Berlin: ‘Under The Sky Of Damascus’ Explores Sexual Politics In Syria, Where Women Face Constant Threat Of Violence From Men

Christopher Vourlias When he began working on his latest documentary, “The Last Seagull,” acclaimed Bulgarian filmmaker Tonislav Hristov (“The Good Postman”) set himself a seemingly simple task: to follow the last of the dying breed of male escorts who, since the communist era, have spent their summers seducing foreign women in resort towns along the Black Sea. That plan went astray, however, when real-world events intervened: first the coronavirus pandemic, which grounded flights and shuttered the very resorts where those escorts plied their trade; then the war in Ukraine, which impacted “The Last Seagull” in unexpected ways. “This is what’s nice, but also scary, about documentaries,” Hristov told Variety after the film’s world premiere at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival. “You never know what’s going to happen next.”

Bill Murray and star Jeannie Berlin set foot on the red carpet of the 2023 SAG Awards holding hands.Murray and Berlin appeared quite close when they arrived together for Sunday's soiree at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The star wore a black tuxedo with a colorful bow tie, while Berlin sported an all-black suit and shades.Berlin, who portrayed Hadassah Fabelman in the Steven Spielberg film, was there for the film's nomination in the Best Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture category.

Fans were concerned for Aubrey Plaza when she didn’t look pleased on stage during The White Lotus‘ win at the 2023 SAG Awards over the weekend.

SAG Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series.The "Parks and Rec" alum became visibly annoyed on stage after Aubrey's "White Lotus" costar Jon Gries grabbed her arm and whispered something into her ear. It's believed that he warned her of a possible wardrobe malfunction, as the actress immediately adjusted her dress.As this was happening, F.

SAG Awards viewers are wondering what was up with Aubrey Plaza.

The competition winners of the 73rd Berlinale are about to start rolling in as the festival draws to a close Saturday evening.

Martin Dale Contributor Portuguese producers Pandora Cunha Telles and Pablo Iraola, of Ukbar Filmes, are bringing a delegation of six Portuguese women helmers to the Berlinale, to showcase their ambitious project “Told by Women,” – a slate of 10 TV movies by 10 first-time women filmmakers – coproduced with Portuguese public broadcaster, RTP. The producers have lined up an intensive mentoring experience with leading international women producers that aims to endow them with the tools to embrace new challenges. The first season of five films of “Told by Women” was broadcast by RTP in October 2022, to strong ratings, and the second season of five films will bow this spring.

Naman Ramachandran Berlin’s just concluded European Film Market (EFM), which had a physical edition this year after two online editions in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, has reported “record results” according to the organizers. There were 230 stands and 612 companies from 78 countries and more than 11,500 market participants from 132 countries. Some 773 films were shown in 1,533 screenings, including 647 online screenings and 599 market premieres. The total number of buyers also rose to 1,302. 629 film projects were presented on the new Producers & Project Pages. “After the past two irregular years, we’re pleased to return to the physical in full force, and with a vibrant, bustling and strong market. The exhibition areas at Gropius Bau and the Marriott Hotel were sold out, and the exhibitors reported strong sales and good business. The decision to group all the market happenings together with the Berlinale Series Market and the market screenings at Potsdamer Platz, and to provide the industry with an efficient infrastructure, was extremely well-received by our market participants,” said EFM director Dennis Ruh.

Marta Balaga If you want to attract a younger audience, you have to watch what they watch. Not what you think they are watching, says producer Dean Devlin, best known for “Independence Day” and “Stargate.” But he never designs his shows for one market. “It’s no longer all about gender or age demographic. If you go to a sci-fi convention, they are not just kids, they are not just older people. It’s everybody!” At Berlinale Series Market Selects, which runs as part of the European Film Market in Berlin, with his latest show, sci-fi series “The Ark,” Devlin continues to pay homage to the kind of stories he loved as a child, from Douglas Trumbull’s “Silent Running” to “The Omega Man.”

Prime Video has secured the return of Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin), Chloe Coleman (Avatar: The Way of Water), Kristen Schaal (What We Do in the Shadows), Ken Jeong (The Afterparty) and others for their My Spy sequel, My Spy: The Eternal City. Among the new additions to the ensemble in the second installment are Anna Faris (Mom), Craig Robinson (The Office) and Flula Borg (Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin).

With her feature debut, “The Chambermaid,” Mexican writer-director Lila Avilés materialized a graceful character study of a hardworking mother. Though enriched via the meaningful interjections of its supporting players, the narrative had a singular focus.

From “Rosa Luxemburg” in 1986 to 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” the films of Margarethe Von Trotta, an icon of the New German cinema, have put strong female protagonists center-stage in renditions of German history. For her latest, Von Trotta paints a portrait of German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, author of essays, radio dramas, and opera libretti.

Christopher Vourlias Though the world watched — often in silence — as a decade-long civil war tore Syria apart, exiled filmmakers Talal Derki (“Of Fathers and Sons”) and Heba Khaled say an equally brutal but less visible war is still raging. In “Under the Sky of Damascus,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival, the duo shifts the lens to the silenced majority of Syrian women who routinely face sexual harassment, violence and abuse in their patriarchal society. The film follows a tight-knit group of young Syrian women who embark upon on a radical project to produce a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted the lives of females in their country for generations.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales agency Memento Intl. has unveiled the first clip and poster from Liu Jian’s Berlin competition title “Art College 1994,” which world premieres on Feb. 24. The film is a portrait of youth set on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the early 1990s. Against the backdrop of reforms opening China to the Western world, a group of college students live in full swing as they take their first steps into adulthood, where love and friendships are intertwined with artistic pursuits, ideals and ambitions. Caught between tradition and modernity, they now have to choose who they want to become. It is the director’s third animation feature after 2010’s “Piercing I” and “Have a Nice Day,” which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2017, and quickly built a cult following. “Have a Nice Day” was also honored with the best animated feature award at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.

For almost four years of siege in the 1990s, the city of Sarajevo concussed from shelling, the rumblings of armored vehicles and the repeated pop of sniper fire.

“They treat you like a movie star,” says an admirer to Ingeborg Bachmann at one of her celebrated readings. She smiles graciously and agrees, thus establishing the baseline for her story.

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed “Phantom Thread” actor Vicky Krieps’ latest film, “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert,” directed by German cinema legend Margarethe von Trotta, has its world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Krieps plays the titular Austrian Bachmann, one of the most renowned German-language poetry and prose writers of the 20th century. The film follows her life and career and her relationships with Swiss playwright (Ronald Zehrfeld), Austrian author Adolf Opel (Tobias Samuel Resch) and German composer Hans Werner Henze (Basil Eidenbenz) during a six-year period in her life from 1958. The actor was familiar with the writer from her formative years. “I knew about Bachmann because in Germany she’s very famous. I grew up with her in school,” Krieps told Variety. “I was very into poetry when I was younger, so I knew her poetry.” Krieps familiarized herself further with Bachmann’s work once she was cast.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Paris-based Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese says making the Berlin Film Festival competition cut with his first feature, “Disco Boy,” which toplines German star Franz Rogowski (“Passages,” ”Undine”), is “certainly a dream come true.” But he also points out that his remarkable debut was a long time coming.  A graduate of several film schools, including France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy, Abbruzzese started developing “Disco Boy” in 2013 following an encounter in a French disco with a classical dancer who had been a soldier.  

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent He was working to the last. Five days before his latest work, “Lorca by Saura,” opened at Madrid’s Infanta Isabel Theater – in what he saw as a new phase of theatre-based creativity –  Carlos Saura died on Feb. 10 at his Collado Mediano home in the lap of the Guadarrama mountains, north of Madrid. Agnieszka Holland and Volker Schlöndorff look set to attend a Carlos Saura Homage Screening which will be held at the Berlin Film Festival on Monday Feb. 20 at 17:30.  Further good and great are still to confirmed at an event backed by the Berlin Festival and the European Film Academy. The tribute will be combined with the double bill of “Rosa, Rosae” and “Walls Can Talk” (“Las paredes hablan”), films which premiered at San Sebastian in 2021 and last year.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Uncork’d Entertainment has acquired the North American rights for suspense sci-fi thriller “I’ll Be Watching” from Iuvit Media Sales at the European Film Market in Berlin. The film has also been picked up by Falcon Films in the Middle East and North Africa, while Dolphin Medien has taken German-speaking territory rights. The film is directed by Erik Bernard (“Free Dead or Alive”), and stars “The 100” stars Eliza Taylor and Bob Morley, along with Bryan Batt (“12 Years a Slave”), David Keith (“An Officer and a Gentleman”), Hannah Fierman (“VHS”), and Seth Michaels (“Red Notice”).