Berlinale’s Marxist Vampire Comedy ‘Bloodsuckers’ Boarded By ARRI Media, Trailer Debuts (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorIn the black comedy thriller “Next Door,” the directorial debut of actor Daniel Brühl, the main character, Daniel, is a successful actor living in an old quarter of Berlin. His day is about to be ruined, and his life too.

Tides just aches to be a waterborne Blade Runner crossed with Mad Max, but instead emerges as even more waterlogged than Waterworld. A soupy, post-apocalyptic Europudding that needed more action, greater imagination and a star of some magnitude in the leading role, this tale of an investigation into the possibility of restoring life to a mostly decimated Earth is all dark, grim and clammy.

Self-taught Vietnamese filmmakerLê Bảo's directorial debut Taste takes place in the Ho Chi Minh City slums where he grew up, but the film centers on a displaced Nigerian man who is a world away from home.

Jamie Lang A year after featuring as the European Film Market’s focus country, Chile returns with a delegate of more than 20 producers who will participate in a virtual stand, backed by ProChile and the Ministry of Culture.Bastard.

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, executives setting up Zoom meetings and preparing to stream promos for Berlin's 2021 European Film Market — which kicks off Monday and runs through March 5 — are taking stock after 12 extraordinary months that have transformed the independent film industry. Many expect the all-virtual Berlin market will be the real test of the health of the indie biz.

Mel Gibson features in this first-look still from Panama, the upcoming thriller from action specialist Mark Neveldine that also stars Cole Hauser. Gibson plays Stark, a former commander who sends James Becker, a rugged and decorated ex-marine (Hauser), undercover to execute a high-value deal with untrustworthy adversaries.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBy any terms, Berlin’s 2021 European Film Market will deliver its smallest pre-sales market in years.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorProducer Gian-Piero Ringel, Oscar nominated for Wim Wenders’ “Pina,” and writer-director Sven Bohse, who directed true crime miniseries “Dark Woods,” a ratings hit last year in Germany, will be presenting their political thriller “Hinterland” this week as part of the European Film Market’s Co-Pro Series program.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentRyan Gosling, Shailene Woodley, Milla Jovovich and Catherine Deneuve headline new movie projects at a 2021 Berlin market that looks set, however, to deliver a slimmed down version of prior editions.It could hardly be otherwise.

Jamie Lang International sales agent Be For Films has given Variety exclusive access to the international trailer for Andreas Fontana’s first feature “Azor,” selected for this year’s Encounters section at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTop Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun and Korean director-turned-producer Na Hong-jin (“The Chaser”) have teamed to create new Thai horror film “The Medium.”Now in post-production, “The Medium” is a horrifying story of a shaman’s inheritance in the Isan region of Thailand.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentFor nearly two decades the European Film Market has had, at its core, the Berlinale Co-Production Market, where hundreds of producers, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and, more recently, some streamer execs have been drawn to a bunch of curated projects.The EFM has always been Europe’s quintessential co-production germinator.

European Film Market, incorporating industry and press screenings of Berlin Film Festival’s program.

Naman Ramachandran Cinetic Media and HanWay Films have launched sales on writer/director Tony Stone’s Berlin Panorama selection “Ted K,” starring Sharlto Copley (“District 9”).The film tracks a period in the life of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, and draws from his personal diaries and accounts from those who knew him during his life in hiding.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorInternational distributor Global Screen, part of Will Smith’s Telepool, has sold crime thriller miniseries “Dark Woods” to U.S., Canada, Spain and France, following its stellar ratings success in Germany.Inspired by a true crime, unsolved for almost 30 years, the six-part show centers on a high-ranking police officer’s desperate search for his sister, and the family’s suffering.

Naman Ramachandran Australia’s Stranger Than Fiction Films and the U.K.’s Arrow Pictures have teamed for theatrical documentary “River,” commissioned by BBC Arts and ABC Arts.Exploring the relationship between humans and rivers, the documentary spans six continents.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentA portrait of a well-meaning man caught in events he cannot control and understands all too late, Hungarian Denes Nagy’s Berlin Competition entry “Natural Light” has a first trailer, shared exclusively with Variety by sales company Luxbox.Set in icy marshland in Russia during WWII, “Natural Light” accompanies corporal István Semetka, drafted into a Hungarian unit whose mission is to locate and kill Russian partisans hiding in the woodlands.Lodging

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilms Boutique has acquired Marc Bauder’s cinematic documentary “Who We Were,” which is set to world premiere in the “Berlinale Special” section of the Berlin Film Festival.“Who We Were” observes the current state of the world and postulates about the future through intense encounters with six intellectuals and scientists, including the astronaut Alexander Gerst, the deep sea researcher Sylvia Earle, the molecular biologist and buddhist monk Mathieu

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLeading South Korean film sales firm Finecut has boarded “Toxic,” a fact-based drama-thriller about a mysterious outbreak that killed thousands. The firm, which is also representing Hong Sang-soo’s Berlin competition title “Introduction,” will unveil the new title to buyers at next month’s European Film Market.The film is the dramatization of events between 1994 and 2011 in which at least 1,600, and possibly as many as 14,000, people in Korea died.

In Germany, they call the period just before the rise of Adolf Hitler "the dance on the volcano" — the late 1920s and early 1930s when German society, at least in the big cities like Berlin, seemed open, free, and exciting. When no one seemed to notice they were on the edge of catastrophe.