lifelong (2013), she now shifts persuasively into a different language and milieu. The concise set-up involves a young middle-class professional, Karsten (Sebastian Hülk), seen spending intimate time with a woman who is the last to stay late at his party. The next thing we know, Karsten is racing through the streets in a panic, and the woman is dead. The question that now hangs over him is why he didn’t act more quickly to save her life, and whether he is therefore directly responsible for her death.

But Ozge’s focus now turns to the repercussions on Karsten’s life. Friends in his pampered milieu distance themselves from him, and a rift forms with his girlfriend Laura (a compelling Julia Jentsch) after it emerges he hasn’t been quite straight with the facts. Meanwhile, Karsten’s moneyed father (the reliably good Hanns Zischler) wants to maintain the status quo for his family’s reputation, while the bank where Karsten is an exec quickly performs a callous exercise of damage limitation.

Ozge keeps us guessing about the nature of Karsten’s involvement in the death of the mystery woman, who turns out to be Anna, the Russian wife of a factory worker — and some sharp character revelations emerge in the climactic encounter with her husband (Alexander Gersak). The film’s power rests largely on a tantalising lead by Hülk. Emre Erkmen’s camerawork gives this essentially realist piece just the right touch of atmospheric stylisation, aided by Tim Pannen’s production design and Jan Schermer’s sound, with their telling use of space and silence respectively.

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Panorama Special Ger-Neth-Fr. 2016.

112mins Director/screenplay Asli Ozge Production companies EEE Productions, Topkapi Films, Haut et Court International sales Memento Films International, sales@ memento-films.com Producers Fabian Massah, Asli Ozge Co-producers Frans van Gestel, Arnold Heslenfeld, Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta, Georges Schoucair Cinematography Emre Erkmen Production designer Tim Pannen Editors Muriel Breton, Asli Ozge Main cast Sebastian Hülk, Julia Jentsch, Hanns Zischler, Sascha Alexander Gersak, Luise Heyer

Special gala

The poems of Emily Dickinson were little published and less read in her lifetime; since her death in 1886 at the age of 55, the reputation of the reclusive Massachusetts poet has grown to the point where she is today ranked among the very greatest US writers. In his sometimes stilted but ultimately rather majestic and moving biopic of Dickinson, UK auteur Terence Davies takes what is known of the poet’s life and turns it into a series of carefully poised dramatic tableaux. If The House Of Mirth was a literary adaptation, A Quiet Passion is something else — a deeply literary film.

This is a long, slow trip for viewers, not all of whom will respond warmly. A more challenging watch than 2015’s Sunset Song, despite its (initially) lighter feel, this is a title that will need careful nurturing in arthouse markets. At first the tone is stiff and oddly comic, with a whiff of amateur theatricals: it feels at times like an Oscar Wilde play done by a director who has read too much Brecht. If A Quiet Passion grows in stature as we watch, it is thanks partly to Cynthia Nixon, whose account of a witty, intelligent, rebellious but also reticent and emotionally confused woman takes the edge off Davies’ sometimes grating formalism; Jennifer Ehle too aids with a fine supporting turn as Emily’s younger sister.

A Quiet Passion covers the period between the poet’s departure from a ladies’ college aged 17 to her death.

Embroidering on what is known of Dickinson by presenting her, for example, as a proto-feminist, Davies embeds her in the life of a loving, cultured family that also includes her lawyer father Edward (Keith Carradine), brother Austin (Duncan Duff) and his young bride Susan (Jodhi May), and a scandalously unconventional younger friend, Miss Buffman (a sparkling Catherine Bailey).

Fiercely independent, Emily refuses to go to church and writes her short, epigrammatic verses at night.

Judged condescendingly by most of the few men she tentatively shows them to, Dickinson is shown as a woman hungry for praise, and perhaps romantic love, but fiercely protective of her creative and emotional independence.

Eventually, illness and the departure or death of those close to her shake the spirit of a woman whose gradual withdrawal from life, Davies suggests, took place because she was so emotionally exposed to it. A finely judged and spare use of music, culminating in Charles Ives’ elegiac ‘The Unanswered Question’ in the final movement, supports the film’s graceful symphonic structure.

UK-Bel. 2016. 126mins Director/screenplay Terence Davies Production companies Hurricane Films, Potemkino, Scope Pictures production International sales Double Dutch International, ron@ doubledutchmedia.ca Producers Roy Boulter, Sol Papadopoulos Executive producers Andrea Gibson, Jason Van Eman, Ross Marroso, Ben McConley, Ron Moring, Jason Moring, Genevieve Lemal, Alain-Gilles Viellevoye, Dominic Ianno, Stuart Pollok Cinematography Florian Hoffmeister Editor Pia Di Ciaula Production designer Merijn Sep Main cast Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, Emma Bell, Duncan Duff, Jodhi May, Catherine Bailey, Joanna Bacon

February 15, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 15

SPOTLIGHT THE SOLUTION

Solution packs a punch Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel, co-founders of Los Angeles-based sales outfit The Solution Entertainment Group, discuss their push into finance and production, and how they plan to stay ahead. By John Hazelton

T

he company name is “a little bit tongue in cheek”, says Lisa Wilson, co-founder of The Solution Entertainment Group. But the moniker is also meant — in all seriousness — to suggest the role this Los Angeles-based sales and financing outfit sees itself playing in a competitive and fast-changing business.

“Invariably, producers need help to get their movies made,” says Myles Nestel, Wilson’s partner in the venture and fellow cofounder, “whether it’s just doing foreign sales, structuring the finance, facilitating talent deals or making offers. We try to be a solution to those issues that arise during any production process.”

The company was launched four years ago with the intention of combining the strengths that its founders — both of whom started in the UK industry — have developed in their respective fields.

Nestel comes from the investment banking world and first made his mark in Hollywood as co-head of the Los Angeles office of the UK’s NatWest Bank. He went on to co-found Cobalt Media Group and lead his own operations, Oceana Media Finance and Merlina Entertainment. Wilson is an industry veteran who started her career at John Heyman’s World Film Services before handing international sales at Nu Image, Hyde Park, GK Films and Parlay Films.

The Solution received its initial backing from high-net-worth individuals, one of whom, Craig Chapman, is the company’s third partner and co-founder (Chapman also helped launch Siren Studios, a Los Angeles-based production services firm that has worked with The Solution). The backing has allowed The Solution to get involved in four to six films a year, mostly as an international sales representative — as it was, for example, on Miles Teller boxing biopic Bleed For This and Richard Gere thriller Oppenheimer Strategies — but sometimes as a provider of pre-production, leveraged debt or equity financing as well.

Two years ago, the company started optioning and developing material itself, because, says Nestel, “it’s important for us to have our own slate of proprietary material that we control.

The goal is to create a library beyond just sales agency rights.” And now, The Solution is putting together what Nestel

16 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Miles Teller in Bleed For This

describes as “a large equity fund out of Wall Street”, with closing expected in the next three to six months.

“The goal,” Nestel says, “is to be able to fully finance pictures across the board without even having to go to third parties. What that does, ultimately, is give you more buying power. If you have that capital base, you can easily outmanoeuvre competitors in the marketplace.”

Berlin offerings The early results of the push into finance and production can be seen in The Solution’s European Film Market slate. Berlin offerings that it has helped finance include Aaron Eckhart cop thriller Live!, Ryan Reynolds comedy drama Truth In Advertising and espionage thriller Official Secrets, with Paul Bettany, Anthony Hopkins and Harrison Ford.

Among third-party projects on which The Solution will be acting as sales agent in Berlin are the Walter Hill-directed crime thriller Tomboy, A Revenger’s Tale starring Sigourney Weaver (a promo for which is screening at the market) and The Sleeping Shepherd, a heist drama recently added to the slate, with Michael Pitt, Imogen Poots and Isabelle Huppert starring in the true-life story of a failed painter turned art thief.

‘The goal is to be able to fully finance pictures across the board’ Myles Nestel, The Solution Entertainment Group

(Left) company co-founder Lisa Wilson

In pursuing projects, The Solution partners insist their main criteria are the strength of the material and the producer’s track record. “For me,” says Wilson, “it’s about the package, and it starts with the material.

When we have a really great piece of material, we like to work with the producers and make suggestions about cast and director and locations and how to maximise the value of the film.”

A focus on quality rather than volume helps a relatively small company like The Solution to establish a reputation with buyers, Wilson suggests. “What we have created is a company that’s very clearly branded and the distributors know we don’t take on stuff just to churn it for the overhead,” she says. “So when we send out projects, there is an expectation that it’s going to be at a certain quality.”

And reputation can be an important asset in a business that, as Nestel sees it, is only becoming more competitive. “The foreign sales business is getting increasingly scrappy,” The Solution co-founder asserts. “There are probably too many sales companies for the product. There probably will come a time soon where there is a consolidation of sorts, or where smaller companies will fold or wrap themselves into bigger companies.”

In that kind of situation, Nestel believes, The Solution’s edge will be its blend of enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit. “We’re incredibly passionate,” he says. “We believe in s what we do and what we’re trying to create.” ■

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INSIDE THE CHINESE CLOSET

by Sophia Luvarà

Sun Feb 14 Tue Feb 16

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ANTS ON A SHRIMP

by Maurice Dekkers

Screenings: Thu Feb 11 14:55

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Tue Feb 16 22:00

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IN FOCUS HUNGARY

Bence Fliegauf’s Lily Lane plays here in Forum

REBIRTH OF AN INDUSTRY A new dynamism in the Hungarian film sector has dissipated any hangover from the funding-body upheavals of recent years. Geoffrey Macnab reports

F

ive years ago, the Hungarian film industry was in turmoil. At a packed and bad-tempered meeting during the 2011 Berlinale, the new film commissioner Andy Vajna addressed a meeting arranged by the Collegium Hungaricum, telling local producers and directors that the coffers were empty. The Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation (MMK) had collapsed under heavy debts. Now, Vajna was going to rebuild. There was intense suspicion in certain quarters about his motives. After all, Hungary was the country of auteurs such as Miklos Jancso, Istvan Szabo and Bela Tarr — and Vajna was the producer of Rambo and Total Recall.

As the 2016 Berlinale begins, the mood in the local industry is altogether more optimistic. The success of one film in particular — Laszlo Nemes’ Holocaustthemed debut feature Son Of Saul — has given Hungarian cinema a huge boost both internationally and at home. A Grand Prix winner in Cannes, a Golden Globe winner and now an Oscar front-runner, Son Of Saul has been sold to 80 countries. It was financed almost entirely by

the Hungarian Film Fund, the body set up to replace MMK. “I can already see the effect of the film on the Hungarian film industry, especially on the young film-makers,” says Agnes Havas, CEO of the Hungarian National Film Fund, of the ‘Nemes effect’.

“They see that a first film can get to the top of the road.”

Back in 2011, sceptics had worried the fund was going to reflect Vajna’s influence and tastes, and that auteur-driven cinema would be stifled at birth. There were worries that the industry, with its 25% tax rebate, would now focus on attracting big international productions rather than nurturing local film-makers.

Son Of Saul and other films, such as Kornel Mundruczo’s 2014 success White God, have dispelled such notions.

Last year, the fund launched a new ‘incubator’ programme to support young film-makers even further. Twelve lowbudget debut projects were selected (out of 67 submitted), of which five will eventually be made. The fund will provide $223,000 (¤200,000) for each of the five films selected. In effect, this is a callingcard initiative that should identify talent for the future. The initial batch of incubator projects include animation, dramatic features and a documentary.

Meanwhile, both Nemes and Mundruczo have new features in advanced development. Nemes recently won $55,800 (¤50,000) for his new project, Sunset Sunset, set in Hungary ahead of the First World War (again, the film will be supported by the Hungarian Film Laszlo Nemes’ Fund). Meanwhile, Mundruczo is pushSon Of Saul ing on with Superfluous Man — Story Of

18 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

‘I can already see the effect of the film on the Hungarian film industry’ Agnes Havas, Hungarian National Film Fund, on Son Of Saul

A Refugee, which recently received Eurimages support.

Many observers outside Hungary have been fiercely critical of media reforms under prime minister Viktor Orban, which are felt to have limited freedom of speech. Orban sent a letter to Nemes and his crew, congratulating them on their achievements, and also enthused about the success of Son Of Saul on Facebook.

He isn’t the only fan; many of the country’s younger generation have been watching, with Nemes’ film sparking an anguished discussion about anti-semitism in Hungarian society.

When Son Of Saul picked up its Oscar nomination, admissions in Hungarian cinemas increased 20% and the film climbed back into the top 10. “I see this as a great sign,” Havas says. In the wake of Nemes’ success, other Hungarian filmmakers are also attracting sizeable local audiences. For example, Andreas Kern’s Think Of Me reached 13,000 admissions on its first day in cinemas.

State support The Hungarian Film Fund itself continues to receive state backing through Lottery No. 6, which is worth approximately $17.8m (¤16m) a year. The fund aims to

support between 10 and 12 features and also encourages its film-makers to co-produce whenever possible (White God and Janos Szasz’s The Notebook were co-productions).

The Hungarian Film Week is due to take place in early March, and will showcase local titles to local audiences at a discount. In the past, the film week was aimed at international visitors.

With the 2016 Berlinale under way, Havas is optimistic the momentum generated by Son Of Saul won’t be lost. Bence Fliegauf ’s Lily Lane is screening here in Forum, and is sold in the market by Films Boutique. There are also several other projects contending for future festival selection, among them Attila Till’s Kills On Wheels, a thriller about a wheelchairbound man who joins a gang of hitmen working for the Mafia. Among Hungarian features likely to go into production this year are Eden, Agnes Kocsis’s third feature, about a forty-something who is allergic to almost everything and becomes increasingly isolated.

Local market share is still low, only about 5%, but is expected to increase as the fund invests in marketing as well as production.

As Havas reflects, the in-fighting that followed the disbanding of MMK now seems to have dissipated. “The mood has considerably changed,” she says. Fears the film fund under Vajna would support only genre films and action flicks have long since been put to rest. “There are arthouse films that are successful in international film festivals. They sell well abroad and the interest in Hungarian films [at home] is rising. People are turns ing back to Hungarian film.” ■

Screenings Edited by Paul Lindsell

Jury grid, page 44

paullindsell@gmail.com

Berlin venues ACUDKINO Veteranenstrasse 21 10119 Berlin AKADEMIE DER KuNSTE (HANSEATENWEG) Hanseatenweg 10 10557 Berlin Arsenal Cinema Potsdamer Strasse 2 10785 Berlin AUDI BERLINALE LOUNGE Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1 10785 Berlin

HAU HEBBEL AM UFER (HAU1, HAU2, HAU3) HAU1: Stresemannstrasse 29 HAU2: Hallesches Ufer 32 HAU3: Tempelhofer Ufer 10 10963 Berlin HAUS DER BERLINER FESTSPIELE Schaperstrasse 24 10719 Berlin

BABYLON KREUZBERG Dresdener Strasse 126 10999 Berlin

HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 10557 Berlin

BERLINALE PALAST Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1 10785 Berlin

Il KINO Nansenstrasse 22 12047 Berlin (Neukolln)

BOTSCHAFT VON KANADA Leipziger Platz 17 10117 Berlin

Kino INTERNATIONAL Karl-Marx-Allee 33 10178 Berlin

CinemaxX Potsdamer Platz Potsdamer Strasse 5, Entrance Voxstrasse 10785 Berlin

KINO UNION Bolschestrasse 69 12587 Berlin (Friedrichshagen)

CineStar in the Sony Centre Potsdamer Strasse 4 10785 Berlin CINESTAR imax Potsdamer Strasse 4 10785 Berlin CITY KINO WEDDING (in the Centre Francais de Berlin) Mullerstrasse 74 13349 Berlin

MARRIOTT HOTEL Inge-Beisheim-Platz 1 10785 Berlin MARTIN-GROPIUS-BAU (MGB) Niederkirchnerstrasse 7 10963 Berlin NEUE KAMMERSPIELE Karl-Marx-Strasse 18 14532 Kleinmachnow

Colosseum Schonhauser Allee 123 10437 Berlin

PREUSSISCHER LANDTAG (BERLIN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES) Niederkirchnerstrasse 5 10111 Berlin

Cubix Alexanderplatz, Rathausstrasse 1, 10178 Berlin

SILENT GREEN KULTURQUARTIER Gerichtstrasse 35 13347 Berlin

Delphi Filmpalast Kantstrasse 12a 10623 Berlin

SPUTNIK KINO Hasenheide 54 10967 Berlin (Kreuzberg)

DEUTSCHE KINEMATHEK Filmhaus, Potsdamer Strasse 2 10785 Berlin

TONI & TONINO Antonplatz 1 13086 Berlin

FILMTHEATER AM FRIEDRICHSHAIN Botzowstrasse 1-5 10407 Berlin FRIEDRICHSTADT-PALAST Friedrichstrasse 107 10117 Berlin GROPIUS MIRROR RESTAURANT Niederkirchnerstrasse 10963 Berlin

Zeughauskino Unter den Linden 2 10117 Berlin ZOO PALAST Hardenbergstrasse 29a 10623 Berlin

» Screening times and

venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration.

20 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Festival & Press

FestivaL

and press

09:00 Death in Sarajevo

(France, Bosnia and Herzegovina) 85mins.

Dir: Danis Tanovic.

Cast: Jacques Weber, Snezana Vidovic, Izudin Bajrovic, Vedrana Seksan, Muhamed Hadzovic.

Sarajevo in June 2014.

A century after the assassination that triggered the First World War, an appeal for peace is to be made. A satirical parable about political dreams and nightmares.

Competition press only Berlinale Palast

09:30 Letters from War

(Portugal) 105mins.

Dir: Ivo M Ferreira.

Cast: Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira, Joao Pedro Vaz, Joao Pedro Mamede.

The Portuguese Colonial War in Angola as seen through the eyes of a young military doctor in letters to his wife.

Competition Friedrichstadt-Palast

Paris 05:59

(France) 97mins.

Dir: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau.

Cast: Geoffrey Couet,

Francois Nambot.

Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau display consummate sensitivity in bringing us closer to two men as they strive for intimacy in spite of being stalled by their insecurity.

Panorama press only CineStar 3

Ted Sieger’s Molly Monster

(Switzerland, Germany, Sweden) 72mins. Dir: Ted Sieger, Michael Ekblad, Matthias Bruhn.

Cast: Sophie Rois, Gerrit Schmidt-Foss, Judy Winter, K Dieter Klebsch, Jasper Vogt.

Little monster Molly travels with her best friend Edison across mountains, canyons and seas to get to the place where all monsters are born. Molly’s parents have gone there to wait for their egg to hatch, but they’ve forgotten something important.

Generation Kplus Zoo Palast 1

Those Who Jump

(Denmark) 82mins.

Dir: Moritz Siebert, Estephan Wagner, Abou Bakar Sidibe.

Hundreds of migrants mass on Morocco’s Mount Gurugu in the hope of jumping the fence into the Spanish enclave of Melilla.

Malian migrant Abou films his surroundings there and finds pleasure in representing the battle for

10:00 Fortune Favors the Brave

(Germany) Propeler Film. 96mins.

Dir: Norbert Lechner.

Cast: Lynn Dortschack, Lisa Bahati Wihstutz, Linda Phuong Anh Dang, Andreas Schmidt, Lena Stolze.

Eleven-year-old Linh

a life in dignity on his own terms.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

09:45 Indignation

(US) 110mins.

Dir: James Schamus. Cast: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Edmond, Danny Burstein.

A place at college in Ohio saves Marcus, the son of a kosher butcher, from being drafted into military service in Korea. But his background makes him an outsider. He may be able to stand up confidently for his ideals but can he also live by them?

Panorama Special CinemaxX 7

10:00 24 Weeks

(Germany) 102mins.

Dir: Anne Zohra Berrached. Cast: Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Madel, Johanna Gastdorf, Emilia Pieske, Maria Dragus.

shows great grace under pressure. When her mother, who is raising her kids on her own, has to return unexpectedly to Vietnam, Linh looks after her little sister Tien and the family restaurant on her own.

Generation Kplus HKW

Centred on the dilemma faced by a woman who is already six months pregnant when she learns that her unborn child will have Down’s syndrome and a serious heart defect.

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Fortune Favors the Brave See box, above

URMILA — my memory is my power

(Germany) See-Saw Films. 90mins.

Dir: Susan Gluth.

Tells the story of 21-yearold Urmila from Nepal.

At the age of six she was sold by her family and was forced to work as a slave under appalling conditions.

Her dream is to end child slavery in Nepal.

LOLA at Berlinale Zoo Palast 2

Zud

(Germany, Poland) Eon Productions. 85mins. www.screendaily.com

»

Screenings

Dir: Marta Minorowicz.

Eleven-year-old Sukhbat is a child of the Mongolian steppes.

He wants to prevent his father’s slide into imminent debt by winning the purse in a big horse race. For the young horseman, taking on this formidable task also means having to say goodbye to his childhood.

Dickinson to give up her studies, she withdraws to her parents’ mansion and into the world of words.

Berlinale Special Gala Zoo Palast 1

Boris without Beatrice

(Canada) 93mins. Dir: Denis Cote. Cast: James Hyndman, Simone-Elise Girard, Denis Lavant, Isolda Dychauk, Dounia Sichov.

Businessman Boris Malinovsky goes through his life with ruthless arrogance. But his world begins to falter when his wife falls into a depression and a mysterious stranger confronts him with questions he would rather not answer.

Generation Kplus Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

11:00 Havarie

(Germany) 93mins.

Dir: Philip Scheffner.

Cast: Rhim Ibrir, Abdallah Benhamou, Leonid Savin, Guillaume Coutu-Lemaire, Emma Gillings.

A three-minute video clip of a tiny dinghy floating in the Mediterranean is extended to feature-length.

The coastguard’s radio broadcasts, the accounts of those possibly on the boat and the hobby film-maker each leave their mark on the voiceover.

Festival & Press 11:45 Alone in Berlin

(Germany, France, UK) 97mins. Dir: Vincent Perez. Cast: Emma Thompson, Brendan Gleeson, Daniel Bruhl, Mikael Persbrandt, Monique Chaumette.

11:30

24 Weeks

(Germany) 102mins.

Dir: Anne Zohra Berrached. Cast: Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Madel, Johanna Gastdorf, Emilia Pieske, Maria Dragus.

11:45

Panamerican Machinery

Alone in Berlin See box, above

Panorama Special press only CinemaxX 7

Forum HAU Hebbel am Ufer

The World of Us

(South Korea) 94mins.

Dir: Yoon Ga-eun.

Cast: Choi Soo-in, Seol Hye-in, Lee Seo-yeon.

An easy-going friendship develops between Sun and Jia, who’s new in town. But when the vacation comes to an end, the carefree days of summer give way to the realities of everyday life and their relationship is put to the test.

Generation Kplus CinemaxX 3

24 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

(Japan) Studio.TV.Film.

103mins. Dir: Wayne Wang. Cast: Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Shioli Kutsuna, Sayuri Oyamada, Lily Franky, Hirofumi Arai, Makiko Watanabe.

During a carefree summer an older man films a young woman every day with a video camera. This awakens a fatal curiosity in a novelist, evincing in him feelings of seduction, murder, lies and delusion that all hold an irresistible fascination for him.

(Germany, Norway) 92mins. Dir: Sonja Heiss.

Cast: Laura Tonke, Hans Low, Leander Nitsche.

Hedi, Uli and their son, Finn, have life sorted out. They take each day as it comes, all the while dreaming of the future.

Then, suddenly, Hedi gets stuck.

(Mexico, Poland) Acrobates Films. 86mins.

Dir: Joaquin del Paso.

Cast: Javier Zaragoza, Ramiro Orozco, Irene Ramirez, Edmundo Mosqueira, Delfino Lopez.

Progress and productivity are foreign concepts at Maquinaria Panamericana, where chatting is prized over working. When the boss of the small company dies and the staff realise he’s been paying their wages from his own pocket, drastic measures are necessary.

(Algeria, France, Belgium) 97mins.

Dir: Rachid Bouchareb.

Cast: Astrid Whettnall, Pauline Burlet, Patricia Ide, Abel Jafri.

A Belgian mother goes to Syria to try to find and bring back home her daughter, who has joined the jihadists. Director Rachid Bouchareb addresses a clash of two very different ideologies.

An issue of pressing topicality.

Retrospektive CinemaxX 8

Hedi Schneider is stuck

Piece of Land

Road to Istanbul

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Competition press only Berlinale Palast

(Germany) 122mins.

Dir: Volker Koepp.

Idyllic landscape shots and conversations with local inhabitants convey the different facets of the Uckermark in eastern Germany: a unique natural habitat, an embodiment of demographic change, a battle zone where agribusiness and organic farming duke it out.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

education for labourers, Thilo Koch uses interviews to point up the complexity of women’s careers in West Germany.

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

Forum CineStar 8

11:15

life and work. We see the artist in action and get to know him as a critical chronicler of American history and an anarchist in all circumstances.

When their son is killed during the Second World War, a Berlin couple begin sending out anonymous postcards in resistance to the war and violence.

12:00 Choosing to Learn

(German Democratic Republic) 24mins.

Dir: Peter Ulbrich.

Two journalistic reports on working women.

Retrospektive CinemaxX 8

Four Corners of a circle

(Germany) 25mins.

Dir: Katarina Stankovic.

The spirit of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo hovers over the associative storylines of this cinematic essay. A reflection upon loose connections and final absences as well as a eulogy to the love of life.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino Colosseum 1

Don’t Blink — Robert Frank

(US, France) 82mins.

Dir: Laura Israel.

Cast: Robert Frank.

The renowned photographer looks back self-confidently but also self-deprecatingly at his

12:15

Competition FriedrichstadtPalast

TrivSa

(Germany) 75mins.

Dir: Kamilla Pfeffer.

Cast: Oda Jaune.

Monstrosity and tenderness lie side by side in Oda Jaune’s paintings.

A discreet approach to observing a young artist in the fragile act of painting, without damaging it in the process nor resorting to trite illustration.

(Hong Kong, China) 97mins. Dir: Frank Hui, Jevons Au, Vicky Wong.

Cast: Lam Ka Tung, Richie Jen, Jordan Chan, Tommy Wong Kwong Leung, Ngok Elliot.

Though unknown to each other, the notoriety of three infamous criminals has bred the rumour that they will join forces for a heist on the cusp of Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997, so much so that they are tempted to do just that.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino Colosseum 1

Forum Kino Arsenal 1

LOLA at Berlinale Zoo Palast 2

Who is Oda Jaune?

12:30

Women in Germany.

Thilo Koch Reports

A Quiet Passion

(Federal Republic of Germany) 46mins.

Dir: Peter Otto.

Cast: Thilo Koch, Phil Helge Pross.

Two journalistic reports on working women. While the East German film stresses the need for academic

(UK, Belgium) Zampa Audiovisual. 120mins.

Dir: Terence Davies.

Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, Emma Bell, Duncan Duff.

When emotional trauma forces talented Emily

While the Women Are Sleeping

Panorama Special CinemaxX 7

13:00 Louis & Nolan — The Big Cheese Race

(Norway) 78mins. Dir: Rasmus A Sivertsen.

Cast: Kari-Ann Gronsund, Trond Hovik, Per Skjolsvik, Kare Conradi.

There’s much more at stake than just honour in this showdown between two Norwegian villages.

If cocky Nolan and his teammates are to win, they’re going to have to be resourceful and stick together.

Generation Kplus HKW

13:45 Fathy Doesn’t Live here Anymore

(Egypt) 10mins.

Dir: Maged Nader.

www.screendaily.com

Cast: Amgad Reyad, Nada El Shazly.

An iconic picture of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullman from Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film ‘Persona’ stuck to a shampoo bottle triggers a tale of broken and unveiled dreams about a woman and an adventure of chasing for answers in modern-day Cairo.

‘Continuity’ begins as a straight-forward story of an emotional homecoming and turns uncanny as the two protagonists — a middle-aged couple living in a small town in Germany — repeatedly invite different young men into their home to perform an inscrutable ritual.

Forum Expanded Kino Arsenal 1

Forum Expanded press only CinemaxX 6

Junction 48

Muito RomAntico

(Germany, Brazil) 72mins. Dir: Melissa Dullius, Gustavo Jahn.

Cast: Melissa Dullius, Gustavo Jahn, Lilja Loffler, Nikolaus Tscheschner, Mei Wright.

The adventure of Melissa and Gustavo starts aboard a red cargo ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It takes them from Brazil to Berlin, a city of perpetual movement, where the old constantly has to give space to the new.

Festival & Press 14:00 The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo

(Japan) 47mins. Dir: Shinya Tsukamoto. Cast: Nariaki Senba, Nobu Kanaoka, Tomoroo Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Shinya Tsukamoto.

The Rain Women

A time-travelling fantasy about a bullied boy upon whose back an electrical pylon grows. It is he alone who can save humanity from a gang of destructive vampires.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

Forum Expanded press only CinemaxX 6

Tempestad

(Mexico) 105mins.

Dir: Tatiana Huezo.

One woman lands in a prison run by the drug cartels, while another loses her daughter. Over images of a journey through Mexico, the two testimonies are woven together into this stormriven account of a country in the grip of organised crime.

Forum CineStar 8

14:00 The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo See box, above

screened in 1981, this 8mm short film confirms Macoto Tezka’s talent as an effective, precise horror film director.

Forum Cubix 7

Isolation of 1/880000

(Japan) 43mins. Dir: Sogo Ishii. Cast: Makoto Nittono.

Revolves around the limping, sex-obsessed Teramitsu, who is preparing for the entrance exams at Waseda University in Tokyo. A lament of a man repressed that builds towards a violent outburst.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

From the Notebook of...

(US) 48mins.

Dir: Robert Beavers.

Cast: Robert Beavers.

The director explores the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci using his own camera and shooting style.

Forum Expanded Akademie der Kunste

High-School-Terror

(Japan) 6mins. Dir: Macoto Tezka. Cast: Tae Yoshioko, Kumiko Sakai.

Shot in 1979, but first

www.screendaily.com

Lotte

(Germany) 76mins.

Dir: Julius Schultheiss.

Cast: Karin Hanczewski, Zita Aretz, Paul Matzke, Christine Knispel, Marc Ben Puch.

One night Lotte is called into her local pub where she bumps into an old acquaintance from the distant past. Shortly afterwards she is pursued by both her past and a person, both of which are

about to give her life a new direction.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino press only CinemaxX 5

Programme 5: East Meets West » A Nod from the Neighbours. Notes on the Oberhausen 66 Film Festival

(German Democratic Republic) 44mins.

Dir: Harry Hornig.

Cast: Gerhard Scheumann, Hermann Herlinghaus. » Berlin Open Bracket East Close Bracket

(Federal Republic of Germany) 10mins. Dir: Fritz Illing, Werner Klett. » Hope Comes Five Times a Day. Observations at a German Train Station

(Federal Republic of Germany) 30mins.

Dir: Hans-Dieter Grabe. » Pankoff. An AllGerman Affair

(German Democratic Republic) 21mins. Dir: Harry Hornig. Cast: Rolf Herricht, Harry Hornig.

Four shorts about varying encounters between East and West Germany.

Retrospektive CinemaxX 8

(Japan) 72mins.

Dir: Shinobu Yaguchi.

Cast: Kayoko Komaba, Miwa Makii.

Shinobu Yaguchi’s wonderfully melancholy debut follows two young women who share a flat.

They perform as a J-Pop duo, wear out countless umbrellas on their wanders through the soggy landscape and finally go their separate ways.

Forum Cubix 7

Rara

(Chile, Argentina) 91mins. Dir: Pepa San Martin. Cast: Julia Lubbert, Emilia Ossandon, Mariana Loyola, Agustina Munoz, Coca Guazzini.

After their parents’ separation, Sara and her sister live with their mother and her new girlfriend. While her father worries about the situation, Sara’s mind is mostly busy thinking about her upcoming birthday party and a boy from her volleyball team.

Generation Kplus CinemaxX 3

Shepherds and Butchers

(South Africa, US, Germany) Interior XIII. 100mins. Dir: Oliver Schmitz. Cast: Steve Coogan, Andrea Riseborough, Garion Dowds.

Pretoria, 1987. One rainy night a young white police

employee shoots dead seven members of a football club. What induced this hitherto blameless 19-year-old to commit such a crime? A courtroom drama that broadens into a plea against the death penalty.

Panorama International

UNK

(Japan) 15mins.

Dir: Macoto Tezka.

Cast: Natsuko Yamamoto.

At the age of 18, the director won the PIA Film Festival short film prize with this remake of Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters’.

Forum Cubix 7

Wreck it!

(Germany) Parallax Films. 98mins. Dir: Max Zahle. Cast: Lucas Gregorowicz, Frederick Lau, Anna Bederke, Heiko Pinkowski.

To safe the family’s scrapyard, insurance broker Mirko Talhammer has to team up with his dodgy brother Letscho to execute their deceased father’s last plan: a grand style train robbery.

LOLA at Berlinale Zoo Palast 2

14:30 Continuity

(Germany) 85mins.

Dir: Omer Fast. Cast: Andre M Hennicke, Iris Bohm, Constantin von Jascheroff, Bruno Alexander, Milton Welsh.

(Israel, Germany, US) 97mins. Dir: Udi Aloni.

Cast: Tamer Nafar, Samar Qupty, Salwa Nakkara, Ayed Fadel, Sameh ‘SAZ’ Zakout, Saeed Dassuki.

Two young Palestinian musicians fight against oppression by the Israeli society as well as the violence in their own conservative community.

Hip-hop is their voice: it reflects the young Arab generation’s attitude towards life.

Panorama Special Cubix 9

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

(US, Germany) 108mins.

Dir: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato. Cast: Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Mapplethorpe, Fran Lebowitz, Brice Marden, Debbie Harry.

The film-makers were given unrestricted access to the artist Robert Mapplethorpe’s archives; the inclusion of recently discovered interviews helps them paint a complex portrait of this exceptional photographer.

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

15:00 Being 17

(France) 116mins.

Dir: Andre Techine.

Cast: Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila, Alexis Loret.

At school, Damien and Thomas are said to be sworn enemies. Thomas’ mother works a remote farm in the mountains; when she falls pregnant, Damien’s mother takes in Thomas for a while. The young men go through a relationship full of drama.

Competition Friedrichstadt-Palast

February 15, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 25

»

Screenings

(China) 116mins. Dir: Yang Chao. Cast: Qin Hao, Xin Zhi Lei, Wu Lipeng, Wang Hongwei, Jiang Hualin, Tan Kai. A young cargo boat captain embarks on a trip up the Yangtze from the mouth of the river to its source. Daily life in China, politics and poetry merge to create a magical odyssey through time and space and an exploration of crime and atonement.

Republic, Bulgaria) 79mins. Dir: Petr Oukropec.

Only a few girls practise the art of parkour — running and somersaulting over rooftops, free-climbing up rusted scaffolding and leaping from one wall to the next. Laura takes it all in her stride. Though as she wildly races through the streets of Prague, her thoughts are running wild too.

Competition press only CinemaxX 7

Generation 14plus Zoo Palast 1

Letters from War

Life after Life

(Portugal) 105mins.

Dir: Ivo M Ferreira. Cast: Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira, Joao Pedro Vaz, Joao Pedro Mamede.

(China) 85mins.

Dir: Zhang Hanyi.

Cast: Zhang Li, Zhang Minjun, Wang Ji Shan, Wei Xiao Min, Wang Bing Qun. A dead woman returns home in the body of her son to convince her husband to replant the tree that stands before their former home. A quiet

Crosscurrent

Festival & Press 15:30 Mellow Mud

(Latvia) Center Stage Productions.

105mins. Dir: Renars Vimba.

To avoid being sent to an orphanage, 17-year-old Raya and her younger

brother keep their grandmother’s death a secret and bury her body in the garden. Raya uses all her cunning to maintain the appearance of normality.

Generation 14plus Cubix 8

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

15:30 In Your Dreams!

(Czech Republic, Slovak

ghost story that unfolds in a scarred landscape, where the world of the living feels akin to a strange netherworld.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

Mellow Mud See box, left

Miss Impossible

(France) 90mins.

Dir: Emilie Deleuze.

Cast: Lena Magnien, Patricia Mazuy, Philippe Duquesne, Catherine Hiegel, Alex Lutz.

Unhappy, ugly and probably frigid, 13-yearold Aurore is fed up, with herself and especially with everyone else.

With her keen eye, and often sharp tongue to match, she observes and comments on her surroundings. Never satisfied but so very entertaining.

Generation Kplus Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

MY REVOLUTION (Ma révolution)

Director: Ramzi Ben Sliman Cast: Samuel Vincent, Anamaria Vartolomei (My Little Princess), Lubna Azabal (Incendies), Samir Guesmi (Camille Rewinds, The Returned) MARKET SCREENINGS: TODAY / 15:30 / Kino Arsenal 2 Feb 18 / 11:30 / CinemaxX 2

While trying to impress his crush, a French-Tunisian teenager accidentally becomes the face of the Arab Spring in Paris.

FESTIVAL SCREENINGS: Feb 17 / 14:00 / CinemaxX 3 Feb 20 / 12:30 / Zoo Palast 1 Feb 21 / 16:30 / CinemaxX 3

Berlin Booth

www.visitfilms.com

MGB #12 +1 347 662 9577

info@visitfilms.com »

26 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

www.screendaily.com

EFM INDUSTRY DEBATES 2016 FEB 1315 GROPIUS MIRROR RESTAURANT NIEDERKIRCHNERSTRASSE

Hosted by

13

SATURDAY 16:00–17:00

14

SUNDAY 16:00–17:00

Cross Border Currents: The Growing Influence of Korea on South East Asian Cinema Korean firms have acquired cinema chains in Indonesia, Vietnam and they are building in Myanmar and China. This industrial outreach is now being followed by production ventures in China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Which effects does this have on local industries and what is the dynamic between major industries in Asia at the moment?

MODERATOR Patrick Frater VARIETY SPEAKERS To be announced Producers as Entrepreneurs How do independent producers actually earn a living and sustain their careers film by film? What business models are working for producers – are more people diversifying to work across film, TV, advertising and digital media? How do producers protect their fees from getting cut when budgets tighten, and how do they keep going when financing films is a slow process? Is more slate funding needed? When is a project too risky? Our panel of expert producers talk about the big picture as well as give practical tips on how to keep small businesses going.

MODERATOR Wendy Mitchell SCREEN INTERNATIONAL, BRITISH COUNCIL SPEAKERS Sol Bondy ONE TWO FILMS Natasha Dack TIGERLILY FILMS Guneet Monga SIKHYA ENTERTAINMENT AGNES JOHANSE RVK STUDIOS

15

MONDAY 16:00–17:00

Cross-Atlantic Series Success: (Re)Making TV for Europe and the World The boom in high-end television series has ignited a creative explosion in Europe, and opened up new opportunities for producers and talent to sell their shows – as originals or adaptations – worldwide.

But what does a show need to stand out? What are international broadcasters looking for and how can you make – or remake – a world-class series on a European budget.

MODERATOR Scott Roxborough THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER SPEAKERS Caroline Benjo HAUT ET COURT Piv Bernth DANISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION Philipp Steffens RTL Bruce Tuchman AMC/ SUNDANCE

Panel discusssions followed by networking drinks (17:00–17:30).

15

MONDAY 10:30–11:30

Commissioning Strategies – the Trendsetters This fourth discussion, which is also part of the “Drama Series Days”, will take a look at recent developments on the television market from the perspective of broadcasters. Representatives from networks and studios at the cutting edge of international TV drama development showcase some of their upcoming projects and discuss how these are typical for the latest trends in storytelling, genre, production and distribution.

MODERATOR Jonathan Webdale C21 SPEAKERS Marcus Ammon SKY DEUTSCHLAND Antony Root HBO EUROPE Andrea Scrosati SKY ITALIA

EFM 2016_Industry Debates_Screen_245x335_RZ.indd 1

05.02.16 14:22

Screenings

herself facing a large escaped bear. There’s only one thing for it: she has to summon up all her courage.

16:00 Above and Below

(Germany, Switzerland) 118mins. Dir: Nicolas Steiner.

From Mars, to the Earth, below the surface. Far, far away and out of sight, that’s where April, Dave, Cindy, Rick and the Godfather are creating life on their own terms.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

Blind Vaysha

(Canada) RTBF. 8mins. Dir: Theodore Ushev. Cast: Caroline Dhavernas.

With her left eye Vaysha can only see into the past, and with her right she can only see the future.

She is blind to the present, and no one can release her from her fate. An animated parable with powerful, emotional imagery.

LOLA at Berlinale Zoo Palast 2

Death in Sarajevo

(France, Bosnia and Herzegovina) 85mins.

Dir: Danis Tanovic.

Cast: Jacques Weber, Snezana Vidovic, Izudin Bajrovic, Vedrana Seksan, Muhamed Hadzovic.

Competition Berlinale Palast

The GDR Complex

(Germany) MinMamma Produktion. 90mins.

Dir: Jochen Hick.

Cast: Mario Rollig.

In 1987, GDR citizen Mario Rollig was arrested in Hungary for attempting to flee the GDR. Nowadays he gives talks about his experiences. This portrait shows just how subjective and riddled with taboos attempts to interpret GDR history can be.

Panorama Documents Colosseum 1

Festival & Press 16:30 The End

(France) Miss Wasabi.

85mins. Dir: Guillaume Nicloux. Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Swann Arlaud, Audrey Bonnet, Didier Abot, Xavier Beauvois.

A corpulent hunter

chance, he sets out to prove himself.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 3

La Cupola Houses without Doors

(Syria, Lebanon) 90mins.

Dir: Avo Kaprealian.

Cast: Avo Kaprealian.

As the civil war rages, the Syrian-Armenian director films what’s happening on the streets of Aleppo from the windows of his housing block, connecting his own material with sound recordings and film images relating to the Armenian genocide.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

16:30 Born to Dance

(New Zealand) Ceska televize. 96mins. Dir: Tammy Davis. Cast: Tia-Taharoa Maipi, Stan Walker, Kherington Payne.

Tu doesn’t want to join the military — he wants to dance. When the country’s most successful crew offers the hip-hop dancer a

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

(Germany) 40mins.

Dir: Volker Sattel. Cast: Minze Gaus, Francesca Bertin, Giuseppina Isetta, Stephan Geene, Severin Dold.

The portrait of a house without supporting walls.

A bold dome made of concrete, an open space — right in the middle of the bizarre rock formations of a rugged coast made of reddish granite. The house belonged to actress Monica Vitti and director Michelangelo Antonioni.

The emptiness of the “cupola” and the deserted quality of the site are the starting point for speculations.

Forum Expanded Akademie der Kunste

heads out into the woods one morning, whereupon he loses first his dog and then his way. A summer stroll morphs into a fantastical loop from which there is no escape.

Forum CineStar 8

Contrasts the Villa Savoye, built by Le Corbusier in 1931 and Asger Jorn’s Grand Relief, which the Danish painter and sculptor produced in 1959 for the Arhus Statsgymnasium.

Forum Expanded Akademie der Kunste

The End See box, above

The Lost Angel

(German Democratic Republic) 60mins. Dir: Ralf Kirsten. Cast: Fred Duren, Erika Pelikowsky, Erik S Klein, Agnes Kraus, Walter Lendrich.

After one of his sculptures is stolen, sculptor Ernst Barlach, banned from working in 1937, fights for a clear position vis-a-vis the Nazi regime.

Retrospektive Zeughauskino

Memento Le Corbusier [IIIII] Asger Jorn [Relief]

(Germany, Denmark) 29mins. Dir: Heinz Emigholz.

28 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

(German Democratic Republic) 16mins.

Dir: Karlheinz Mund.

Cast: Hilmar Thate, Hans Hardt-Hardtloff.

A film about Jewish cemeteries in East Berlin.

Retrospektive Zeughauskino

The Right

(Germany, Poland) 11mins. Dir: Assaf Gruber. Cast: Sabine Wackernagel.

A 73-year-old security guard from the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden writes a letter to the director of the Muzeum Sztuki of Lodz, requesting to volunteer as a security guard.

Forum Expanded Akademie der Kunste

16:45 Programme 4: Spotlight on Music » My Heart Leaps

(German Democratic Republic) 19mins.

Dir: Gitta Nickel. » Paul Dessau

(German Democratic Republic) 30mins. Dir: Richard Cohn-Vossen.

Cast: Paul Dessau. » Smith, James O. — Organist, USA. A Jazz Organist in the United States

Jazz, folklore, classical.

Three documentaries from West and East Germany — about the Jimmy Smith Trio, a Red Army dance ensemble and the composer Paul Dessau.

Retrospektive CinemaxX 8

17:00 A Night in Tokoriki

(Romania) 18mins.

Dir: Roxana Stroe.

Cast: Cristian Priboi, Cristian Bota, Iulia Ciochina.

There’s a party in the Tokoriki nightclub. It’s Geanina’s 18th birthday and the whole village is there. But Alin seems to have something on his mind. His eyes sparkle when he sets eyes on Geanina, which doesn’t escape her boyfriend’s attention. Will there be an escalation tonight?

Crystal Lake

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

As Birds Flying

ESIOD 2015

(Egypt) 7mins. Dir: Heba Y Amin.

In late 2013, Egyptian authorities detained a migratory stork suspected of espionage due to an electronic device attached to its leg. Kama Tohalleq al Teyour addresses conspiracies embedded in the political landscape that shape the present.

(Austria, Germany) 39mins. Dir: Clemens von Wedemeyer.

Cast: Stephanie Cumming, Sven Dolinski.

A dystopian science fiction, projecting the current financial crisis and the virtualisation of work, life, and capital into the notall-too-distant future.

Forum Expanded Kino Arsenal 1

(US) 20mins. Dir: Jennifer Reeder. Cast: Marcela Okeke, Shea Glover, Sebastian Summers, Kristyn Zoe Wilkerson, Ron Stevens.

They don’t mince their words, and they chase away all the boys. A group of emancipated teenage girls led by the charismatic Samiyah take over a skate park with the motto “girls just wanna have fun”.

Forum Expanded Kino Arsenal 1

Fukushima, mon Amour Berlin Metanoia

(Germany) ELO Film School Helsinki. 15mins.

Dir: Erik Schmitt.

Cast: Marleen Lohse, Timo Jacobs, Maxim Mehmet, Tom Lass, Anna Bruggemann.

In the midst of the tireless bustle of Berlin, dark clouds of memory gather over Kore. When she is met by a screaming crowd, she suddenly finds

(Germany) 109mins.

Dir: Doris Dorrie.

Cast: Rosalie Thomass, Kaori Momoi, Moshe Cohen, Nami Kamata, Aya Irizuki.

A young German woman trying to escape her own problems makes friends with an old geisha living in Fukushima’s prohibited area.

Panorama Special Cubix 9

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Screenings

fulfilling their emotions.

In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain

Berlinale Special Gala press only CinemaxX 9

(Palestinian Territories, Denmark, UK, Qatar) Uzrok. 29mins. Dir: Larissa Sansour, Soren Lind. Cast: Pooneh Hajimohammadi, Anna Aldridge, Leyla Ertosun, Larissa Sansour, Carol Sansour.

A self-proclaimed narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain — suggested to belong to an entirely fictional civilisation.

Once unearthed, the buried tableware will prove the existence of this counterfeit people.

Forum Expanded Kino Arsenal 1

JACKED

(UK) 15mins. Dir: Rene Pannevis. Cast: Charley Palmer Rothwell, Thomas Turgoose.

East London: two teenagers steal a car with practised routine. As they drive away, they discover old cassettes which must have great personal value for the owner. When one of the boys wants to return the car, a conflict erupts.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

Mother Knows Best

(Sweden) 12mins. Dir: Mikael Bundsen. Cast: Alexander Gustavsson, Hanna Ullerstam, KarlErik Franzen.

So, he’s gay. This evening he’s introduced his boyfriend to his mum and later kissed him passionately goodbye in the car. He’s fortunate to have such a liberal mother, but not everyone is as open-minded as she is, says his mother.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

Stones Gods People

(Lebanon) 5mins.

Dir: Joe Namy.

Documentary. Broken inhabitants of the National Museum of Beirut remind us how frail these stones, and our history, can be.

Berlin Around the Corner

(German Democratic Republic) 86mins. Dir: Gerhard Klein. Cast: Dieter Mann, Monika Gabriel, Kaspar Eichel, Erwin Geschonneck, Hans Hardt-Hardtloff.

East Berlin in the mid 1960s. Friends Horst and Olaf chafe at prevailing conditions — whether it be in the factory, among neighbours or at a dance club. Loosely connected scenes form a film essay of unconventional beauty.

Festival & Press 17:00 Valderama

(Iran) 91mins.

Dir: Abbas Amini.

Cast: Hamed Alipour, Nafiseh Zare, Gity Ghasemi, Assadolah Monjazi.

His wild mane resembles that of his idol, football

star Carlos Valderrama.

When the boy has to leave town in a hurry, he tries to survive, alone and penniless, in the city of Tehran. He struggles for existence with carefree stoicism.

Generation 14plus HKW

Sgardea, Maria Croitoru.

A multi-layered documentary that plays with different genres: the director travels with teenage heartthrob Patrick Duffy from the TV series ‘Dallas’ to her native Romania to show how the US series taught this country all about ruthless capitalism.

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

83mins. Dir: Ester Gould, Reijer Zwaan.

In 1990, seven young dancers went on tour with Madonna, becoming role models for homosexual youths worldwide. But, 25 years later, they learn that there were secrets in their close-knit family that are only now coming to light.

Dir: Nariman Aliev. Cast: Fevzi Bilyalov, Remzi Bilyalov.

Two young men are travelling across the vast expanses of the Ukrainian landscape. It’s their elder brother’s birthday. They get held up when their car breaks down and decide to continue on foot — to be with their brother.

Panorama Documents International

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

That Day

(US) 9mins. Dir: Stephanie Ard. Cast: Chloe Clark, Heather Kafka, Benjamin Wadsworth, Carol Hickey, MJ Vandivier.

What do you do on the day your own father has died?

Fifteen-year-old Mishelle longs for something more meaningful than sweet cakes and well-meaning words. She needs to go out and be alone.

Generation 14plus CinemaxX 1

17:30 Fantastic

(US) 76mins.

Dir: Offer Egozy.

Cast: Alexandra Anthony, Persephone Apostolou, Eddie Kehler, Sam Littlefield, Henry LeBlanc, Susan Harmon.

A telegram from a man reported missing brings together his former lover, two old acquaintances and an ambitious sheriff.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

Hotel Dallas

Forum Expanded Kino Arsenal 1

Valderama

Strike a Pose

Without You

(Netherlands, Belgium)

(Ukraine) 15mins.

See box, above

30 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

(Romania, US) 75mins.

Dir: Livia Ungur, SherngLee Huang. Cast: Livia Ungur, Patrick Duffy, Razvan Doroftei, Serena

The Lovers and the Despot

Dir: Anne Zohra Berrached. Cast: Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Madel, Johanna Gastdorf, Emilia Pieske, Maria Dragus.

Competition Friedrichstadt-Palast

A Quiet Passion

(UK, Belgium) Zampa Audiovisual. 120mins.

Dir: Terence Davies.

Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine, Emma Bell, Duncan Duff.

Berlinale Goes Kiez ACUDkino 1

Eldorado XXI

(Portugal, France) 125mins. Dir: Salome Lamas.

La Rinconada is located at an altitude of 5,100m in the Peruvian Andes on the edge of a gold mine. A formally radical montage of spectacular images and sound recordings makes the extreme conditions apparent in which people here try to eke out a fortune from bare rock.

(UK) 95mins. Dir: Rob Cannan, Ross Adam.

Cast: Choi Eun-hee, Shin Sang-ok.

President Kim Jong-il has the dream couple of South Korean cinema abducted and taken to North Korea to enliven his nation’s dull and sycophantic cinema output. But the pair are planning their escape — just like in a screenplay.

Berlinale Special Gala Haus der Berliner Festspiele

(US) 99mins. Dir: Sonia Kennebeck.

A film about three whistleblowers who break the silence about the deployment of US Air Force battle drones in Afghanistan and other war zones.

(Germany, France, UK) 97mins. Dir: Vincent Perez. Cast: Emma Thompson, Brendan Gleeson, Daniel Bruhl, Mikael Persbrandt, Monique Chaumette.

Panorama Documents Cubix 7

Berlinale Special Cubix 8

Competition Berlinale Palast

17:45

National Bird

18:30

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

18:45 Alone in Berlin

19:00

The First, the Last

A Serious Game

Quiz Show

(France, Belgium) 98mins.

Dir: Bouli Lanners.

Cast: Albert Dupontel, Bouli Lanners, Suzanne Clement, Michael Lonsdale, David Murgia.

Esther and Willy are handicapped. And in love.

And on the run. Perhaps from the two bearded snoopers in the van?

(Sweden, Denmark, Norway) Raindogs Cine.

120mins. Dir: Pernilla August. Cast: Sverrir Gudnason, Karin Franz Korlof, Liv Mjones, Michael Nyqvist, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard.

Stockholm, around 1900.

External circumstances prevent penniless Arvid from marrying Lydia, an artist. A love story about two people who transcend the morals of their time and discover their own, unexpected ways of

(US) 133mins.

Dir: Robert Redford.

Cast: John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield, David Paymer.

A critique of the media in the guise of a 1950s scandal. A young lawyer discovers that the popular TV show ‘Twenty-One’ is rigged to help a candidate win who is acceptable to the sponsor and will keep ratings high.

Panorama CineStar 3

18:00 24 Weeks

(Germany) 102mins.

Homage Zeughauskino

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Screenings

A resentful prison guard, an unemployed hypochondriac, his troubled wife and children that yearn for a different life: a black comedy that takes on oft-drastic dimensions to convey the dark atmosphere of the Czech provinces.

Road to Istanbul

(Algeria, France, Belgium) 97mins.

Dir: Rachid Bouchareb.

Cast: Astrid Whettnall, Pauline Burlet, Patricia Ide, Abel Jafri.

A Belgian mother goes to Syria to try to find and bring back home her daughter, who has joined the jihadists.

Forum Kino Arsenal 1

Panorama Special Zoo Palast 1

20:15 The Black Frost

Tectonic Plate

(Finland) 73mins.

Dir: Mika Taanila.

A camera-less lettrist film about fear of flying, security checks and time zones.

Forum Expanded Akademie der Kunste

19:15

Festival & Press 19:30

Kate Plays Christine

Hee

(US) 109mins.

Dir: Robert Greene.

Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil.

Christine Chubbuck was a news anchor who shot herself on live television in 1974. Kate is an actress who is now set to play Christine.

Research, interviews, wigs and contact lenses, reconstructions: just when is it exactly that acting begins?

(Japan) Barzegar Production. 72mins.

Dir: Kaori Momoi.

Cast: Kaori Momoi, Yugo Saso, Ayako Fujitani, Chris Harrison, Brian Sturges.

An ageing prostitute

Forum CineStar 8

The Revolution Won’t Be Televised

(Senegal) 110mins. Dir: Rama Thiaw. Cast: Thiat, Kilifeu, Gadj.

During the 2012 presidential election campaign, the hip-hop group ‘Y’en a Marre’ fight for the incumbent to step down and for a democratic Senegal. Rap and activism prove the most obvious of bedfellows in this energetic, fast-paced documentary.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

19:30

lifestyle icon, meets Barakah, a civil servant from a humble background. A remarkably candid love story from Saudi Arabia.

Forum Zoo Palast 2

Early Summer

(Japan) 125mins.

Dir: Yasujiro Ozu. Cast: Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Chikage Awashima, Kuniko Miyake, Ichiro Sugai, Chieko Higashiyama, Haruko Sugimura.

Noriko is a late bloomer and at 28, her family feels it’s time to see her married off.

Berlinale Classics CinemaxX 8

Hee

Barakah Meets Barakah

See box, above

(Saudi Arabia) 84mins.

Dir: Mahmoud Sabbagh.

Cast: Hisham Fageeh, Fatima AlBanawi, Sami Hifny, Khairia Nazmi, Abdulmajeed Al-Ruhaidi, Turki Sheikk, Marian Bilal.

Bibi, a worldly-wise

Lotte

(Germany) 76mins.

Dir: Julius Schultheiss.

Cast: Karin Hanczewski, Zita Aretz, Paul Matzke, Christine Knispel, Marc Ben Puch.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino CinemaxX 3

32 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

they even serve food. accused of murder must now be assessed by a therapist. In a series of bizarre sessions, the different fragments of her memory emerge: a fatal fire, an unwanted pregnancy, a violent lover, truth or lies?

Forum CinemaxX 4

Noma — My Perfect Storm

(UK, Denmark, Spain) Centro de Investigacion y Formacion para la Modalidad Aborigen.

99mins. Dir: Pierre Deschamps. Cast: Rene Redzepi, Claus Meyer, Ferran Adria, Paul Cunningham, Tor Norretranders.

A journey through the culinary universe of chef Rene Redzepi, the son of Macedonian immigrants who has given the north of Europe a new culinary identity.

Culinary Cinema MGB-Kino

Off-Road. Mugaritz, Feeling a Way.

(Spain) 65mins. Dir: Pep Gatell. Cast: Andoni Luis Aduriz, Ramon Perise, Eli Iglesias, Javier Vergara Forcada, Dani Lasa.

‘Mugaritz’ stopped being a restaurant a long time ago. It is a live ecosystem, an environment for the development of projects, the establishment of new protocols, where people create from nothing — and

Culinary Cinema CineStar IMAX

20:00 A Maid for Each

(Lebanon, France, Norway, UAE) 67mins.

Dir: Maher Abi Samra.

Housemaids from countries of the Global South are widespread in the middle-class households of Lebanon.

Conversations at a domestic labour agency reveal both the clients’ sense of privilege and the exploitative conditions under which maids must work.

Forum Colosseum 1

Illegitimate

(Romania, Poland, France) Heavy B Production. 85mins.

Dir: Adrian Sitaru. Cast: Alina Grigore, Robi Urs, Bogdan Albulescu, Adrian Titieni, Cristina Olteanu, Miruna Dumitrescu, Liviu Vizitiu.

When the adult children of a respected doctor find out about his past, tempers run wild. Things go from bad to worse once it emerges that the family twins are expecting a child. A drama about abortion, free will and the perversions of state intervention.

Forum Cubix 9

My Land

(China) 81mins. Dir: Fan Jian.

Beijing is growing and devouring the farmland of the city’s surrounding villages. But not all migrant workers are willing to leave without compensation.

Chen Jun and his wife are determined to fight injustice, even if it takes years.

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

Nakom

(Ghana, US) Hochschule fur Film und Fernsehen ‘Konrad Wolf ’. 90mins.

Dir: Kelly Daniela Norris, TW Pittman. Cast: Jacob Ayanaba, Grace Ayariga, Abdul Aziz, Justina Kulidu, Shetu Musah.

Medical student Iddrisu is called back to his village following his father’s accidental death.

As the eldest son he feels responsible for the deceased’s debts and for looking after the family.

But he is reluctant to give up his dream of becoming a doctor.

Panorama CinemaxX 7

Paris 05:59

(France) 97mins.

Dir: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau.

Cast: Geoffrey Couet, Francois Nambot.

Panorama International

We Are Never Alone

(Czech Republic, France) Hochschule fur Film und Fernsehen ‘Konrad Wolf ’. 104mins. Dir: Petr Vaclav.

(Argentina) 82mins.

Dir: Maximiliano Schonfeld. Cast: Ailin Salas, Lucas Schell, Benigno Lell, Dario Wendler, Mario Wendler.

The arrival of a young female stranger in Entre Rios makes the frost, which threatened to destroy a farm’s crops, suddenly disappear.

The settlers soon revere Alejandra as a saint.

Nimbly, she stirs up their taciturn, patriarchal isolation.

Panorama Cubix 8

On the Other Side

(Croatia, Serbia) 85mins. Dir: Zrinko Ogresta.

Vesna came to Zagreb 20 years ago in order to put behind her memories of the war in Bosnia in which her husband played an active role. One day the phone rings out of the blue and Vesna hears his voice on the line, unleashing mixed feelings in her.

Panorama CineStar 3

Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?

(Israel, UK) Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion. 84mins.

Dir: Tomer Heymann, Barak Heymann. Cast: Saar Maoz.

Singing in the London Gay Men’s Chorus gives Saar the courage for a reunion with his estranged family in Israel.

Panorama Documents Cubix 7

20:30 Four Corners of a circle

(Germany) 25mins.

Dir: Katarina Stankovic.

Perspektive Deutsches Kino CinemaxX 1

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Screenings

of Portugal. Memories, conversations and everyday impressions merge into a dreamily surreal account of a remote area and a life spent on the margins.

Tongues Untied

(US) Vela Producciones.

55mins. Dir: Marlon T Riggs. Cast: Essex Hemphill, Kerrigan Black, Blackberri, Bernard Branner, Gerald Davis.

Interspersing performance and poetry with interviews and documentary scenes, this ground-breaking film addresses homophobia and racism against AfroAmerican gay men.

Forum press only CinemaxX 6

22:00

Who is Oda Jaune?

(Germany) 75mins.

Dir: Kamilla Pfeffer.

Cast: Oda Jaune.

21:00 Being 17

(France) 116mins.

Dir: Andre Techine.

Cast: Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila, Alexis Loret.

Competition Haus der Berliner Festspiele

The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

(US) Rewind My Future Films. 95mins. Dir: Morgan Neville. Cast: Yo-Yo Ma, Wu Man, Kinan Azmeh, Kayhan Kalhor, Cristina Pato.

Bringing together almost 60 soloists from 20 nations, the Silk Road project unites music from Asian and western traditions.

Berlinale Special Gala Friedrichstadt-Palast

Forum CineStar IMAX

Before Stonewall

Teddy 30 Kino Arsenal 2

Perspektive Deutsches Kino CinemaxX 1

cemetery, an underground laboratory and an endless forest form the mysterious settings for this contemporary parable, in which partisans, cosmonauts and a scientist are all in search of a mysterious elixir.

Festival & Press 21:30 Maggie’s Plan

(US) International Dog Productions. 99mins.

Dir: Rebecca Miller.

Cast: Greta Gerwig, Julianne Moore, Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader, Travis Fimmel, Maya Rudolph.

Maggie, John and Georgette are living

21:30 Boris without Beatrice

(Canada) 93mins.

Dir: Denis Cote.

Cast: James Hyndman, Simone-Elise Girard, Denis Lavant, Isolda Dychauk, Dounia Sichov.

Berlinale Goes Kiez ACUDkino 1

City of Jade

(Taiwan, Myanmar)

2016_UKF_Screenad_Strip_93x490_Art_FINAL.indd 11

Humidity

with three children in two overlapping relationships.

Enthusiastic and playful Maggie manages to find new ways to connect them that give everyone a great role within a whole spectrum of possible family ties.

Panorama Special Zoo Palast 1

99mins. Dir: Midi Z. Cast: Midi Z. Against the backdrop of ongoing border skirmishes, Midi Z follows his brother into a jade region in the north of Myanmar. With mining companies out of the picture, men seek their fortune with their own hands, while opium helps them endure the work.

Forum Akademie der Kunste

(Serbia, Netherlands, Greece) 113mins.

Dir: Nikola Ljuca.

Petar is on the winning side of Serbian society: a successful businessman, guest at all the best upper-class parties, a beautiful wife by his side.

But when she suddenly vanishes without notice, his life and his self-image begin to come slowly undone.

(US) Gilbert Films.

87mins. Dir: Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg. Cast: Rita Mae Brown, Ann Bannon, Lisa Ben, Gladys Bentley, Martin Duberman.

This documentary portrays the daily lives of homosexuals in the US before 1969, the year of the riot at New York’s Stonewall Inn, which provided the impetus for gay pride and is celebrated annually on Christopher Street Day.

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Teddy 30 Zoo Palast 2

How to Build an Igloo

Crosscurrent

(China) 116mins.

Dir: Yang Chao.

Cast: Qin Hao, Xin Zhi Lei, Wu Lipeng, Wang Hongwei, Jiang Hualin, Tan Kai.

Forum Delphi Filmpalast

Competition Berlinale Palast

Maggie’s Plan

Elixir

See box, above

(Russian Federation) 80mins. Dir: Daniil Zinchenko. Cast: Aleksandr Gorelov, Nikolay Kopeikin, Grigoriy Selskiy, Dmitriy Juravlev, Victoria Maksimova.

A swimming pool full of black blood, an overgrown

Rio Corgo

(Switzerland, Portugal) 95mins. Dir: Maya Kosa, Sergio da Costa.

An old wandering vagabond begins a friendship with a young village girl in the north

(US) 114mins. Dir: Steve Kloves. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Michelle Pfeiffer, Beau Bridges, Ellie Raab, Xander Berkeley, Dakin Matthews, Ken Lerner, Albert Hall.

Pianists Jack and Frank Baker have been reduced to playing small-time gigs until they hire singer Susie Diamond.

Homage CinemaxX 8

(Canada) Fonderia Artistica Battaglia.

11mins. Dir: Douglas Wilkinson.

How to make an igloo using only snow and a knife.

Culinary Cinema MGB-Kino

Inertia

(Israel) 72mins.

Dir: Idan Haguel.

Cast: Ilanit Ben Yaakov, Mohammad Bakri, Galia Yshay, Ami Weinberg, Loutof Nousser.

A woman wakes up from a nightmare with a shriek and realises that her husband is no longer there. As misfortune and liberation run in parallel, a somnambulant search

begins, unfolding before the backdrop of a society that seems itself strangely numb.

Forum CineStar 8

Kivalina

(US) 64mins.

Dir: Gina Abatemarco.

An observational portrait of Inupiaq Eskimos trapped on a disappearing island in the Alaskan Arctic.

Culinary Cinema MGB-Kino

Lily Lane

(Hungary) 91mins.

Dir: Bence Fliegauf.

Cast: Angela Stefanovics, Balint Sotonyi, Miklos Szekely B, Maria Gindert, Maja Balogh.

The relationship between Rebeka and her young son, Danny, is inextricably linked to stories and fantasy: the account of a childhood in which time and space flow together and little separates divorce, death and reunion.

Forum CinemaxX 4

Working Girl

(US) 113mins.

Dir: Mike Nichols.

Cast: Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Kevin Spacey.

While her boss is off work with a broken leg, a New York secretary takes over merger negotiations and wins the heart of a smart executive. This romantic comedy of office politics is a charming

expression of the zeitgeist.

Homage Zeughauskino

22:15 An Outpost of Progress

after his father, who has cancer. Then his father’s boyhood friend appears and suppressed family secrets are revealed that broaden Jonathan’s view of the world.

(Portugal) 121mins.

Dir: Hugo Vieira da Silva. Cast: Nuno Lopes, Ivo Alexandre, David Caracol, Inês Helena, Antonio Mpinda.

Two inexperienced colonial officials are transferred to a remote ivory trading post on the Congo River.

As they wait for the goods to arrive, the isolation brings with it mistrust and insanity.

Panorama Colosseum 1

Forum Cubix 9

(Lithuania, Germany, France, Ukraine) 90mins. Dir: Mantas Kvedaravicius.

Observations of life in Mariupol in eastern Ukraine come together to create an image of a city that manages to keep going, even though life is no longer the way it was before the attacks by proRussian rebels.

22:30 A Man’s Flower Road

(Japan) 110mins.

Dir: Sion Sono. Cast: Sion Sono, Otomi Sono, Izumi Sono, Michika Sono.

Shot when the director was just 24, punk poet Sion Sono plays himself in his feature debut.

Following a wild intro, the film develops into an autobiographically informed account of family restrictions, the desire to flee and the fear of growing up.

Forum Kino Arsenal 1

Jonathan

(Germany) 99mins.

Dir: Piotr J Lewandowski.

Cast: Jannis Niewohner, Andre M Hennicke, Julia Koschitz, Thomas Sarbacher, Barbara Aue. Jonathan, a young farmer, devotes himself to looking

Letters from War

(Portugal) 105mins.

Dir: Ivo M Ferreira. Cast: Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ricardo Pereira, Joao Pedro Vaz, Joao Pedro Mamede.

Competition International

Tomcat

(Austria) 114mins.

Dir: Handl Klaus.

Cast: Lukas Turtur, Philipp Hochmair, Toni, Thomas Stipsits, Manuel Rubey.

Andreas, Stefan and their tomcat Moses live a blissful existence just outside Vienna. One day an inexplicable outburst of violence shatters the couple’s relationship and casts doubt on everything.

Panorama Special Cubix 7 and 8

22:45 Lantouri

Mariupolis

Panorama Documents CineStar 7

Remainder

(Iran) Wanda Vision.

115mins. Dir: Reza Dormishian. Cast: Navid Mohammadzadeh, Maryam Palizban, Baran Kosari, Mehdi Kooshki, Bahram Afshari.

Lantouri is the name of a gang in Tehran. When a female journalist does not reciprocate the feelings of one of the gang members he runs amok. The badly injured woman demands lex talionis — the law, applicable in Iran, of ‘an eye for an eye’.

Panorama CineStar 3

(UK, Germany) 104mins.

Dir: Omer Fast. Cast: Tom Sturridge, Cush Jumbo, Ed Speleers, Danny Webb, Nicholas Farrell.

A somnambulistic game of deception involving truth and dreams: a man loses large parts of his memory and has the remainder elaborately re-enacted.

Soon, violence infects this surreal world.

(US) 77mins. Dir: Barbara Hammer.

Interweaving German and American archive footage from the 1930s with a contemporary look at four homosexual couples, this documentary sets out in search of lost images of gay and lesbian culture.

Panorama CinemaxX 7

Teddy 30 Kino Arsenal 2

23:00 Nitrate Kisses

Market screenings

09:00 Marseille

(France) Pathe International, 100mins.

Dir: Kad Merad.

Cast: Kad Merad, Patrick Bosso, Venantino Venantini, Judith El Zein.

Under pressure from his brother Joseph, Paolo resolves to leave his life in Canada for a few days, and return to Marseille and the bedside of his father, who has had an accident.

CinemaxX 3

Ninja the Monster

(Japan) Shochiku, 81mins. Dir: Ken Ochiai.

Cast: Dean Fujioka, Aoi Morikawa.

A beautiful princess is traveling to Edo with her men, including Denzo, who is an ex-ninja, whose true background has been hidden.

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Ogres

(France) Pyramide International, 145mins.

Dir: Lea Fehner.

They travel from town to town, carrying their circus tent with them, their show packed in their bags. They bring fantasy and disorder into our lives.

CineStar 6

S Is for Stanley

(Italy) Rai Com, 78mins.

Dir: Alex Infascelli.

Cast: Emilio

D’Alessandro, Janette Woolmore, Alex Infascelli.

Kino Arsenal 2

The Canterville Ghost

(France) TF1 International, 92mins.

Dir: Yann Samuell.

Cast: Audrey Fleurot, Michael Youn, Michele Laroque.

For an 18th-century ghost, it is a tough job being scary in 2015!

CinemaxX .

The Mystery of Snow Queen

(Russia) Amadeus Entertainment, 91mins.

Dir: Natalya Bondcharuk.

Cast: Karl Markovics, Anna Potrebnya, Natalya Bondcharuk.

Gerda, along with her northern deer Yaleko, is setting off on a journey looking for her brother, Kai, who has been taken away by the Snow Queen to her frozen kingdom.

CinemaxX 17

The Settlers

(Israel, France, Canada) Cinephil, 110mins.

Dir: Shimon Dotan.

The first film of its kind to offer a comprehensive view of the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank.

MGB-Kino

The World Is Mine

(Romania) Romanian Film Center, 104mins.

Dir: Nicolae Constantin Tanase. Cast: Anamaria Guran, Ana Vatamanu, Oana Rusu, Iulia Ciochina.

Larisa, 16, lives in a small

08/02/2016 16:13

Screenings

town by the sea. A non-ideal relationship with her mother, modest means, a helpless grandmother to take care of, a love for the local playboy and a rival are no obstacles for Larisa, who pushes ahead.

CinemaxX 15

Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?

(Israel) Autlook Filmsales, 84mins. Dir: T & B Heymann.

Saar, a gay HIV-positive Israeli man, is exiled by his religious family because of his sexuality. He flees to London where he finds acceptance with a gay chorus and starts a reconciliation process with his family in Israel.

Kino Arsenal 1

09:15 Boris Without Beatrice

(Canada) Films Boutique, 93mins. Dir: Denis Cote.

Cast: James Hyndman, Simone-Elise Girard, Denis Lavant, Isolda Dychauk.

When he meets a mysterious man, Boris realises that he is the single reason behind his beloved wife’s illness. He now has to find a way to make amends.

CinemaxX 4

Buddha’s Little Finger

(Germany, Canada, US) Filmoption International, 84mins. Dir: Tony Pemberton. Cast: Karine Vanasse, Toby Kebbell, Christoph Bach, Stipe Erceg.

In 1990s Moscow, communists try to oust Gorbachov from power.

For Pyotr, a struggling poet, this means nothing. Only one thing is sure: when he is with Anna, he is happy.

CinemaxX 2

My Scientology Movie

(UK) HanWay Films, 99mins. Dir: John Dower.

Louis Theroux heads to Los Angeles for his feature documentary exploring the Church of Scientology.

CinemaxX Studio 11

The Olive Tree

(Spain, Germany) Seville International, 99mins.

Dir: Iciar Bollain.

Cast: Anna Castillo, Javier Gutierrez, Pep Ambros, Miguel Angel Aladren.

36 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Market 09:30 Highway To Hellas

(Germany) ARRI Media, 89mins. Dir: Aron Lehmann. Cast: Christoph Maria Herbst, Adam Bousdoukos, Akillas Karazisis.

A willful and spirited young woman named Alma embarks on a journey from the east coast of Spain to Germany in order to retrieve an ancient olive tree precious to her ailing grandfather.

CinemaxX 9

Thirst

(Bulgaria) Alpha Violet, 90mins. Dir: Svetla Tsotsorkova. Cast: Monika Naydenova, Alexander Benev, Ivaylo Hhistov, Svetlana Yancheva.

In the struggle of daily existence, the thirst for love may be greater than that for life itself. A family does laundry for local hotels despite the water shortage.

CinemaxX 13

09:20 Abattoir

(US) Versatile, 100mins.

Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman.

Cast: Jessica Lowndes, Joe Anderson, Dayton Callie, Lin Shaye.

After the death of her sister and nephew, a real estate reporter uncovers the sinister truth behind a mysterious man who has been buying houses where tragedies have occurred.

CineStar 1 no press

Bank employee Joerg Geissner arrives on the Greek island of Paladiki to check some loan securities.

He is not at all aware of the mind-changing odyssey that awaits him.

CineStar 7

09:30 Hedi

(Tunisia, Belgium, France) Luxbox, 93mins.

Dir: Mohamed Ben Attia.

Cast: Majd Mastoura, Rym Ben Messaoud, Sabah Bouzouita, Omnia Ben Ghali.

Hedi is a simple young man.

His authoritarian mother organises his marriage to Khedija. During a prospection trip to Mahdia he meets Rim. CineStar 2

118mins. Dir: Tamer El Said. Cast: Khalid Abdalla, Laila Samy, Hanan Youssef, Maryam Saleh.

A film-maker named Khalid wanders the streets of Cairo looking for inspiration for his film, which is an attempt to take the pulse of the city as it begins to fall apart.

A tribute to the fading grandeur of a metropolis in turmoil.

Parliament

The Ones Below

(UK) Protagonist Pictures, 86mins. Dir: David Farr.

Cast: Clemence Poesy, David Morrissey, Stephen Campbell Moore, Laura Birn.

A nerve-shredding psychological thriller that makes you question how well you know your neighbours.

CineStar 5

Hevn (Revenge)

(Norway, Canada) Beta Cinema, 100mins.

Dir: Kjersti Steinsbo. Cast: Siren Jorgensen, Frode Winther, Maria Bock, Anders Baasmo Christiansen.

Against the majestic backdrop of the fjords of Western Norway, Rebekka is looking for retribution.

Under a false identity, she seeks out her deceased sister’s violator and embeds herself into his idyllic family to destroy him.

Those Who Jump

CinemaxX 18

(France) Elle Driver, 118mins. Dir: Melanie Laurent, Cyril Dion.

What if telling a story that gives hope, by pointing out positive and tested solutions, was the best way to solve the ecological, economical and

Highway To Hellas See box, above

In the Last Days of the City

(Egypt) Still Moving,

(Denmark) Wide House, 81mins. Dir: Moritz Siebert.

The Spanish enclave of Melilla in northern Morocco is a gateway to Europe and therefore one of the most highly militarised frontiers in the world. Abou portrays his as yet failed attempts to climb over the eight-metre fence.

CinemaxX 6

Tomorrow

www.screendaily.com

social crises that shake our world?

CinemaxX Studio 12

Up for Love

(France) Gaumont, 100mins. Dir: Laurent Tirard. Cast: Jean Dujardin, Virginie Efira.

Diane is a beautiful woman, a brilliant lawyer with a good sense of humour. One evening she receives a phone call from a certain Alexandre who found her cell phone. They make a date.

CinemaxX 8

Weiner

(US) Dogwoof, 96mins.

Dir: Elyse Steinberg.

Weiner deftly teeters the line between political farce and personal tragedy, exposing the excongressman’s hubris while highlighting the sheer ugliness of the media’s takedown of his family.

CinemaxX 14

Yellow Affair, 80mins.

Dir: Mans Mansson.

Cast: Anders Mossling, Hilal Shoman, Axel Roos.

A single father and peripheral poet loses his job as a literary critic and ends up at The Yard, a transshipment hub for car imports. He becomes an outcast, who must learn to negotiate suspicions, regulations and personal morals.

CinemaxX 16

09:45 Illegitimate

(Romania, Poland, France) Versatile, 89mins. Dir: Adrian Sitaru. Cast: Alina Grigore, Robi Urs, Bogdan Albulescu, Cristina Olteanu.

When learning about their father’s past during the communist regime in Romania, the lives of four adult children are shattered.

(Germany, US) Wind Child Entertainment, 45mins. Dir: Tobias Kerll.

Cast: Hannah Valentin, Dunja Bengsch, Jessica Maria Kunz, Rene Bauer.

A high-voltage mystery thriller in the best tradition of ‘Twin Peaks’.

Marriott 1

The Yard

(Sweden, Germany) The

EFM Cinemobile

Urmila — My Memory Is My Power

(Germany) zero fiction film, 90mins. Dir: Susan Gluth. Cast: Urmila Chaudary, Man Bahadur Chhetri, Andreas Riechelmann, Olga Murray.

The story of 21-year-old Urmila from Nepal. At the age of six she was sold by her family and was forced to work as a slave under appalling conditions.

Her dream is to end child slavery in Nepal.

Zoo Palast 2

10:00 Cleverman

(Australia, New Zealand) Red Arrow International, 104mins. Dir: Wayne Blair.

Cast: Iain Glen, Frances Oconnor, Hunter PageLochard, Rob Collins.

A smart, sexy and startlingly original drama set in the near future, where a species from ancient mythology

10:30 Dancing With Margot

(Cuba) ICAIC, 105mins.

Dir: Arturo Santana.

Cast: Mirtha Ibarra, Edwin, Yenisse Soria, Niu Ventura.

A detective, a widow, a stolen painting on New Year’s Eve of 1958, intrigues and dances.

Everything seems to change with the entry of the rebels into Havana.

Marriott 1

District Zero

(Spain) Windrose, 71mins. Dir: Pablo Iraburu.

A Syrian refugee lives in the second biggest camp in the world, Zaatari, in Jordan, counting not less than 60,000 refugees.

Wild Soccer Bunch — The Legend Lives!

Kino Arsenal 1

See box, below

Heavenly Nomadic

10:20 What a Wonderful Family!

dffb-Kino

White Pillow

must live among humans and battle for survival in a world that wants to silence, exploit and destroy them.

(Kyrgyzstan) Pluto Film, 81mins. Dir: Mirlan Abdykalykov.

Cast: Tabyldy Aktanov, Jibek Baktybekova, Taalaikan Abazova, Anar Nazarkulova.

A family of nomads lives in a remote mountain area. One day heavy machinery appears in the meadows where their horses graze.

CinemaxX 19

Cast: Kristofer Hivju, Jakob Oftebro, Ane Ulimoen Overli, Nikolaj Lie Kaas.

The year is 1205. Norway is torn apart in a Civil war. The Norwegian King is fighting for survival.

CinemaxX 1

10:50 Death by Death

10:45

(Australia) Goalpost Film, 128mins.

Dir: Neil Armfield.

Cast: Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Guy Pearce, Anthony LaPaglia.

A love story about a bright Catholic boy who falls in love with the captain of the school’s football team... and gets him for the rollercoaster ride that is life!

(Belgium, France) Stray Dogs, 90mins. Dir: Xavier Seron. Cast: JeanJacques Rausin, Myriam Boyer, Fanny Touron, Serge Riaboukine.

This black comedy focuses on the relationship of anxious, part-time actor Michel and his ailing, overly-attached mother, who has been told that she is living on borrowed time but has no intention of dying.

CinemaxX 2

CinemaxX 13

The Last King

Sum of Histories

(Norway) TrustNordisk, 98mins. Dir: Nils Gaup.

(Belgium, Netherlands) Media Luna New Films,

Holding the Man

(Japan) Shochiku, 108mins. Dir: Yoji Yamada.

On Tomiko’s birthday her husband Shuzo asks her what she wants as a memorial gift. She answers: “A divorce.”

Their children are thrown into a state of panic to hear the news of separation.

Kino Arsenal 2

Market 10:00 Wild Soccer Bunch — The Legend Lives!

(Germany) Global Screen, 100mins. Dir: Joachim Masannek.

Cast: Michael Sommerer, Aaron

Kissiov, Ron Anthony Renzenbrink, Vico Mucke.

Six boys and a girl must take their big chance: to prove they are wild enough to compete against the team of Dicker Michi.

CinemaxX 5

»

www.screendaily.com

February 15, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 37

Screenings

85mins. Dir: Lukas Bossuyt. Cast: Matteo Simoni, Koen de Graeve, Karina Smulders.

When the brilliant scientist Viktor makes a groundbreaking discovery that can change the course of his life, he will learn that manipulating the time comes with certain risks.

Mathilde takes his place in prison. Without any news from him, only supported by her son, she learns to live in this dangerous setting among her new inmates.

CinemaxX Studio 12

Pattaya

CinemaxX 15

11:00 Blood Father

(France) Wild Bunch, 88mins. Dir: JeanFrancois Richet.

Cast: Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty.

When his 18-year-old daughter goes on the run, her perennial screw-up dad — former drunk, junkie, biker and convict — is determined for once to do the right thing.

CinemaxX 9

I, Olga Hepnarova

(Czech Republic, Poland, France) Arizona Distribution, 106mins.

Dir: Kazda Weinreb.

Olga Hepnarova was a young, lonely lesbian, an outsider who couldn’t play the part society desired of her. Her paranoid selfexamination and inability to connect with other people eventually drove her over the edge of humanity.

CinemaxX 16

Kill Command

(UK) Protagonist Pictures, 98mins.

Dir: Steve Gomez. Cast: Vanessa Kirby, Thure Lindhardt, David Ajala.

In a near future technology-reliant society, man is pitted against killing machines.

CineStar 4

The Most Beautiful Day

(Germany) Picture Tree International, 110mins.

Dir: Florian David Fitz. Cast: Matthias Schweighofer, Florian David Fitz, Alexandra Maria Lara.

Andi and Benno will both die soon. They decide to have the most awesome day before it’s too late. So they set off for Africa.

CinemaxX Studio 11

Shepherds and Butchers

(US, South Africa)

Market 11:20 The Complexity of Happiness

(Italy) Rai Com, 118mins. Dir: Gianni Zanasi. Cast: Valerio Mastrandrea, Hadas Yaron.

Enrico is the only one capable of doing the WestEnd Films, 106mins.

Dir: Oliver Schmitz. Cast: Steve Coogan, Andrea Riseborough, Garion Dowds.

As Apartheid crumbles in South Africa, a hotshot lawyer faces his biggest test when he agrees to defend a white prison guard who has killed seven black men.

MGB-Kino

11:10 Kalinka

(France) Studiocanal, 87mins. Dir: Vincent Garenq. Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Sebastian Koch, Marie-Josee Croze.

1982, Andre Bamberski learns about the death of his 14-year-old daughter, Kalinka, while she was on vacation with her mother and stepfather in Germany.

CineStar 1

11:15 Hana’s Miso Soup

(Japan) Gaga Corporation, 118mins.

Dir: Tomoaki Akune.

Cast: Ryoko Hirosue, Kenichi Takito.

Chie is diagnosed with cancer after becoming

38 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

job he does. He’s the number one. Hired as a ‘special consultant’ by a leading financial group, Enrico approaches executives who are completely incompetent and convinces them to leave.

CinemaxX 14

engaged. Despite enduring the cancer treatment, she has her child. But her cancer returns, she knows her time will be short. So Chie starts teaching her child to live without her.

CinemaxX 18

11:20 The Chosen

(Spain, Mexico) Filmax International, 125mins.

Dir: Antonio Chavarrias.

Cast: Alfonso Herrera, Hannah Murray, Henry Goodman, Julian Sands.

A frenetically intriguing historical thriller about the Spanish man who assassinated Trotsky. dffb-Kino invitation only

The Complexity of Happiness See box, above

11:30 24 Weeks

(Germany) Beta Cinema, 102mins. Dir: Anne Zohra Berrached. Cast: Julia Jentsch, Bjarne Madel, Johanna Gastdorf, Emilia Pieske.

Cabaret performer Astrid is six months pregnant when she learns that her unborn child will be

severely disabled. She and her husband have little time to take a decision of enormous significance.

CinemaxX 10

Baby Bump

(Poland) Film Republic, 90mins. Dir: Kuba Czekaj. Cast: Kacper Olszewski, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Caryl Swift, Sebastian Lach.

Mickey (11) is frustrated with his changing body.

He is no longer a child but who is he? He is a loner at school, his mom is an enigma to him. In a mix of reality and imagination he faces the fact — growing up is not for kids.

Parliament

Chasing Bonnie and Clyde, When Texas Gets Smart on Crime

(France) Windrose, 87mins. Dir: Olivier Lambert. Cast: Lucie Cluzeau-Donato, Antoine Grasset, Maxime TisneVersailles.

Texas is becoming a reference for its prisonrehabilitating offenders.

Several teenagers’ journeys to get a second chance are brilliantly paralleled to the outlawed path of Bonnie and Clyde.

CinemaxX 17

Jailbirds

(France) Elle Driver, 98mins. Dir: Audrey Estrougo. Cast: Sophie Marceau, Suzanne Clement, Alice Belaidi.

In order to save the man she loves from jail,

(France) Gaumont, 97mins. Dir: Franck Gastambide. Cast: Franck Gastambide, Malik Bentalha, Ramzy Bedia.

Two friends dream about leaving their drab neighbourhood for the notorious Thai beach resort of Pattaya. To get there cheaply, they come up with the mad idea of signing up a dwarf in the World Dwarf Thai Boxing Championship.

CineStar 6

11:45 The Unspoken

(Canada) Arclight Films, 96mins. Dir: Sheldon Wilson. Cast: Jodelle Ferland, Sunny Suljic.

In 1997 the Anderson family vanished from their home without a trace. No bodies were ever found.

For 17 years the house has remained undisturbed... until now.

CinemaxX 5

12:00 Hedi Schneider Is Stuck

(Germany, Norway) The Match Factory, 92mins. Dir: Sonja Heiss.

Cast: Laura Tonke, Hans Low, Leander Nitsche.

Hedi, Uli and their son, Finn, have life sorted out. They take each day as it comes, all the while dreaming of the future.

Then, suddenly, Hedi gets stuck.

Zoo Palast 2

Sparrows

(Denmark, Croatia, Iceland) Versatile, 99mins. Dir: Runar Runarsson. Cast: Atli Oskar Fjalarsson, Ingvar E Sigurdsson, Kristbjorg Kjeld, Rade Serbedzija.

A coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old boy, Ari, who has been living with his mother in Reykjavik and is suddenly sent back to the remote Westfjords to live with his father.

CinemaxX 19

Splitting Up Together

(Denmark) DR Sales, 51mins. Dir: Hella Joof.

Cast: Maria Rossing, Peter Plaugborg, Stine Schroder Jensen, Esben Dalgaard.

Portrait of a generation — in the middle of their lives — who suddenly have to acknowledge and accept that family comes in many shapes and forms.

EFM Cinemobile

12:10 Vulcania

(Spain, Sweden, France) SND — Groupe M6, 91mins. Dir: Jose Skaf.

Cast: Miquel Fernandez, Aura Garrido.

Kino Arsenal 2

12:20 The Bodyguard

(China) All Rights Entertainment, 90mins.

Dir: Song Yue. Cast: Yue Song, Xing Yu, Collin Chou, Michael Chan.

Wu leaves for the big city in search of his brother Jiang. Wu takes a job as a bodyguard for Faye, the daughter of the richest man in town.

CinemaxX 15

12:30 The Beginners

(Italy, France) Films Distribution, 125mins.

Dir: Claudio Cupellini.

Cast: Elio Germano, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Valerio Binasco, Elena Radonicich.

Nadine and Fausto meet on the rooftop of a Paris hotel. Both are fragile, alone and obsessed with the idea of an unattainable happiness. Their love is challenged by their own individual ambition and desperation.

CinemaxX 1

Land Legs

(France) Stray Dogs, 90mins. Dir: Collardey Samuel. Cast: Leborne Dominique, Leborne Matteo, Leborne Mailys.

Dom has always been a sea dog. When his 16-year-old-daughter gets pregnant, he has to face his father responsibilities on land.

Will he be capable of this task?

Marriott 1

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THE MEMBERS CLUB @ LA PLAGE ROYALE PRIVATE MEMBERS CLUB AND BESPOKE EVENT SPACE

AU FESTIVAL DE CANNES 11 TH - 20 TH MAY 2016 PLANNING TO HOST AN EVENT THIS CANNES FILM FESTIVAL? SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT VENUE?

The Members Club @ La Plage Royale is a stylish and effortlessly sophisticated event space for hire with 500sqm covered area and 250sqm of outside terrace. The Members Club @ La Plage Royale is equipped with comprehensive light and sound and a professional and experienced team on site to fully cater to your events individual needs.

To discuss sponsorship opportunities, availabilities for events or to apply for membership call: JOJO DYE TEL: +44 (0) 7768 986115 EMAIL: JOJO@JJDCONSULTANCY.COM

Screenings

103mins. Dir: Anthony Wonke.

Follows AP McCoy during his bid to claim his 20th consecutive jump horse racing champion jockey title.

Tsukiji Wonderland

(Japan) Shochiku, 110mins. Dir: Naotaro Endo. Cast: Theodore C Bestor, People working at the Tsukiji.

A documentary about the Tsukiji Market, which is the biggest fish and seafood market in the world. Why does Tsukiji continue to fascinate people around the world?

CinemaxX 16

Fukushima, mon amour

(Germany) The Match Factory, 109mins.

Dir: Doris Dorrie.

Cast: Rosalie Thomass, Kaori Momoi.

A universal and poetic tale about life and letting go.

CineStar IMAX

12:40 Down by Love

(France) Studiocanal, 110mins. Dir: Pierre Godeau. Cast: Guillaume Gallienne, Adele Exarchopoulos.

Jean is an exemplary women’s prison warden and loving husband, but when he meets a prisoner, Anna, he is immediately charmed.

CinemaxX 9

12:45 Baden Baden

(France, Belgium) Jour 2 Fete, 95mins. Dir: Rachel Lang. Cast: Salome Richard, Claude Gensac, Swann Arlaud, Zabou Breitman.

Over the course of a summer, during which a broken love affair briefly blossoms again and her grandmother has to go into hospital with a broken hip, Ana, 26, does her best to cope with life.

CineStar 2

CinemaxX 10

Neon

Market 13:00 I’m Not a Rebel

(Mexico, Spain) Media Luna New Films, 104mins. Dir: Sergio Sanchez. Cast: Luis Arrieta, Edgar Vivar, Enoc Leano, Oswaldo Zarate.

A comedy set during

(Israel) Go2Films, 80mins. Dir: Ido Haar.

A virtual musical encounter between Princess Shaw, an unknown New Orleans singer posting her songs on the web, and Israeli viral-video artist Kutiman, whose YouTube works get millions of hits, ends up being an internet sensation.

CinemaxX 2

CinemaxX Studio 12

The Violin Teacher

Two Buddies and a Badger

CineStar 1

Cromo

(Norway, Sweden) Sola Media, 75mins.

Dir: Rasmus A Sivertsen, Rune Spaans.

An ingenious scientist is being held captive by a cruel villain trying to force him to create a serum that turns humans into robots. Two buddies, together with a badger, will join his daughter on a rescue mission against all odds.

A Conspiracy of Faith

(Denmark, Germany, Norway) TrustNordisk, 110mins. Dir: Hans Petter Moland. Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Sverre Hagen, Jakob Oftebro.

Siblings Samue and Magdalena grew up in a religious community.

Suddenly one day they disappear. Meanwhile, the police in Copenhagen find an eight-year-old message in a bottle with a cry for help.

CineStar 4

CinemaxX 4

(Spain) Film Factory Entertainment, 107mins.

Dir: Emilio MartinezLazaro. Cast: Dani Rovira, Clara Lago, Karra Elejalde, Carmen Machi.

Koldo finds out his

Cafard

CinemaxX 13

13:00

Clean Hands

(Netherlands) Wide, 108mins. Dir: Tjebbo Penning. Cast: Jeroen van Koningsbrugge, Thekla Reuten, Cees Geel, Teun Kuilboer.

Sylvia has turned a blind eye to her husband’s

40 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

(Argentina) Pyramide International, 97mins.

Dir: Lucia Puenzo.

Cast: German Palacios, Guillermo Pfening, Emilia Attias.

On a mission to expose environmental crimes in the rural areas of Northern Argentina, idealistic scientist Valentina travels to the swamp town of Corrientes to test the local water supply.

MGB-Kino

13:15

(Belgium, France) UDI — Urban Distribution International, 93mins.

Dir: Jan Bultheel.

Cast: Wim Willaert, Dinara Drukarova, Sebastien Dewaele.

Based on the true story of the prestigious elite group ACM, the first Armored Car Division in history, which set out on a dramatic odyssey around the world during the First World War.

Thru You Princess

flourishing drug business for too long. When Eddie’s dealings take a turn for the worse, Sylvia wants to protect the lives and future of their young children.

(France) Pathe International, 114mins.

Dir: Christian Carion.

Cast: August Diehl, Olivier Gourmet, Mathilde Seigner, Alice Isaaz.

In May 1940, France collapses and millions of people take to the roads, terrified by the advancing German army. Among them is a German man who has fled Nazism, and who now searches for his young son.

Spanish Affair 2

CinemaxX 17

See box, left

daughter Amaia is planning on marrying a foreigner. Even worse, the man is a Catalan. He goes all over Spain to find Rafa to draw up a plan to stop the wedding, because the truth is, Rafa still loves her.

Come What May

12:55

I’m Not a Rebel

one of the darkest moments in Mexico’s recent history. In a time when defying the authorities is like asking for a death sentence, taking action against what is unfair and unjust is a duty.

CineStar 5

13:05

The Demons

Life, Animated

(Canada) Be for Films, 118mins. Dir: Philippe Lesage. Cast: Edouard Tremblay-Grenier, Pier-Luc Funk, Pascale Bussiere, Laurent Lucas.

Ten-year-old Felix is finishing his school year.

A sensitive boy with a vivid imagination, Felix is afraid of everything.

(US) Dogwoof, 91mins.

Dir: Roger Ross Williams.

A coming-of-age story about an autistic boy and his family who overcame great challenges by turning Disney animated movies into a language to express love, loss, kinship and brotherhood.

CinemaxX Studio 11

Parliament

(Brazil) Films Boutique, 100mins. Dir: Sergio Machado.

When gifted violin player Laerte fails to become a member of Sao Paulo Orchestra, he is forced to give music classes to kids in one of the biggest slums in Brazil.

CineStar 6

13:30 Awaiting

(Spain, Lithuania) Latido Films, 96mins.

Dir: Daniela Fejerman.

Cast: Nora Navas, Francesc Garrido, Larisa Kalpokaite, Arunas Puidokas.

A Spanish couple travel to a country in Eastern Europe to adopt a child.

However, things do not work out as they had expected. dffb-Kino

(Australia) Mongrel International, 83mins.

Dir: Lawrence Johnston.

A celebration of the beauty, invention, design and heritage of the neon sign.

CinemaxX 14

13:35 The Devil’s Mistress

(Czech Republic, Germany) Global Screen, 110mins. Dir: Filip Renc.

Cast: Karl Markovics, Gedeon Burkhardt, Tatiana Pauhofova, Zdena Prochazkova.

More than half a century has passed since the days when Lida Baarova was feted as the star of Czechoslovakian cinema and since her ill-fated romance with Joseph Goebbels, State Minister of Propaganda in the Third Reich.

CinemaxX 18

13:40 Nobel

(Norway, Czech Republic) DRG, 47mins.

Dir: Per Olav Sorensen.

Cast: Aksel Hennie, Anders Danielsen Lie, Tuva Novotny, Atheer Adel.

Two stories carefully intertwine as a returning soldier and family man becomes a pawn in a political international game. As the stakes grow higher he is forced to discover just how far one should go in the name of peace.

EFM Cinemobile

13:50

Being AP

Homecoming

(UK) HanWay Films,

(Finland) The Yellow

www.screendaily.com

Affair, 103mins.

Dir: Mika Kaurismaki.

Cast: Vesa-Matti Loiri, Armi Toivanen, Peter Franzen.

A funny art-house film about heading home and reviving lost relationships with seemingly impossible people.

Avi Mograbi goes to meet African asylum-seekers in a camp in the middle of the Negev desert where they are confined by the state of Israel. Together, they question the status of the refugees in Israel.

CinemaxX 19

Crew

Mara’akame’s Dream

(Mexico) Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), 90mins. Dir: Federico Cecchetti. Cast: Luciano Bautista Maxa Temai, Antonio Parra Haka Temai, Pascual Hernandez, Cruz de la Cruz.

Niere is a young Huichol indian whose dream of travelling with his music band to play in a concert in Mexico City faces opposition by his father, who has different plans for his son.

Kino Arsenal 2

14:00 Cinema, mon amour

(Romania) Romanian Film Center, 72mins.

Dir: Alexandru Belc.

Cast: Victor Purice, Cornelia Chelmu, Lorena Cosau, Gheorghe Purice.

The story of a cinema manager, projectionist and lifetime cinephile along with his two employees in their everyday battle to preserve a cinema hall.

CinemaxX 2

Planeta Inform Film Distribution, 180mins.

During a flight to Asia the crew receives an alert about an earthquake on a volcanic island and takes a decision to fly a dangerous rescue mission.

CineStar IMAX

14:30 On the Other Side

(Croatia, Serbia) Cercamon, 85mins.

Dir: Zrinko Ogresta.

Cast: Ksenija Marinkovic, Lazar Ristovski.

Twenty years ago, Vesna moved her family to Zagreb, away from the events that almost destroyed their lives.

However, an unexpected call will bring back the memory of a secret that she has been trying to hide all these years.

CineStar 2

14:40 Don’t Call Me Son

(Germany) Tamtam Film GmbH, 98mins. Dir: Max Zahle. Cast: LLucas Gregorowicz, Frederick Lau, Anna Bederke, Heiko Pinkowski.

(Brazil) Loco Films, 82mins. Dir: Anna Muylaert. Cast: Naomi Nero, Dani Nefussi, Matheus Natchergaele, Daniel Botelho.

Pierre is a teenager like others. After a DNA test, he learns the woman he calls Mom is not his real mother.

He now has to move in with his biological family.

Zoo Palast 2

CineStar 4

CinemaxX 15

Wreck It!

14:05 Free in Deed

(US) Stray Dogs, 99mins.

Dir: Jake Mahaffy. Cast: David Harewood, Edwina Findley, RaJay Chandler, Preston Shannon.

Set in the world of storefront churches, one man attempts to perform a miracle. The more he prays, the more things spiral out of control.

Marriott 1

14:25 Between Fences

(Israel, France) Doc & Film International, 85mins. Dir: Avi Mograbi.

www.screendaily.com

58mins. Dir: Jannik Johansen.

A year-and-a-half after the EnerGreen scandal, which drastically altered the lives of our main characters, we face the world of white-collar crime in the banking and financial sector and witness the extensive global consequences.

EFM Cinemobile

Happiness Is a Four Letter Word

(South Africa) AAA Entertainment, 93mins.

Dir: Thabang Moleya.

Cast: Khanyi Mbau, Mmabatho Montsho, Chris Attoh, Tongayi Chirisa.

Perfectionist Nandi seems to have the New South African Dream life within her grasp, black female partner in a major firm, a fiance, the perfect house — but it all goes up in flames a few months before the wedding.

Parliament

15:00 Baskin

(Turkey) Turkish Films, 97mins. Dir: Can Evrenol. Cast: Gorkem Kasal, Ergun Kuyucu, Muharrem Bayrak, Fatih Dokgoz.

A squad of unsuspecting cops go through a trapdoor to hell when they stumble upon a black mass in an abandoned building.

CineStar 5

CinemaxX 14

Follow The Money Season 2

(Denmark) DR Sales,

(Denmark, UK) HanWay Films, 93mins. Dir: Kasper Barfoed. Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard, Cyron Melville, Esben Smed Jensen.

The 1992 Danish football team competes for the European Championship.

MGB-Kino

The Patriarch

(New Zealand) Wild Bunch, 103mins. Dir: Lee Tamahori. Cast: Temuera Morrison, Akuhata Keefe, Nancy Brunning, Jim Moriarty.

A powerful and explosive saga of Maori family life in rural New Zealand.

CinemaxX 4

Paul A Quebec

(Canada) Seville International, 98mins.

Dir: Francois Bouvier.

Cast: Francois Letourneau, Gilbert Sicotte, Julie Le Breton, Louise Portal.

A touching story of a family coping with adversity. The courage and tenderness that they bring to one another is an inspiring ode to the beauty of life and the power of familial bonds.

CineStar 6

It is Friday morning at Panamerican Machinery Inc. a company specialising in selling and repairing machines for construction and destruction.

CinemaxX 16

15:30 Alpha Violet Private Screening II

Alpha Violet, 104mins.

15:05

CinemaxX 18

Operation Avalanche

(US, Canada) XYZ Films, 93mins. Dir: Matt Johnson. Cast: Matt Johnson, Owen Williams, Josh Boles.

1967: The Cold War. The CIA suspects that there is a Russian mole inside of NASA, sabotaging the Apollo programme. They send two young agents posing as documentary film-makers to hunt down the leak.

Brother & Sister

CinemaxX Studio 11

(China) Forum/Office, 81mins. Dir: Zhang Hanyi. Cast: Zhang Li, Zhang Minjun, Wang Ji Shan, Wei Xiao Min. A dead woman returns home in the body of her son in order to convince her husband to replant the tree that grows in front of their former home.

15:15 Drifters See box, below

Panamerican Machinery

(Mexico, Poland) Luxbox, 86mins. Dir: Joaquin del Paso. Cast: Rafael Velez, Javier Zaragoza, Ramiro Orozco, Cecilia Garcia.

(Germany) Salzgeber & Co. Medien, 90mins.

Dir: Jan Kruger. Cast: Vladimir Burlakov, Julius Nitschkoff, Irina Potapenko.

A loner who gets caught up. A couple with unclear status. A city where everyone wants to live.

CinemaxX 15

Life after Life

CinemaxX 6

Girl Asleep

(US) Myriad Pictures, 107mins. Dir: Paul Dalio.

Cast: Katie Holmes, Luke Kirby.

When two bipolar poets land in the same mental hospital, a beautiful but destructive romance develops. Swinging from fantastical highs to depressive lows, they must ultimately choose between sanity and love.

14:45

CinemaxX 17

Summer of ‘92

CinemaxX 13

(Australia) Memento Films International, 77mins. Dir: Rosemary Myers. Cast: Bethany Whitmore, Harrison Feldman, Matthew Whittet, Amber McMahon.

Soon-to-be 15 Greta can’t really fit in in her new town. When her mom throws her a surprise birthday bash, her biggest fears appear and she is flung into a parallel world; a place weirdly erotic, a bit violent and highly ludicrous.

Touched With Fire

78mins. Dir: Peder Hamdahl Næss. Cast: Elias Sovold-Simonsen, Jeppe Beck Laursen, Dagny Backer Johnsen, Stein Winge.

Fergie is no ordinary farm tractor. He has a heart, a heart that beats for his friends.

Little Grey Fergie — Country Fun

(Norway, Ireland) Attraction Distribution,

Market 15:15 Drifters

(Sweden) The Match Factory, 97mins. Dir: Peter Gronlund.

Cast: Malin Levanon, Lo Kauppi, Tomas Neumann, Kalled Mustonen.

Drug addict Minna is on the run

from her local dealer. She ends up in Katja’s car, a single mother and alcoholic, fighting to get back the child from the public authorities — the start of an unexpected and salutary friendship.

CinemaxX Studio 12

»

February 15, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 41

Screenings

30, suddenly dies. Her death brings two virtual strangers, her boyfriend Lawrence and sister Zoe, closer together.

My Revolution

(France) Visit Films, 81mins. Dir: Ramzi Ben Sliman. Cast: Samuel Vincent, Anamaria Vartolomei, Lubna Azabal, Samir Guesmi.

The Arab Spring in Paris: head over heels in love, Marwann, aged 14, hopes to win over Sygrid by cleverly reinventing himself as a revolutionary.

Questions of identity arise in this romantic tale of first love.

CinemaxX 19

Vive le Cinema!

(France) Bac Films, 90mins. Dir: Diane Kurys. Cast: Sylvie Testud, Josiane Balasko, Zabou Breitman.

Sybille, a well-known actress, is about to direct her first film. Producers Brigitte and Ingrid are crazy but lovable and Sybille jumps at the chance to work with them.

But the perfect dream will soon turn into a nightmare.

Kino Arsenal 2

15:50 Coldness

(Iran) Farabi Cinema Foundation, 87mins.

Dir: Bahram & Bahman Haj Abol Loo Ark. Cast: Sadra Daneshvar, Nasrin Moradi, Sajad Rafi.

Due to the grave financial difficulties of his family, an eight-year-old boy is constantly anxious and wets himself. He is forced to hide himself under his mother’s chador everyday, coming back from school.

Market 16:30 The Endless River

(France, South Africa) UDI — Urban Distribution International, 110mins. Dir: Oliver Hermans. Cast: Nicolas

CinemaxX 13

Duvauchelle, CrystalDonna Roberts.

A fierce crime drama set against an unforgiving landscape, a story about morality, love, revenge and forgiveness.

CinemaxX 14

Marriott 1

16:00 Above and Below

(Germany, Switzerland) Maximage, 118mins.

Dir: Nicolas Steiner. Cast: Laura Killian, Bertin Molz, Tobias Koch.

From Mars, to the Earth, below the surface. Far, far away and out of sight, that’s where April, Dave, Cindy, Rick and the godfather are creating life on their own terms.

Zoo Palast 2

Norskov

(Denmark) DR Sales, 42mins. Dir: Louise ND Friedberg. Cast: Thomas Levin, Jacob Hauberg Lohmann, Martin Kierkegaard.

Police investigator Tom Noack returns home to Norskov to clean up major drug crimes but quickly becomes personally involved. Tom discovers a large smuggling operation and is torn between his professional and personal commitments.

EFM Cinemobile

The Interrogation

(Israel, Germany) Wide, 84mins. Dir: Erez Pery. Cast: Romanus

Fuhrmann, Maciej Marczewski.

In 1946, Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoss, the longest-serving commander of Auschwitz concentration camp, is awaiting trial in a Polish prison. Albert, a Polish investigation judge, is appointed to get a perfect confession out of him.

CinemaxX 2

16:10 Dad in Training

(France) TF1 International, 95mins.

Dir: Cyril Gelblat.

Cast: Manu Payet, Audrey Lamy, Aure Atika.

After 10 years his marriage breaks up. A father has to take care of his two daughters for the first time... and finally learn to become a dad.

CineStar 4

16:20 Europe, She Loves

(Switzerland, Germany) Autlook Filmsales, 100mins. Dir: Jan Gassmann.

Europe on the verge of social and economic change. A close up into the shaken vision of four couples, daily struggles,

42 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Holm. Cast: Rolf Lassgard, Bahar Pars, Filip Berg, Ida Engvoll.

Ove is the block’s grumpy man. When pregnant Parvaneh and her family move into the terraced house opposite and accidentally back into Ove’s mailbox, it sets off the beginning of an unexpected friendship.

fights, kids, sex and passion. A movie about the politics of love.

MGB-Kino

CinemaxX 17

Back To Mom’s!

Louis Ferdinand Celine

(France) Other Angle Pictures, 97mins. Dir: Emmanuel Bourdieux.

Cast: Denis Lavant, Geraldine Pailhas.

Accused by the French justice of collaborating with the Nazis, Louis Ferdinand Celine is in exile in Denmark. Milton Hindus, a young American writer who admires him, joins him in Denmark to write a book about him.

(France) Pathe International, 92mins.

Dir: Eric Lavaine.

Cast: Alexandra Lamy, Josiane Balasko, Mathilde Seigner, Jerome Commandeur.

We all love our parents, but to go back and live with them when you are an adult is another story. This is the situation Stephanie finds herself in — faced with a loving yet smothering mother.

CineStar 1

Parliament

16:30 The Endless River See box, above

The Girl in the Book

(US) Myriad Pictures, 89mins. Dir: Marya Cohn. Cast: Emily VanCamp, Micheal Nyqvist, Ana Mulvoy-Ten. Alice Harvey must face her past to rewrite her future.

Lily Lane

(Hungary) Films Boutique, 91mins.

Dir: Bence Fliegauf.

After the death of her mother, Rebeka and her young son Danny try to track down Rebeka’s estranged father. Along the way she tells Danny a story, revealing dark and haunted childhood memories.

CinemaxX Studio 11

CineStar 5

16:45 A Man Called Ove

(Sweden) TrustNordisk, 115mins. Dir: Hannes

This Summer Feeling

(France) Pyramide International, 106mins.

Dir: Mikael Hers.

In midsummer, Sasha,

16:50 The Break

(Belgium) Ella Prod, 52mins. Dir: Matthieu Donck. Cast: Yoann Blanc, Guillaume Kerbusch, Anne Coesens, Catherine Salee.

The body of a footballer is pulled out of the river near a small town in the Belgian Ardennes. Inspector Yoann Peeters, who has recently moved there after a domestic tragedy, will find himself confronted with a real conundrum.

EFM Cinemobile

International, 105mins.

Dir: David Bernet.

Offers an insight into a hidden world of political struggle for new data protection legislation in the European Union.

CinemaxX 15

17:15 Out of Love

(Netherlands) Reel Suspects, 101mins.

Dir: Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito.

Cast: Naomi Velissariou, Danil Vorobyev.

Encapsulates the sweltering and devastating dynamics of love in the turbulent relationship between Varya and Nikolai, where genuine love and hope contend with destruction and despair.

Kino Arsenal 2

17:20 Cooking at the World’s End

(Spain) Wide House, 94mins. Dir: Alberto Baamonde. Cast: Joaquin Martinez, Carlos Rodriguez, Laura Fontan.

When Alice shows up at Tom’s birthday dinner in NYC, the guests are immediately charmed by her. But things become complicated as questions arise as to who she really is, how she leads her life and what she wants.

CinemaxX 18

Parasol

(Belgium) Be for Films, 73mins. Dir: Valery Rosier. Cast: Alfie Thomson, Yoko Pere, Julienne Goeffers, Christian Carr.

A Mediterranean island.

Three solitary persons wandering; a summer ending. Three lonely souls fiercely determined not to stay that way. Nostalgic for a past that never happened.

CineStar 6

17:00

17:30 The Call Up

(UK) Altitude Film Sales, 90mins. Dir: Charles Barker. Cast: Max Deacon, Morfydd Clark, Ali Cook, Parker Sawyers.

A group of online gamers are invited to trial a stateof-the-art virtual reality video game. But things take a turn for the sinister when these masters of the shoot-’em-up discover they will literally be fighting for their lives.

CineStar IMAX

Alena

(Sweden) The Match Factory, 84mins.

Dir: Daniel di Grado.

When Alena arrives at her new elite boarding school, the other girls start to harass her.

CinemaxX Studio 12

17:05 Democracy

(Germany) Doc & Film

The Model

(Denmark) TrustNordisk, 109mins. Dir: Mads Matthiesen. Cast: Maria Palm, Ed Skrein, Charlotte Tomaszewska, Marco Ilso.

When the fashion model Emma gets a chance to pursue her dream of becoming an international top model, she leaves her

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life in Denmark behind, and moves to Paris where she falls in love with the charismatic photographer Shane.

CinemaxX 2

Shipwreck 1890

(Turkey, Japan) Turkish Films, 127mins. Dir: Mitsutoshi Tanaka.

Cast: Kenan Ece, Alican Yucesoy, Seiyo Uchino, Shioli Kutsuna.

In 1889, the Ottoman Empire sent a a navy ship called Ertugrul to visit the Empire of Japan. On the way back she sank in a typhoon. Only 69 soldiers out of 618 could be saved by the efforts of Japanese fishermen.

Marriott 1

The Bureau 2

(France) Federation Entertainment, 111mins.

Dir: Eric Rochant.

Cast: Mathieu Kassovitz, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Lea Drucker.

Within the French secret service, one department manages the missions of all clandestine operations around the world.

EFM Cinemobile

18:00 Dancer

(UK) WestEnd Films, 82mins. Dir: Steven Cantor. Cast: Sergei Polunin.

An unprecedented look into the life of a complex young man, Sergei Polunin, who has made ballet go viral.

When Geek Meets Serial Killer

CineStar 2

(China) All Rights Entertainment, 90mins.

Dir: Remus Mok. Cast: Shiga Lin, Bryan Chang, JC Chee.

A self-published comic artist accidentally kills his best friend. To avoid going to jail, he comes up with an ingenious way to dispose of this body, until his cheating girlfriend comes to visit and he accidentally kills her too.

The Here After

dffb-Kino

17:35 Being 17

(France) Elle Driver, 116mins. Dir: Andre Techine. Cast: Sandrine Kiberlain, Kacey Mottet Klein, Corentin Fila, Alexis Loret.

In high school, Damien is constantly bullied by Tom. But to help his parents out, Damien’s mother offers to take Tom in.

Forced to live together, the boys’ hatred for each other starts to change.

CinemaxX 10

17:50

CineStar 4

www.screendaily.com

Parliament

18:15 Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex

(France) Le Pacte, 104mins. Dir: Alexandre Poncet.

Based on interviews of all the greatest artists in the genre and hours of exclusive footage from classics (from ‘Gremlins’ to ‘Spider-Man 2’), this documentary focuses on the stunning relationship between the creatures and their makers.

CineStar 5

The Tag-Along

(Poland, Sweden, France) New Europe Film Sales, 101mins.

Dir: Magnus von Horn.

Cast: Ulrik Munther, Mats Blomgren, Wieslaw Komasa, Aleksander Nordgren.

When John returns home to his father after serving time in prison, he is looking forward to starting his life afresh. However in the local community, his crime is neither forgotten nor forgiven.

CinemaxX 17

18:10 Dark Inclusion

(France, Belgium) Films Distribution, 116mins.

Dir: Arthur Harari.

Cast: Niels Schneider, August Diehl, Hans-Peter Cloos.

Pier Ulmann blames his family of diamond dealers for his father’s tragic life and death. To make amends he returns among them with a robbery plan in mind.

CineStar 6

The Boss’s Daughter

(France) Wild Bunch, 103mins. Dir: Olivier Loustau. Cast: Olivier Loustau, Christa Theret, Florence Thomassin, Patrick Descamps.

Social differences threaten to derail a passionate love story between the boss’s daughter and the foreman at her father’s factory.

she loses her job and her world falls apart.

Desperate, she decides to kidnap the CEO of her former company.

The Last Will Be Last

(Italy) True Colours, 103mins. Dir: Massimiliano Bruno.

Cast: Paola Cortellesi, Alessandro Gassmann, Fabruzio Bentivoglio.

Luciana is deeply in love with her husband and lives the life she always desired. But, shortly after she gets pregnant,

(Taiwan) Ablaze Image, 93mins. Dir: Wei-hao Cheng.

Wei’s grandma, who lives with him, disappears for no reason, then Wei goes missing too. Wei’s girlfriend desperately searches for him and finds herself caught in the horrifying mystery of the urban legend, the little girl in red.

CinemaxX 16

18:20 Author: The JT LeRoy Story

(US) Dogwoof, 110mins.

Dir: Jeff Feuerzeig.

The story behind literary persona JT LeRoy, the fictional writer created by American author Laura Albert.

CinemaxX 11 invitation only

Cast: Aharon Traitel, Khalifa Natour, Riki Blich, Gur Sheinberg.

An ultra-orthodox scholar is revived after dying for 40 minutes. After coming back to life, he suddenly feels a strange awakening in his body and suspects that God is testing him.

CinemaxX 14

To My Beloved

(Brazil) Pluto Film, 113mins. Dir: Aly Muritiba. Cast: Fernando Alves Pinto, Lourinelson Vladmir, Mayana Neiva, Giuly Biancato.

During an investigation, a judge realises that the defendant is the biological mother of her adopted son. Far from recusing herself, she keeps hounding Juliette.

CinemaxX Studio 12

18:35 Despite the Night

(France) Films Boutique, 155mins. Dir: Philippe Grandrieux.

A feverish story of love and jealousy.

CinemaxX 19

19:00 From Afar

(Venezuela, Mexico) Celluloid Dreams, 93mins. Dir: Lorenzo Vigas. Cast: Alfredo Castro, Luis Silva.

Wealthy middle-aged Armando’s first encounter with street thug teenager Elder is financially motivated and violent, but an unexpected intimacy emerges, tainted by an haunted past.

CinemaxX 15

Mini Force: New Heroes Rise

(South Korea) 9ers Entertainment, 68mins.

Dir: Lee Young-jun.

The birth of Mini Force The Lizard Squad has taken over the special element Elinium from Dr Jeremy. Heroes who have been protecting different regions are now united to stop the evil force, which seems to have much darker secrets.

CinemaxX 13

18:30 Tikkun

(Israel) Bleiberg Entertainment, 119mins.

Dir: Avishai Sivan.

The Woods Dreams Are Made Of

(France, Switzerland) Be for Films, 144mins.

Dir: Claire Simon.

Everybody comes to the Bois de Vincennes to seek refuge in Nature. Rich, poor, French, foreign, gay, straight, alone or accompanied, old school or hip.

CinemaxX 18

19:05

Macarena Garcia, Alain Hernandez.

The discovery of a letter drives Clarence to visit Africa, where her family spent their youth. She unearths the secret of a forbidden love story framed within historical circumstances that will have repercussions in her life. dffb-Kino

19:15 The Revolution Won’t Be Televised

(Senegal) Forum/Office, 111mins. Dir: Rama Thiaw. Cast: Oumar Cyrille Toure, Landing Mbessane Seck, Pape Alioune Gadiaga.

In their fight for democracy, the Senegalese underground hip-hop singers of ‘Y’en a Marre’ campaign against President Wade until his fall in 2012.

CinemaxX 6

19:30 Planet Single

(Poland) New Europe Film Sales, 129mins.

Dir: Mija Okorn.

He is a fast-talking TV host looking for a new topic to discuss in his popular talk-show. She is a timid teacher looking for Mr Perfect on an internet dating site. It seems they are destined to fall in love and be together, but one day she actually does meet Mr Perfect on the net.

CinemaxX 13

Scream Week

(Netherlands, Belgium) Incredible Film, 113mins.

Dir: Martijn Heijne.

Cast: Carolien Spoor, Jelle de Jong, Jord Knotter.

A tongue-in-cheek thriller/ horror about six friends who have been planning a wild week away. But it is not long before a secret from their past comes bubbling up to the surface. It all turns into a gruelling nightmare.

CinemaxX 2

Palm Trees in the Snow

Wounded Land

(Spain) Film Factory Entertainment, 161mins.

Dir: Fernando Gonzalez Molina. Cast: Mario Casas, Adriana Ugarte,

(Israel) IsraeliFilms, 80mins. Dir: Erez Tadmor. Cast: Roy Assaf, Dvir Benedek, Moshe Ashkenazi, Keren Berger,

Tawfeek Barhom.

A brutal terror attack causes an intense chain of events in one night.

CineStar 2

19:35 Fire at Sea

(Italy, France) Doc & Film International, 107mins. Dir: Gianfranco Rosi.

Samuele is 12 years old and lives on an island in the middle of the sea. He likes land games, even though everything around him speaks of the sea and the men who try to cross it to get to his island.

CinemaxX 10

19:50 The Rift

(South Korea, Serbia, Slovenia) More In Group, 90mins.

Dir: Dejan Zecevic.

Cast: Ken Foree, Katarina Cas, Monte Markham, Dragan Micanovic.

NASA receives a signal that one of their lost space shuttles has crashed in Serbia. Agents are dispatched to retrieve the shuttle’s flight data, but the team is stuck in this unsettling place where death is dead.

CineStar 4

20:00 The Church of Karadima

(Chile) Ocio Films, 95mins. Dir: Matias Lira. Cast: Luis Gnecco, Benjamin Vicuna, Ingrid Iseense.

Based on true events involving powerful Catholic priest Fernando Karadima, who committed crimes of child abuse and paedophilia between 1980s-2000s.

Parliament

21:30 Rio Corgo

(Switzerland, Portugal) Forum/Office, 96mins.

Dir: Maya Kosa.

An old drifter named O Magico arrives at an isolated village, where he befriends a girl called Ana. Fascinated by this wondrous man, the girl progressively enters his universe, a realm populated by supernatural visions and figures.

CinemaxX 6

February 15, 2016 Screen International at Berlin 43

Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr) Mohamed Ben Attia Midnight Special (US) Jeff Nichols Boris without Beatrice (Can) Denis Coté Fire at Sea (It-Fr) Gianfranco Rosi

Good

average

2.9

★

★★★★

2.9

★★★★

★★

★★

2.1

★★★

★★

★★★★

3.3

★★★

★★★

★★

★★★

★★★

★★★★

★★

★★★

★★

★★★★

★★★

★★

★★

★★

★

★★

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

★

★★★★

★★ Average ★ Poor

✖ Bad

Screen International office Scandic Hotel, Wolverine Suite, Gabriele-Tergit-Promenade 19, 10963, Berlin E-mail: firstname.lastname@ screendaily.com (unless stated) Editorial +49 30 700 779 2631 Editor Matt Mueller US editor Jeremy Kay (jeremykay67@gmail. com) Managing editor and news editor Michael Rosser Reviews editor and chief film critic Fionnuala Halligan (finn.halligan@ screendaily.com) Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray Head of news and chief reporter Andreas Wiseman

★★

★★★★

★★★

★★★

★

★★★★

Letters from War (Por) Ivo M Ferreira

★★

★★

★★

★★★★

★★

★★

24 Weeks (Ger) Anne Zohra Berrached

★

Death in Sarajevo (Fr-Bos Herz) Danis Tanovic

★★★

★★★

★★★

Things to Come (Fr-Ger) Mia Hansen-Love

Being 17 (Fr) André Téchiné

Excellent

Daniel Kasman MUBI, US

David Fear Rolling Stone, US

Anke Westphal Berliner Zeitung, Germany

Jan Schulz-Ojala Der Tagesspiegel, Germany

Tim Robey The Telegraph, UK

Nicholas Wenno Dagens Nyheter, Sweden

Anton Dolin Afisha Daily, Russia

The Screen jury at Berlin

★★★★

screen international

Jury Grid

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Reporters Martin Blaney (screen.berlin@gmail. com), Melanie Goodfellow (melanie. goodfellow@btinternet.com), Geoffrey Macnab (geoffrey@macnab.demon. co.uk), Liz Shackleton (lizshackleton@ gmail.com)

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Screenings Kelly Gibbens, Ben Sillis

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Silver Bear winner Tanovic adapts Bernard-Henri Lévy’s play Hotel Europe. On the eve of the 2014 commemoration of ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ the start of the First World War, a Frenchman sits in his Sarajevo hotel room recalling the Bosnian War.

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Sub-editors Paul Lindsell, Adam Richmond, Richard Young

Advertising and publishing Publishing director Nadia Romdhani +44 7540 100 315 Senior sales manager Scott Benfold +44 7765 257 260 International account managers Ingrid Hammond +44 7880 584 182 (ingridhammond@mac.com) Pierre-Louis Manes +44 7768 237 487

Alone in Berlin (Ger-Fr-UK) Vincent Pérez

Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson star in this English-language adaptation of Hans Fallada’s 1947 novel, based ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ on the true story of a working-class couple who conduct a series of anonymous protests against the Nazi regime.

Crosscurrent (Chi) Yang Chao

This long-gestating project by China’s Yang is about the young captain of a cargo ship sailing up the Yangtze River who ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ witnesses the life of a woman backwards over a period of 20 years. Blind Massage’s Qin Hao stars.

Soy Nero (Ger-Fr-Mex) Rafi Pitts

A 19-year-old Mexican boy dreams of emigrating north of the border. However, the only way for him to achieve this ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ may be to enlist in the US Army and fight in the Middle East as a so-called ‘green-card soldier’.

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Genius (UK-US) Michael Grandage

Grandage makes his feature debut with the story of Max Perkins, a US book editor who oversaw works by Thomas ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald among others. Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Jude Law star.

Zero Days (US) Alex Gibney

Oscar-winning documentary film-maker Gibney turns his critical eye to hacking and cyber security in this film about ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ the battles between online criminals and the white-hat hackers who try to stop them.

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The Commune (Den-Swe-Neth) Trine Dyrholm and Ulrich Thomsen portray a married couple in a commune whose bond is strained when the wife ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ Thomas Vinterberg realises she is replaceable. At the same time, their daughter (Martha Sofie Wallstrom Hansen) discovers first love.

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A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing) Lav Diaz

Diaz’s 482-minute period epic marries history, literature and mythology with interconnected narrative threads on the ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ Philippine revolution against the Spanish colonising force. John Lloyd Cruz and Piolo Pascual lead the ensemble cast.

United States of Love (Pol-Swe) Tomasz Wasilewski

Set in Poland in 1990 immediately after the fall of communism, Wasilewski’s third feature focuses on four seemingly ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ happy women of different ages who share an irresistible urge to change their lives and fulfil their desires.

A Dragon Arrives! (Iran) Mani Haghighi

Iranian director Haghighi returns with an intriguing story following a detective’s unauthorised investigation into ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ mysterious earthquakes on the remote island of Qeshm. Amir Jadidi and Homayoun Ghanizadeh star.

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44 Screen International at Berlin February 15, 2016

Gunter Zerbich +44 7540 100 254 VP business development, North America Nigel Daly +1 213 447 5120 (nigeldalymail@gmail.com) Sales and business development executive, North America Nikki Tilmouth (nikki. screeninternational@gmail.com) Production manager Jonathon Cooke +44 7584 335 148 (jonathon.cooke@mb-insight.com) Production assistant Neil Sinclair +44 7826 942 693 (neil.sinclair@ mb-insight.com) Festival and events manager Jessica Sizeland +44 7468 707 867 (jessica.sizeland@mb-insight.com) Events co-ordinator Sophie Moar +44 7834 902 528 Managing director, publishing and events Alison Pitchford Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Medien, Herstellungs und Vertriebs gmbh DMP, c/o Motivoffset Prinzessinnenstr. 26, 10969 Berlin Screen International, London Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HJ Subscription enquiries +44 330 333 9414 help@subscribe.screendaily.com

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