Berlin’s EFM to Focus on Shaping Industry Change and Sustainable Development

Resembling more of a personal tribute than exhaustive biography, Pietro Marcello‘s Lucio Dalla documentary, “For Lucio,” takes its title as an invitation. A rambling eulogy that is just as often confusing as it is profound, Marcello’s wisp of a film (running less than 80 minutes) may be missing key context for those not already versed in the life and music of the politically-oriented Italian singer-songwriter.

Many of Hong Sang-soo’s films are structured around a woman’s solitary wanderings. The single ladies played by Kim Min-Hee in “On the Beach at Night Alone” or “The Woman Who Ran,” or Lee Hye-Young in “In Front of Your Face,” are free radicals, moving from encounter to encounter and disrupting the equilibrium of the people they meet, as meandering conversations reveal a friend’s dissatisfaction or a couple’s disagreement.

Gail Halvorsen was a United States Air Force pilot known as the “Candy Bomber” for dropping candy over Berlin from his airplane during the Berlin airlift in 1948.  Gail Halvorsen joined the Air Force as a pilot during World War II, serving as a transport pilot in the South Atlantic. After World War II, Berlin was divided into four sections occupied by the United States, France, England, and Russia.

Premiering in the Special Gala section of this year’s Berlinale, the latest film from Italian director Dario Argento is surprising in more ways than one. Rather than copy the style of the giallo films from the 1970s and 1980s that made him famous (“The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,” “Deep Red,” and “Suspiria,” to cite just a few), his “Dark Glasses” finds ingenious ways to retain the core of the giallo while adapting to our current times.

It sounds like the set-up to a French New Wave film: a French au pair falls in love with an Irish pickpocket leading to a whirlwind romance that changes both their lives. It might be twee, but Joan Verra (Isabelle Huppert) lived it, and on a long, rainy, nighttime drive reflects on the intense, yet fleeting relationship of her youth.

Sat in front of a computer, musician Nick Cave reads a few questions aloud. These are deeply existential musings sent in by people he has never met.

The streets outside her window are dripping with hope, and yet Élisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is lost. It is Paris, 1981, a new president has been elected, and Élisabeth’s husband has left, claiming the thrillingness of motion by moving in with a new girlfriend while his ex is left with the stagnance of remaining, the apartment where they’ve raised their children, Judith (Megan Northam) and Matthias (Quito Rayon-Richter), at once comfortingly familiar and dreadfully new.

Of all the unsolved mysteries in Claire Denis‘ new Berlin Competition film, the biggest may just be its U.S. retitling to a generic and not particularly representative “Fire.” The film’s English title in the rest of the world, “Both Sides of the Blade” — a line from the terrific Tindersticks track that ends the film —is not just cooler and more compelling.

Demystifying and questioning the very notion of authenticity, Jason Kohn’s informative and oddly riveting, diamond-documentary “Nothing Lasts Forever” is ostensibly about the oft-antagonistic relationship between natural and synthetic diamonds. Yet, diamonds are an in-road as Kohn explores the commodification of such abstractions as love and desire, questioning how exactly a shiny rock — one that isn’t even that rare — became a physical manifestation of commitment.

With viewers around the world watching Netflix’s Inventing Anna, it’s worth taking a glance at what Anna Delvey’s net worth really looks like today—and how much she stole while pretending to be an heiress in New York City for years.

Afternoon International Insiders. The team is in Berlin and EFM is hotting up. We’ve got the latest from Germany and more so read on.

Spain has two films in this year’s main competition at the Berlinale, and a record haul of films participating across all sections. Similarly, the country boasts an impressive list of productions looking for buyers at the festival’s EFM. Below, a list of standouts from Spain looking to make moves on the global market.“Prison 77” (Alberto Rodríguez)A potential jewel in Spanish cinema’s 2022 crown, “Modelo 77” is produced by Spanish pay TV-VOD giant Movistar Plus and Madrid-based Atípica Films, Rodríguez’s career-long producer.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Top Argentine sales and production company, FilmSharks Int’l, has picked up worldwide sales rights to Matias Lucchesi’s latest film “The Broken Land” (“Las Rojas”) ahead of its debut at the European Film Market (EFM).This will be the second time for a Lucchesi film to be present in Berlin. Lucchesi snagged the best feature prize at the Berlinale Generation Kplus sidebar with his feature debut, “Natural Sciences,” in 2014.Shot mainly in the majestic Cordillera de las Andes of Mendoza, Argentina, “The Broken Land” can be described as a thriller with Western undertones, highlighted by the soulful music of composer Hernan Segret.Drama centers on two female paleontologists, played by Argentina’s Mercedes Moran (“La Cienaga”) and Uruguay’s Natalia Oreiro (“The Unseen”), who are at loggerheads from the moment they meet. Oreiro’s character, Constanza, has come to the protected national reserve where Moran’s equally strong-willed character, Carlota, has been toiling for years.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorDutch-Caribbean teen documentary “Shabu” has debuted an exclusive clip, ahead of its screening at Berlin Film Festival on Monday. Reservoir Docs is handling world sales, except for Netherlands, Belgium and France.The film, directed by Aruban-Dutch filmmaker Shamira Raphaëla, world premiered at IDFA, winning the best youth documentary award, and also played at Rotterdam Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorThe trailer for Gu∂mundur Arnar Gu∂mundsson’s teen drama “Beautiful Beings” has debuted ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. The film, which plays in Panorama, is being sold by Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales.

K.J. Yossman “Taurus” is the semi-autobiographical tale of a rap-slash-rock star on the tail-end of a self-destructive kick. Set to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival Feb.

As the physical edition of the Berlin Film Festival kicks off today and with the virtual edition of the European Film Market well underway, a number of key talking points such as Covid, the uncertainty of the theatrical sector and satisfying the demand for streaming platforms are likely to be hot button topics amongst buyers and sellers alike.

Jamie Lang One of the hottest titles from Spain at this year’s European Film Market, is Catalan director Carla Simón’s sophomore feature “Alcarrás,” the hotly anticipated follow up to her 2017 debut “Summer 1993.” There, Paris-based MK2 Films will be talking to interested buyers of the recently-finished arthouse entry. To mark the occasion, the sales company has given Variety access to an early clip.A smash hit with critics and festivals alike, Simón’s autobiographical debut “Summer 1993” won the Best First Feature Award and the Generation Kplus Grand Prix jury prize at Berlin in 2017.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefHong Kong and Paris-based All Rights Entertainment has picked up a mandate to handle sales duties on “Lendarys,” an animated family entertainment movie that is now in production. The film is being produced on budget of $30 million and is set for delivery in 2023.

Anna Marie de la Fuente It’s a new dawn for Chile’s audiovisual industry. When Gabriel Boric, Chile’s youngest (at 35) and most left-leaning president since Salvador Allende, was elected in December, his pledge to more than double the state’s contribution to the arts was greeted with great fanfare.After all, Chile’s prodigious film output this past decade has been remarkable despite the scant public support it has received.“If everything we have achieved in the last 10 years was done with so little money, imagine what we can achieve with an increase in audiovisual funding!” says Constanza Arena, executive director of Chile’s film promotion org, CinemaChile.In recent years, Chile has triumphed at the Oscars, starting when Pablo Larraín’s “No” was nominated for international feature in 2012, and culminating in an Oscar win for Sebastian Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” in 2017.