The Film Verdict: Berlinale & EFM Review Daily Day 3

Berlinale & EFM Review Daily

Singer Leslie Clio on Feb 16 photo coourtesy of Berlinale Photo Boulevard

BERLINALE & EFM REVIEW DAILY KUDOS TO ENZO D’ALÒ

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

BLACKBERRY

The acclaimed Italian animator is unveiling his first English-language film at the Berlinale in the Generation section.

Born in Naples in 1953, Italian director Enzo d’Alò has been a key name in the European animation world since his feature debut The Blue Arrow, released in 1996. That film, scored by famed singer Paolo Conte, also set the tone for d’Alò’s overall approach, rooted in adaptations of children’s literature from all over the world. Having tackled his fellow countryman Gianni Rodari, he

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VERDICT: The backstory to the creation of the world’s once-mostpopular smartphone is much wackier than can be imagined, as evidenced in Matt Johnson’s good-humored rise-and-fall business chronicle.

Deborah Young, February 17, 2023

Painting a rollicking picture of the nerdy techies (later defined as “Canada’s best technical engineers”) who invent the BlackBerry between raucous Movie Night sessions, and then make a pact with the devil to market it, Canadian filmmaker and actor Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche) surprises and amuses for much of BlackBerry’s two-hour

runtime, though there are speed bumps along the way. Still, this feels like a film that adds insight into the messy creative process that lies behind the glossy marketing patter of our modern tele-toys. At its most manic and absurdist, it’s plain good fun of a kind one doesn’t expect to find in Berlin competition.

Full Review

KUDOS TO ENZO D’ALÒ (Continued)

then moved on to Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda with 1998’s Lucky & Zorba, about a cat teaching a baby seagull how to fly (Sepúlveda lent his voice to the Italian version as the Poet, a character loosely based on him). A massive hit at the domestic box office, it remains the highest-grossing animated

film produced in Italy to this day. After that, Germany came calling in the form of 2001’s Momo, based on the book by Michael Ende (of Neverending Story fame).

He then produced an original work, Opopomoz (2003), set in Naples, before tackling his passion project: an adaptation of Collodi’s Pinocchio. First hinted at in 2000 with a promo featuring art by

Lorenzo Mattotti (now a director in his own right thanks to 2019’s The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily), the finished film premiered at Venice in 2012, with a dedication to singer Lucio Dalla who passed away shortly after completing the score. And while another Italian project appears to be on the horizon (he wrote the script for Nicola Barile’s upcoming film about Giovanni Boccaccio and his romance with Fiammetta, the illegitimate daughter of the King of Naples), his first work not in his native language has brought him to the Berlinale, where he’s one of the key names in the 2023 Generation line-up. A co-production between Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the UK, Germany, Latvia and Estonia, A Greyhound of a Girl takes us on a journey to Ireland, with a relationship between a young girl

and her grandmother that comes from the pages of the book of the same name by esteemed Irish writer Roddy Doyle. A hand-drawn meditation on family and the fleeting moments we share with our loved ones, the film boasts a stellar voice cast that includes the likes of Brendan Gleeson and Sharon Horgan, neither of them a stranger to the world of animation (Gleeson notably lent his talentsto another Irish production, The Secret of Kells, while Horgan is a regular on Matt Groening’s Netflix show Disenchantment). It’s the sort of talent that adds to the pedigree of a story that, after its Berlin debut, will surely enjoy a fruitful festival career in months to come before hitting theaters, once again – and perhaps on a larger scale than ever before –cementing Enzo d’Alò’s status as one of the greats in animation.

COMPETITION THE SURVIVAL OF KINDNESS

VERDICT: Rolf de Heer’s stripped-down story of a black woman who escapes from a cage and walks through a landscape heavy with racism and pandemic fear aligns with much of his intensely humane films, yet it feels weighed down by the uncertainty of its ultimate message.

Jay Weissberg, February 17, 2022

Throughout Rolf de Heer’s exceptional body of work, he’s excelled at making his characters representative of a group of oppressed peoples while miraculously imbuing them with a sense of individual humanity. In recent films like Ten Canoes and Charlie’s Country, he’s surpassed the often straightjacketing concept of simple representation to celebrate the spirit of each person, ensuring they’re not lost in the well-meaning vacuum of generalizations. The Survival of Kindness is a continuation of these themes, beginning with the shocking image of a black woman in a cage, yet as it follows this resourceful woman through a dark journey in which plague and racism play determining roles, it feels like the concept has overwhelmed the narrative, so that the film’s initial power is weakened by an amorphous obviousness.

That doesn’t detract from the film’s visual beauty nor the compelling lead, credited simply as BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein), whose trek on foot through desert, mountains and forest is a journey towards survival as long as hope lasts. In this dystopian world however, hope gathers in little pools like quicksilver and then scurries away, laying bare a landscape so deprived of the milk of human kindness that the only sure place is within oneself. But is this really the message? And if so, why this title? It’s more probable that this eminently humane director hasn’t quite found the means to process the COVID years – this is very much a pandemic-era film – and the ways it reinforced separation and otherness. Full Review

PANORAMA

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE

And yet director Patric Chiha has had the rather novel idea to take one of the writer’s classic stories and transpose it to the Parisian disco world that reigned throughout the late 1970s and into the 80s, until techno and house music took over in the 90s.

Setting James’ The Beast in the Jungle (La Bête dans la jungle) in that place and time is certainly intriguing, not to mention ambitious, but Chiha’s fifth feature falls short when it comes to making the original story feel fresh and the stakes feel high. For all the glitter and gloss he tosses at us, it’s as if his movie were loaded with Quaaludes instead of cocaine and ecstasy, and it may wind up putting some people to sleep.

VERDICT: Intriguingly ambitious attempt to do a nightclub version of a classic Henry James story winds up being more tired than wired.

Jordan Mintzer, February 17, 2023

Had Henry James been alive and well in the 1980s, it’s unlikely you would have ever seen him getting busy on the dance floor. He probably wouldn’t have even set foot in a nightclub.

COMPETITION

SOMEDAY WE’LL TELL EACH OTHER EVERYTHING

Premiering in Berlin’s Panorama section, where Chiha’s documentaries Brothers of the Night and If It Were Love were both well received, the film may get some attention through its formal audaciousness, not to mention the casting of French star Anaïs Demoustier (Anaïs in Love). But it’s too benumbing an affair to garner much interest outside of France, Belgium and Austria, where it was produced.

Full Review

adapted from Daniela Krien’s hit 2011 novel of the same name, this handsome historical drama takes place in a sunny rustic corner of East Germany at the end of the Cold War. It feels sumptuous and polished, with its seductive landscapes and solid ensemble cast, but the dramatic treatment is oddly passionless for a film about transgressive desire and sadomasochistic sex. Fifty shades of tedium? Nein danke.

VERDICT: Emily Atef's Berlin world premiere about a teenage girl's forbidden love for an abusive older man is beautifully filmed but fifty shades of boring.

Stephen Dalton, February 17, 2023

A provincial teenage girl’s dreams of romantic adventure take some dark turns in Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything, writer-director Emily Atef’s Berlin competition contender. Faithfully

Born in Berlin to French-Iranian parents, Atef is a regular at big European festivals. Her feted Romy Schneider mini-biopic 3 Days in Quiberon (2018) world premiered in competition at the Berlinale and went on to win seven Lolas, the German Oscar equivalent. But Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything is a more conventional coming-of-age affair, ponderously overlong and obstinately sombre. It opens in German cinemas in April, where the book’s domestic success and local political context should help secure sympathetic interest. In other markets, this deluxe soap opera will face a tougher challenge to connect with audiences.

The backdrop is a sleepy East German farming village in the sultry summer of 1990.

Full Review

VERDICT: Mexican-Salvadoran director Tatiana Huezo returns to her first cinematographic love in this moving and beautifully photographed documentary about teenagers in a Puebla community.

Lucy Virgen, February 17, 2023

Like producer-director Tatiana Huezo’s previous film Prayers for the Stolen, The Echo (El eco) is the story of three teenagers. Here, she observes the life of the El Eco community without apparent intervention, then presents it to us with meticulous editing. As in The Tiniest Place, this is a small rural community. But unlike any of the director’s previous works, there is no physical violence or even talk about it. Huezo seems to have grown tired of such harshness and she wants to explore a more nonviolent life. Fortunately, both in war and in peace, she has an excellent eye for portraying everyday life and the sensibility to get up close, without making regular people look like actors.

In the first scene of the documentary, we see how a young woman, Luz Ma, recovers a lost sheep from of a stream. In the next one, another teenager, Montse, helps her mother bathe her grandmother. The mother tells the girl that this will be her duty, and she complies with care and devotion. El Eco is only 400 kilometers away from Mexico City, but it could be on another continent because of the way life is lived there. Its inhabitants have no electricity or running water; they eke out a living on agriculture, sheep herding, and forestry.

Do not feel sorry for these kids who are the embodiment of resilience itself. Besides helping with the housework, they labor in the fields, ride bareback, and take care of the animals on their property. Full Review

CINE VERDICT: La directora mexicanasalvadoreña Tatiana Huezo regresa a su primer amor cinematográfico con este documental conmovedor y bellamente fotografiado sobre adolescentes en una comunidad de Puebla, participante en la sección Encuentros en el Festival de Berlin.

Lucy Virgen, February 17, 2023

La productora, directora y co-editora Tatiana Huezo observa sin aparente intervención la vida de la comunidad El Eco; después nos la presenta con una edición meticulosa . El eco es -al igual que su película anterior Noche de Fuego, la historia de tres adolescentes; como en El lugar más pequeño es una pequeña comunidad rural: Pero a diferencia de cualquier obra de la directora no hay violencia física ni se habla de ella. Huezo parece haberse cansado de tanta dureza y quiere explorar una vida más pacífica. Por fortuna, en la guerra y en la paz , sigue teniendo una excelente mirada para retratar la vida cotidiana y la sensibilidad para acercarse sin que las personas parezcan actores.

En la primera escena del documental vemos como una jovencita Luz Ma sacar a una oveja perdida de un arroyo. En la siguiente otra adolescente Montse ayuda a su madre a bañar a su abuela; la madre avisa a la chica que esa será su obligación, ella lo cumple con esmero y devoción. El eco está a sólo 400 kilómetros de la ciudad de México, pero podría estar en otro continente por su forma de vida. Sus habitantes no tienen electricidad ni agua corriente; viven de la agricultura, el pastoreo de borregos y la silvicultura.

Pero no tenga lástima de estos chicos que son la resilencia misma. Además de ayudar en las labores domésticas, trabajan en el campo, montan caballos a pelo, cuidan a los animales de su propiedad. Full Review

ATLAS INTERNATIONAL REACHES NEXTGEN

Born in Belgium, Michel Vanderwalle was drawn to the world of entertainment as a very young man. He was part of an international orchestra and participated in theater and dance in school and later as a teenager started working in front of and behind the camera.There were also early signs of Michel as an entrepreneur, as he began conducting interviews of stars on Premieres Pirate radio DJ and newscast. By the mid-80’s he became a credit controller at Cannon Entertainment in Los Angeles and started working in publishing and production. Michel’s career began to take off in 1991 with a move back to Europe working for Bertelsmann in Hamburg and eventually with UFA Film and Television. He was tasked to set up the International distribution company, which later became the Fremantle and RTL Group. Michel went on to produce animation, CDI Philips, documentaries and eventually created and produced a quarterly music show for RTL2 called The Dome. His experience led to consulting for the European Community and investors. In 2007 he moved to Munich for a start-up called EVA, where Atlas International Film was the sales company. Keeping his eye on the opportunities of international sales, he envisioned bundling the German film funds and selling them worldwide. In 2015 he took his vision and experience and acquired Wonderworld Atlas.

Michel has been a Jury member of the International Emmy Awards, Golden Nymph Television Awards of Monte Carlo. Michel currently lives in Munich.

TFV: Michel, as you gear up for the European Film Market in Berlin, the Film Verdict appreciates your time to meet with us. Atlas International is one of the standard bearers of German independent film companies in Europe, established in 1967, representing over 100 producers around the world and an extensive library. How do you keep the company current and even cutting edge, within the ever-changing film community?

MICHEL: We have a tendency to always try to be ahead of time.We did have an office in New York for ages but with the internet coming up we changed that. I remember being one of the first in 2007 or 2008 (not sure anymore) to have a dedicated website where clients with password could screen our movies. Nowadays that is how screening is done. Even the end user is now watching online via streaming platform movies, series and documentaries. Streamers are becoming more and more online tv stations, with entertainment, cooking programs and scripted reality. The internet can now deal with the huge amount of traffic which it was not sure it would be able to 20 years ago. I have been in the entertainment business since the mid 80s and worked in finance, publishing, marketing, acquisition, distribution and as a producer, music, doc, animation, fiction. I had a company making websites and games before it all took really off. It has always been a challenge to figure out what was going to change and find out how to approach your clients in the best way with the right product. In the end it still gets to direct contact and having content that interests your clients.Very simple in a way. Screenings in general on markets are getting less and less visited except for the movies that are in competition.There are less peo- ple working in acquisitions in companies than before. Now you have your contacts that cover more than just acquisitions, so they have less time on a market . . . so, in short, the sentence “Send me a screener” is now more popular than ever. On the other hand we are now in contact with everyone 365 days a year minus the Xmas holidays via email, zoom, (does one still Skype? ),WhatsApp and whatever. I remember Telex and Fax machines… Calling people worldwide was costing a fortune. Markets are now not the only place to meet like in the olden days…

Communication, unfortunately, had become more and more an exchange, or better said, a flood of emails, so on Markets you actually get to talk and look people in the eyes WOW. I find there is a lot of fluctuations in the companies, and contacts are changing more frequently. Sometimes hard to keep up.

TFV: And with over 12,000 license agreements around the world, what are the biggest changes you are seeing in the licensing agreement area, such as with virtual reality, AI or other areas that are nontraditional?

MICHEL: Contracts are getting more and more complicated instead of easier. But it makes it more challenging. Does one first go to local distributors and then TV, and what about streamers… and what to do with the online activity of tv stations - how to deal with that. Who gets online rights, how long etc… when is who coming in the chain or not at all, and which ones go directly to only a streaming platform? Theaters will always be there. I remember when commercial TV started theaters were predicted to die… then VHS was going to, then DVD and now Streamers. We are socially hungry to share our emotions together, just like on sports events and concerts. Watching a movie in a theater makes a comedy funnier than at home, and when a thriller makes the audience quiet and bundle up close together that is different too. And a Top Gun in a theater with sound and trembling of your seat… this oh so wow with no comparison…So if you have good movies you will always get people in the theaters.

The challenge is to get them to cherish all kind of movies. Funny that you are talking about Virtual reality and AI. It is really exciting and this could again be a game changer, but I have the feeling we still have to wait and see how this evolves. Although the speed at how things change - who knows, in a couple of months (Laugh).

TFV: You personally have had a long career. You joined Atlas International Film in 2007 and took over the company in 2015, which gives the company a solid cornerstone for continued growth. What is your vision and ambitions for Atlas International?

MICHEL: When I took over Atlas I wanted to make sure the Atlas brand, which is known by the older generations but not really by the young audience, gets back up front.

Most people don’t know that our founder, being one of the big partners for Germany in the sixties, was dealing directly with the majors. Atlas was also the first to sell what we now call the Hong Kong action movies. Atlas has Evergreens of Horror movies like Paul Naschy´s Werewolf, Alligator, Tombs of the Blind Dead, or sold classics like Baron of Munchausen representing the old UFA movies from the forties. Atlas was also representing the Constantin Catalogue for a long time. Paul Verhoeven movies, John Woo and other big directors. At the Cannes Film Festival in the 80s Atlas had an annual big party with Bavarian beer and Weisswurst that was flown in. So yes, big ideas in reviving this old brand, let’s see what time brings.

Watch the trailer for Atlas International title Roxy

Market watch

APLFilm acquires Polarized

Starring Paul McGann, The Three Musketeers,Withnail & I), Brian McCardie (The Ghost and the Darkness, Speed 2: Cruise Control), Noa Nikita Bleeker, Dita Tantang (One Shot, Ren), Steven Meo (High Hopes, Torchwood) and MyAnna Buring (Kill List). Mia and the Dragon Princess is directed & written by Richard Foster, alongside cowriter Michael Pedley.

Michael Walker, EVP Productions and Acquisitions, 101 Films

APL Film announces the acquisition of foreign sales rights to Polarized, the 5th theatrical feature of award-winning Canadian-British writer-director Shamim Sarif (Despite the Falling Snow).

Produced by Hanan Kattan of Enlightenment Productions and Juliette Hagoplan of Julijette Inc., the film is part of the selection of Telefilm Canada’s Perspective Canada initiative which is holding a market screening at EFM to attract international distribution.

Starring Holly Deveaux and Maxine Denis, Polarized presents a love story between two women separated by race and religion. When a white farm worker (Deveaux) gets fired for racism, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with her Palestinian boss (Denis). “I like to push the boundaries of the way queer women of color are portrayed. And with Polarized, I believe it’s one of the first times in cinema that we see Palestinian immigrants onscreen who are successful, driving scientific innovation, and in the case of co-lead character Dalia, also queer,” says director Shamim Sarif.

“My wife and producer Hanan Kattan is of Palestinian heritage, and I was raised in a South Asian Muslim family, so these specific immigrant experiences are very familiar to us. We know first-hand the challenges and taboos that con tinue to exist around being queer in eastern and Muslim cultures,” she adds.

Polarized screens Feb 18 at 12:50 Gropius Bau Cinema.

International comments,“Mia and the Dragon Princess is actionpacked, and will take audiences from secret tunnels under the streets of London into a world of folklore, villainy and martial arts.We are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to sell this movie and look forward to offering it to our clients in Berlin.”

Minerva acquires What Remains

101 Films International, an Amcomri Entertainment company, has secured worldwide distribution rights for live-action movie Mia and the Dragon Princess produced by Dead Pixel Productions, launching at EFM.

Italy’s Minerva Pictures has taken international rights excluding North America and mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to crime drama What Remains, starring Academy Award nominee Andrea Riseborough and Golden Globe winner Stellan Skarsgård.

The Rome-based outfit will be showing buyers the title at the EFM this week.

101 Films acquires Mia and the Dragon Princess

SCREENING GUIDE

Acquisition begins with a TFV Review

Saturday, 18 February

Select Screenings

Vera

Saturday, 18 February

Select Screenings

Copenhagen Does Not Exist

VERDICT: Award-winning documentary team Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel plunge deep into the heart of the adult daughter of spaghetti western star Giuliano Gemma in a wonderfully touching film portrait that tips its Stetson at the illusory side of documentaries.

18:10 Cinemobile

Be For Films

Nightmare (Wild Bunch International) 16:30 dffb Cinema

Father and Soldier (Gaumont)

16:45 Virtual Cinema 2

Our Body (Films Boutique) 17:05 Virtual Cinema 14

A Thousand Lines (Indie Sales) 17:20 CinemaxX 19

VERDICT: A young Danish woman mysteriously vanishes in director Martin Skovbjerg’s smart, stylish blend of sensual romantic drama and brooding suspense thriller.

11:00 CinemaxX 8

TrustNordisk

Three Robbers and a Lion (Sola Media) 09:00 CinemaxX 19

Parade (Lithuanian Film Centre)

9:30 Virtual Cinema 9

Reality (mk2 Films)

10: 40 CinemaxX 9

Ducks - An Urban Legend (Fortissimo Films) 10:50 Cinemobile

Breaking Point (Hanway Films)

11:00 dffb Cinema

For Complete Screening Guide, click here

SCREENING GUIDE

Acquisition begins with a TFV Review

Sunday, 19 February Select Screenings

I Like Movies

VERDICT: A caustically funny and sharply perceptive portrait of adolescence and the toxic perils of obsessive cinephilia.

11:50 Arsenal Cinema 2

Filmax

Is There Anybody Out There (Autlook

Film Sales)

11:00 CinemaxX 18

Bad Behaviour (Protagonist Pictures)

11:05 CinemaxX 3

Prophets (True Colours)

12:15 CinemaxX 9

The Land Within (TVCO)

12:30 Gropius Bau Cinema

Divertimento (Le Pacte)

12:45 Virtual Cinema 10

Between Revolutions (CAT & Docs) 12:50 CinemaxX 13

VERDICT: Jakub Piatek’s classical music documentary covers the prestigious Chopin Competition, presenting a group of talented kids in a story that starts slow but becomes truly buoyant in its final third.

12:50 Parliament Studio

Submarine Entertainment

For Complete Screening Guide, click here

Pianoforte