‘Earth’ Producer Sophisticated Films Takes ‘Tale of the Sleeping Giants’ to the World (EXCLUSIVE)

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.

An Asian horror dream team has formed aroundThe Medium, a supernatural horror flick that will be co-produced by South Korea's Showbox and Thai studio GDH 599. Korea's Na Hong-jin, the visionary auteur behind The Wailing, Yellow Sea and The Chaser, will produce the film based on an original story he developed.

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.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSF Studios has released the first teaser trailer for the anticipated action thriller “Omerta 6/12” which just wrapped shooting. The big-budget film is directed by Aku Louhimies and stars Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen (“Da 5 Bloods,” “BlacKkKlansman”) and Swedish actors Nanna Blondell (“Red Dot”) and Sverrir Gudnason (“Borg vs.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorLeading arthouse sales and production house The Match Factory and Italian film director Pietro Marcello have teamed up for the third time following the company’s acquisition of his documentary “Per Lucio,” which world premieres in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival.They previously worked together on fantasy drama “Lost and Beautiful,” which played in competition at Locarno in 2015, and period drama “Martin Eden,” which

Danny Huston has joined the cast of Across the River and Into the Trees, the feature adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's final novel and New York Times bestseller, heading to Berlin's virtual European Film Market with The Exchange. Now in production in Venice, Italy, Huston joins six-time Golden Globe nominee Liev Schreiber, Josh Hutcherson and Italian actresses Matilda De Angelis (The Undoing) and Laura Morante (Cherry on the Cake, The Ball).

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

Latido Films in the run-up to its world premiere at this years’ Berlinale Generation 14Plus.The Madrid-based sales company has also shared with Variety in exclusivity a first two-minute trailer. The pickup is believed to have been made in a competitive bidding situation with other sales agents circling a title which questions the weaknesses of what Baillif describes as a retrograde juvenile system.He should know.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor“The Metamorphosis of Birds,” which premiered in the Encounters sidebar of the Berlin Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI prize from the international critics’ jury, has been sold in multiple major territories, including the U.S., the U.K., China, Italy and Spain.Portuguese director Catarina Vasconcelos’ “beautifully pensive, lyrical debut feature,” in the words of the Variety review, explores her family stories in the form of a fictionalized

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

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.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentParis-based Totem Films announced Friday that it is handling sales on Iranian Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry, “Ballad of a White Cow.” Totem Films will bring the drama onto the market at early March’s European Film Market (EFM).The pick-up is sure to draw attention.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“All Eyes Off Me,” Hadas Ben Aroya’s drama which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, has been acquired by Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever for international sales. Set to bow in the Panorama section, “All Eyes Off Me” takes place in contemporary Tel Aviv and weaves three stories portraying Tel Aviv’s youth.

EXCLUSIVE: XYZ Films has boarded world sales, excluding Canada and Australia/NZ, on Berlin Panorama entry Night Raiders, the apocalyptic sci-fi exec-produced by Taika Waititi.

New films by Celine Sciamma, Hong Sangsoo, Xavier Beauvois, Radu Jude, and the directorial debut of German actor Daniel Brühl were unveiled as part of the 15 competition titles at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival today. READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2021 The festival’s 71st edition will take place in two stages.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentM-Appeal has taken world distribution rights to Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” which has its world premiere In Competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentThe Match Factory is taking a strong slate to the European Film Market, including two world premieres: Anne Zohra Berrached’s “Copilot,” which is in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section, and Christian Schwochow’s “Je Suis Karl,” which is in Berlinale Special.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the lineup of 20 shorts from 17 countries which will compete for the Golden and Silver Bear awards for short films. The festival said the films “daringly confront the present and rewrite the past,” while imagining “a new tomorrow” in many different ways.