Berlin: 'Werewolves Within' Sells Wide

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights to Rock Bottom Riser, a documentary that received a Special Mention from the Encounters jury at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival where it premiered earlier this month. It’s the first film by Fern Silva, who wrote, directed, and produced the documentary. Cinema Guild has slated it for a 35mm theatrical tour planned for 2022.

Christopher Vourlias Cercamon has closed major sales for “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?,” from Georgian director Alexandra Koberidze, which had its world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.The Dubai-based indie specialist has sealed a multi-territory deal with MUBI, the global distributor and streaming service, which includes the U.S., where the film will be released this fall, Canada, Italy, India, Turkey, and Latin America.Pic has also been sold to the U.K.

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, the UK office of Mark Gordon Pictures has won film and TV rights to Calla Henkel’s debut novel, Other People’s Clothes, and set Emmy-nominated Unorthodox co-writer and co-creator Alexa Karolinski to adapt.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has secured the North American distribution rights to Expedition Content, a documentary that premiered in the Forum section at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and had its U.S. debut as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real. Directed by Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, the doc will be released in theaters later this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off its world premiere in the Berlin International Film Festival’s competition program, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize, Maria Speth’s feature documentary Mr Bachmann And His Class has sold into multiple territories.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorARRI Media has closed a deal with Crescendo House – a new boutique distribution company – for North American rights on Marxist vampire comedy “Bloodsuckers,” following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.The film, which screened as part of the Berlinale’s Encounters section, was written and directed by Julian Radlmaier.Radlmaier’s script was praised by the jury as being “extravagant, bizarre, and hilarious” when he was presented with the

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.

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.

When the best-selling author, humorist and onetime stand-up Mishna Wolff decided to take part in the Women's Fellowship at Ubisoft Motion Pictures, she was really in it for the gameplay. "Honestly, I would have done it just for the free video games alone," jokes Wolff about the initiative by the movie arm of the video games publisher, which aims to foster fresh, and female, perspectives on video game adaptations.

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.

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.

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.

For the students at a remote boarding school for Kurdish boys, survival is a matter of course, particularly during the frigid depths of winter. The meals are meager, the heating doesn’t work, and even the principal’s car won’t start.

It’s always interesting to see what an actor will deliver as they make the step towards directing, and for “Next Door” director and star Daniel Brühl has not shied away from a premise that closely parallels, yet distorts, his own life. It’s a film that explores a space of conversation highlighted to great effect in Bong Joon-ho’s recent towering success, “Parasite,” toying with societal dichotomies and opening up discussions around wealth, class, gentrification, and spatial divides.