Berlin: Disaster Movie 'The North Sea' Sells Wide for TrustNordisk

A pack of international buyers is howling along to Werewolves Within. The new comedy-horror film from director Josh Ruben (Scare Me), was snatched up by indie distributors across Europe, Asia, and Latin America following its premiere at Berlin's all-virtual European Film Market earlier this month.

Ted K, the true crime drama that premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, has been snapped up for North American distribution by Neon’s boutique label Super Ltd.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAmazon Studios has revealed its first Italian original film, the young adult comedy “Anni da cane” (Dog Years), directed by Fabio Mollo, whose Mafia drama “South is Nothing” went to Berlin. The film, which has just started production, is written and produced by Mary Stella Brugiati and Alessandro Bosi, and produced by Notorious Pictures.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticThough it will forever be associated with one brief mid-1970s heyday, the disaster-movie genre has made a stealth comeback in recent years, being a natural fit for a cinematic era dominated by CGI-laden action fantasies. Of course Hollywood has kept its hand in, with efforts like “San Andreas” and “Pompeii.” But there have also been parries as far afield as China, whose enjoyably ridiculous, volcano-centric “Skyfire” from late 2019 only reached the U.S.

Filmed in glossy black and white, and adopting a non-judgmental vérité approach, director Carlos Alfonso Corral’s debut is a humanizing look at a small section of the homeless population in El Paso, Texas. “Dirty Feathers,” is a short, but thematically rich, film about those on the margins of society.

International buyers dove into Wash Me in the River. The upcoming action-thriller, starring Robert De Niro, John Malkovich, and Jack Huston from Midnight in the Switchgrass director Randall Emmett, was snatched up by European and Asian buyers at Berlin's European Film Market.

It’s 1943. A particularly cruel winter has swept through the occupied Soviet Union.

Saban Films has picked up the horror-thriller Hide and Seek forNorth America, the U.K. and Ireland.

One year in the life of a teenager can feel like an eternity. The intensity of the fleeting romances, the wild swings between happiness and despair, the thrilling yet uneasy anticipation of a future that seems simultaneously imminent and distant — it’s a wonder that we come out of adolescence intact.

Manori Ravindran International EditorParis-based Totem Films has scored a raft of international sales on Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry, “Ballad of a White Cow.”“Ballad of a White Cow,” as sales agent Totem notes, is the story of a woman’s struggle for justice, recognition and independence in today’s Tehran.

The first thing to understand about the social dynamics in Mexico around police is that they differ greatly from how the public in the United States relates to law enforcement officers. Stateside, both the uncritical reverence some feel toward them—namely the Blue Lives Matter crowd—and the terror they incite among BIPOC communities emanate from their violent efficaciousness and status as inflexible figures reveling in a lack of accountability.

As industry guests enjoy the Berlinale from home this year, eagle-eyed viewers will take pleasure in spotting a familiar location in the latest film from South Korean auteur and festival-regular Hong Sang-soo. If we can’t stroll around Potsdamer Platz this year, at least the characters in “Introduction“ can share a moment there.

After working together on the domestic release of Portrait of a Lady on Fire,Neon has acquired the North American rights to Céline Sciamma'sPetite Maman. Petite Maman, which premiered at Berlinale,is a time-travel story that follows 8-year-old Nelly, who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out the childhood home of her mother, Marion.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTriumph and pain were bedfellows last year for the Korean film industry. But Berlin’s European Film Market and the imminent Hong Kong FilMart see Korean companies putting on a brave face.Korean cinemas were in defensive mode early on in the coronavirus pandemic, as a population familiar with epidemics chose to stay away from crowded places.

The latest from T.J.Martin and Daniel Lindsay, directors of “Undefeated” and “LA 92,” “TINA” looks like another documentary that came off of a factory line, complete with the usual panning shots of contact sheets, dramatic zooms into rolling tapes, cross-cutting between audio interviews and their published print versions, melodramatic score cues doing their best to emulate Philip Glass.

There is an unavoidable distance in life between ourselves and those who came before. Parents, grandparents; no matter how open and honest they are with their children or younger relatives, there is a sense that their pasts remain partial enigmas.

Despite its simple title, Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios’ latest feature is far from a simple shoot-'em-up cop movie. It’s more like a cop movie written by Jacques Derrida, directed with nods to Wes Anderson and Jean-Luc Godard and then remixed by Abbas Kiarostami in its efforts to tear down the fourth wall.

U.K.-based sales outfit Alief has racked up a series of international territory deals for Isaac, a romantic drama from directors Ángeles Hernández and David Matamoros, about two childhood friends who reconnect as adults. Hernández and Matamoros were both producers on Netflix's Spanish-language horror hit The Platform.

Jamie Lang For the third year in a row, Netflix has a film in the main competition at the Berlin Film Festival. This year, Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “A Cop Movie” follows the path first blazed by Isabel Coixet’s “Elisa Y Marcela,” which at the time was met with a letter from 160 German independent exhibitors demanding the film be removed from competition.