Berlin: Film Republic Boards Coming-of-Age Film ‘Eden’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s drama “There Is No Evil” took home the top Golden Bear prize at the 2020  Berlin Film Festival.

It’s a brave young director who has the gumption to revisit Alfred Doblin’s 1929 Weimar Republic classic Berlin Alexanderplatz. A 1931 film version directed by Piel Jutzi was notably followed by Rainer W.

Banned from filmmaking in Iran but still active, screenwriter and director Mohammad Rasoulof returns to the great moral themes that underlie all his work in There Is No Evil(Sheytan vojud nadarad), a German/Czech/Iranian co-prod competing at the Berlin Film Festival.

Who today has heard of Jan Mikolasek (1887-1973), once revered as a celebrated faith healer who is said to have helped millions (including the Communist president of Czechoslovakia and Nazi bigwig Martin Bormann) with his herbal remedies? A figure of blinding light and darkest shadow, he springs ambiguously to life in director Agnieszka Holland’s fascinating period drama Charlatan, in a dazzling perf by top Czech actor Ivan Trojan.

“Dome 16,” a futuristic sci-fi climate drama from creator Thomas Seeber Torjussen and Norway’s Tordenfilm, has a new co-producer in Fleur Winters from Dutch production house Big Blue. It’s the second time the companies have joined forces, previously co-producing NRK’s popular teenage series “ZombieLars.”

Constantin Film, Germany's leading indie production company, unveiled its new slate of high-end series Monday as part of the Berlin Film Festival's Berlinale Series section on small-screen productions. The big new show announced was Der Palast (The Palast) from famed director Uli Edel (The Baader Meinhof Complex), a period drama set at famed eastern Berlin theater the Friedrichstadt-Palast.

A little bit of the Berlinale is here at Hollywood News today, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, I’ve got a Berlin International Film Festival review to file.

The upcoming Cambodia-set thriller Hunters in the Dark, based on English writer Lawrence Osborne's acclaimed novel of the same name, has unveiled several key additions to its starring cast. Hong Kong American actor Tzi Ma, co-star of Disney's upcoming Mulan, and Ellen Wong, best known for Netflix's Glow, have both boarded the project.

The upcoming Cambodia-set thriller Hunters in the Dark, based on English writer Lawrence Osborne's acclaimed novel of the same name, has unveiled several key additions to its starring cast. Hong Kong American actor Tzi Ma, co-star of Disney's upcoming Mulan, and Ellen Wong, best known for Netflix's Glow, have both boarded the project.

Best Berlin nightmare story?I was at U-Bahn Schönhauser Allee. A guy stopped me and sold me an apparently unused daily ticket for the metro.

Best Berlin nightmare story?I was at U-Bahn Schönhauser Allee. A guy stopped me and sold me an apparently unused daily ticket for the metro.

Filipino director Raya Martin was caught out, for a moment, when first pitching the project that would eventually become his latest feature, Death of Nintendo. Then he decided to simply tell it like it is."This film is Stand by Me … with circumcision," Martin remembers saying, referencing Rob Reiner’s 1986 classic."I was unsure at first how best to describe what we were trying to do," he explains.

Defiant Dedryck Boyata insists Scottish football's snipers have got it all wrong because Celtic helped make him a Belgium star.

In today’s film news roundup, Noomi Rapace gets a starring role, ArcLight Cinemas hires Ted Mundorff and a “Karn Evil 9” movie is in the works.

By Tom Grater

By Andreas Wiseman

Samuel L. Jackson is coming on board an untitled action movie, portraying a hitman coming out of retirement.

Zoe Saldana is set to enter the highly competitive world of fencing with Fencer, from writer-director Jasmine McGlade.HanWay Films will handle international sales and distribution on the project and introduce it to buyers at next week's European Film Market in Berlin.UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance are overseeing the U.S.

In the run to the Berlin Film Festival, MovieChainer, the cloud-based app allowing right-holders to model and track the legal and financial structure of their film projects, has added German sales powerhouse The Match Factory and France’s Memento Film Distribution, to its client roster.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” which premieres in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival.