Berlin Winner Denis Cote on New Film ‘Social Hygiene,’ ‘Boring’ Radical Filmmaking, the Need for Male Humility

Bleecker Street has acquired U.S. rights to Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man after the film picked up a Silver Bear for Maren Eggert’s lead performance at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBleecker Street has acquired U.S. rights to Maria Schrader’s “I’m Your Man,” which won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for leading performance for Maren Eggert.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentFollowing his win of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the recently concluded Berlin Film Festival for “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” 42-year-old Hamaguchi Ryusuke suddenly finds himself catapulted to the directorial front ranks in his native Japan.It’s not that he’s exactly obscure there: Hamaguchi’s 2018 romantic drama “Asako I & II” was selected for the Cannes competition while his 2015 breakthrough, the five-hour-plus drama “Happy Hour,” won a group best

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentBerlin Grand Jury Prize winner “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” Japanese writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s deft three-story reflection on chance, the legacy of love and the contrariness of erotic desire, has clinched further key territory sales for its sales agent M-Appeal World Sales.Fast on the footsteps of clinching the top Berlinale 2021 Silver Bear in March 5’s Berlin prize announcement, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” this week closed Spain

Magnolia Pictures has acquired the North American rights to Berlin Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude. The satire follows a high school teacher struggling with the fallout of her sex tape leaking online.

When he was offered the lead role in Fabian —Going to the Dogs, a coming-of-age tell set in Berlin in the early 1930s, Tom Schilling wasn't really interested in doing another period drama.

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.

Christopher Vourlias Radu Jude’s “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which won the Golden Bear for best film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, has sold to major territories for Heretic Outreach, Variety has learned exclusively.The Romanian writer-director’s latest feature is an irreverent satire about a schoolteacher, Emi (Katia Pascariu), who finds her reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is uploaded on the internet.

Starting a serious art-house movie with an amateur porn video might seem bold, but for Radu Jude's Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn it was a winning move. The jury of the 71st Berlinale picked the Romanian drama, in which a schoolteacher is caught up in a scandal after a homemade sex tape with her husband (that video we see at the top) gets posted online, for this year's Golden Bear as the best film of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival.

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

Denis Cotes' absurdist French language comedy Social Hygiene opens with a wide shot of Antonin, a philosopher-cum-petty thief, standing in a field more than two meters from his long-suffering sister Solvieg in a scene dominated by a lush Quebec countryside.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorSales agent M-Appeal has closed further territory deals for Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” which just won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.Benelux rights have gone to September Film, and StraDa Films has picked the film up in Greece. September Film plans to release the title theatrically post pandemic.

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.

In Dasha Nekrasova’s feature directorial debut, The Scary of Sixty-First, New York City is a desolate place. The sky is a muddy beige with no indication of sun.

Anna Marie de la Fuente A chess champion in his youth, Brandon Burrows, principal and founder of shingle Firebrand, approaches producing like a chess game. His love for film sparked at an early age when his father owned a video store.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based distributor FilmRise has struck a deal with sales firm WaZabi Films for U.S. rights to TIFF 2020 and Berlin 2021 drama Beans.

Ed Meza @edmezavarIn his latest work, “Fabian — Going to the Dogs,” Dominik Graf adapts a work that defines the tragic, hedonistic and dysfunctional era of the Weimar Republic from a writer widely known for his children’s books.Set in 1931 Berlin, the story, based on Erich Kästner’s novel of the same name, is seen through the eyes of Jakob Fabian (Tom Schilling), a fatalistic writer who finds solace in his love for Cornelia, played by Saskia Rosendahl (“Never Look Away”) and his best friend