Int’l Critics Line: Todd McCarthy On ‘Language Lessons’ – Berlin

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.

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

Berlin’s Netflix Film MarketFor the last two years, a Netflix panel was the hottest ticket at the Berlinale Series Market Conference. But the U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Indie stalwart Cassian Elwes is making a move into management via his Elevated banner, kicking off with signing Best Sellers director Lina Roessler, whose debut feature starring Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza screened in the Berlin Film Festival’s Special Gala section this week. It’s the first time the film producer and former co-head of William Morris Independent has moved into the management space.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Julie Taymor is attached to direct Gun Love, an adaptation of the Jennifer Clement novel. Babylon Berlin‘s Liv Lisa Fries is attached to play the role of Margot in the ensemble cast. Marissa Kate Goodhill (Come Away) wrote the script.

In Language Lessons, Natalie Morales —best know for supporting roles on Parks and Recreation, The Grinder and Santa Clarita Diet — has crafted almost the perfect pandemic movie. Written together with her co-star Mark Duplass, the Berlinale-bowing film features just two characters, who are never in the same room together, barely move across only a handful of mostly interior locations and communicate entirely over technology.

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.

Late Wednesday, Critics Choice Association chief Joey Berlin sent a missive to members of the organization that was, well, critical of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and its disastrous Golden Globe Awards telecast last weekend.

Lupin is “a great achievement, not only for us but for all producers around the world,” said Gaumont Vice CEO Christophe Riandée, who is also a producer of the hit Netflix series, during a panel at the European Film Market today. The Omar Sy-starrer which has been a worldwide smash on streaming, is produced by Gaumont Television and has scored record-breaking numbers for a French series on the service.

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.

Carole Horst “Best Sellers,” a Berlinale Special Gala screener and debut feature from Lina Roessler, has scored deals from major territories, which were announced by film’s sales outfit Foresight Unlimited at the European Film Market.Universal Pictures Content Group has acquired major markets including the U.K., Germany, France and Latin America, among others.

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.

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.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterLena Dunham just wrapped her first feature film as a writer-director in over a decade.“Sharp Stick,” an indie financed by FilmNation that will screen for potential buyers on Tuesday out of the Berlin International Film Festival, was shot successfully in secret and in compliance with COVID-19 protocols in Los Angeles over the past months.While plot details are under wraps, the film stars Kristine Froseth (“The Assistant,” “Looking for Alaska”), Taylour Paige

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.

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has been a particular favorite at the Berlin Film Festival for quite some time — he won the Best Director prize there last year for The Woman Who Ran — and he’s back again this year with another competition entry, Introduction.

Exactly one year ago, Chinese film buyers were almost entirely absent from Berlin's European Film Market as broad swaths of the world's second-biggest economy remained in a state of total shutdown. Business in the U.S.