Locarno Piazza Grande Entry ‘Piaffe’ Marks Artist Ann Oren’s First Feature – Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paris-based company Indie Sales has boarded Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s feature debut “A Tale of Shemroon” which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian. Set in the north of Tehran, “A Tale of Shemroon” follows Iman and his younger brother Payar who live with their father. After the death of their mother, Iman starts a business thanks to his connections with the city’s affluent youth, but these new opportunities bring him on a dangerous path affecting his family’s destiny. “We are proud to be a part of San Sebastian’s New Directors competition with this new voice from Iranian cinema,” said Nicolas Eschbach at Indie Sales. “Emad (Aleebrahim Dehkordi) depicts the reality of the Iranian youth living in parts of Tehran that have seldom been seen before,” Eschbach continued.

Made in Chelsea star Sophie Hermann has been on and off featuring in reality show since her first stint in 2013. Since then the blonde beauty, 35, has had a stellar career as a designer as well as amassing a plethora of loyal fans on social media.

Aldi has left customers on social media amused after they cheekily responded to one customer who mocked them for selling a pizza cutter that looked like a vegetable peeler.

Annika Pham REinvent International Sales has clinched a banner sale to Gussi for Latin America on the Norwegian pic “Storm,” which is screening at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films market, running Aug. 23-26.The Norwegian suspense drama, penned by Johan Fasting (“Home Ground”, “Ninjababy”), is the feature debut of Erika Calmeyer, episodic director of Netflix’s hit teen show “Young Royals” and creator of NRK’s anthology show “Nudes.”Headlining the pic is Ane Dahl Torp (“The Wave”, “Home Ground”), cast as single mum Elin, faced with a terrible dilemma, following the death of her son Ulrik (6).

Zsuzsi Bánkuti Appointed Head Of Locarno’s Open Doors

Latest DealsA score or more of new deals announced since Sunday in exclusivity to Variety:*Germany’s Pluto Film has been in negotiations with several theatrical distributors on Locarno Piazza Grande title “Semret,” ahead of its world premiere on Aug. 10.

Marta Balaga German director Lukas Nathrath has already lined up his next projects, Variety has found out. Following ensemble drama “One Last Evening,” which nabbed him Locarno Film Festival’s Cinegrell First Look Award consisting of post-production service worth €50,000, he will turn to “Bourgeois Paranoia” next.A mixture of dark comedy and psychological thriller, it will be set in the near future, when rents have become unaffordable and the roommate selection process goes off the rails.

JD Linville Zurich native Caterina Mona will bring her directorial debut “Semret” to the 75th Locarno Film Festival where it screens at the city’s Piazza Grande, an outdoor venue traditionally reserved for more popular plays. The film, which is being sold by German sales outfit Pluto Film, follows the difficult path to healing for the titular character of Semret: a reclusive immigrant mother from Eritrea, now living and working in Zurich.

Lukas Nathrath’s One Last Evening Wins Locarno Pro’s First Look Prize

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLukas Nathrath’s “One Last Evening,” an often excruciating tragedy-laced dramedy set around a couple’s farewell dinner for friends, won big at Locarno’s First Look on Sunday, scooping the Cinegrell First Look Award.The award consists in €50,000 ($51,000) in post-production services from Cinegrell, a Switzerland and Germany based services house.The biggest prize at this year’s Locarno Pro First Look, a pix-in-post showcase dedicated six new movies from Germany, went to a first feature which delivers a scathing portrait of a success-obsessed society whose members mostly don’t live up to their promise, especially in their own estimation. Sebastian Jakob Doppelbauer plays Clemens, a once budding singer-songwriter but now pitied depressive whose girlfriend is now shaping up as the partner with a future as an on-the-rise doctor. Clemens in contrast doesn’t do shit.  Starting off afresh, moving from Hanover to Berlin, the couple stage a farewell dinner that spirals out of control, uncovering hidden fears, secret longings and life-lies.After the pandemic, our feeling was ‘Let’s shoot something this summer,’” Nasrath told Variety. Nasrath, Doppelbauer and fellow producer Linus Günther at Klinkerfilm reached out to film funds, to no avail, but weren’t too unhappy about making the film on a shoestring since that way “no one would interfere,” they said after Sunday night’s awards ceremony. “We were hugely impressed by ‘One Last Evening,’ finding its storytelling rich and nuanced. The film took us on a real emotional journey and the strong ensemble cast contributed to wonderfully detailed characterisations,” said the First Look jury.

Marta Balaga Tom Hardiman’s feature debut “Medusa Deluxe,” which premiered at Locarno on Saturday, has already seduced multiple international distributors with its mixture of humor, grief and competitive hairdressing.Now Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales has sealed further deals for the unusual murder mystery in Spain (Elastica Films), Benelux (Filmfreak), Scandinavia and the Baltics (NonStop Entertainment), Variety has learnt in exclusivity.As previously reported, A24 has acquired North American rights to the film, produced by Emu Films with the support of BFI, BBC Films, and Time Based Arts.MUBI holds the rights to U.K./Ireland, France, Latin America, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, India and Southeast Asia. “The buyers are excited about ‘Medusa Deluxe’ because it’s a quirky, original piece of cinema which can appeal to younger audiences, especially since A24 and MUBI will lead the way on global marketing,” said New Europe Film Sales CEO, Jan Naszewski.Hardiman, a self-confessed hairdressing aficionado, has joined forces with celebrity hairstylist Eugene Souleiman in order to show a community struggling with tragic loss yet still striving for perfection.“There is this cathartic moment at one point, two people genuinely caring about each other, and you have this hairstyle with a boat on the top.

Emiliano De Pablos Chinese sales agent Parallax Films has acquired international sales rights to Malaysian director Ming Jing Woo’s feature “Stone Turtle,” which world premieres in the Locarno Film Festival’s international competition.A time-traveling movie, “Stone Turtle” is produced by Edmund Yeo and Ming Jin Woo at Malaysia’s Greenlight Pictures and co-produced by Cheng Thim Kian and Yulia Evina Bhara at KawanKawan Media in Indonesia.The story follows Zahara, a stateless refugee who lives on a small remote island in Malaysia, where she makes a living selling turtle eggs.One day, Samad, claiming to be a university researcher, visits the island, wanting to employ Zahara to show him around. As the day goes on, Zahara and Samad become entangled in a dangerous dance of duplicity and deception.

Marta Balaga Tom Hardiman becomes a director to track with “Medusa Deluxe,” a deliciously dark murder mystery set in the competitive hairdressing competition which is about to bow at Locarno.MUBI holds the rights to U.K./Ireland, France,Latin America, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, India and Southeast Asia. The film was developed and financed by the BFI and BBC Film.“I really care about hairdressing, it’s something I am really passionate about,” admits Hardiman, who “picked up their language” over time.“When they talk about Russian weaves [in the film], that came from a hairdresser in Peckham.

German director Kilian Riedhof’s drama You Will Not Have My Hate is inspired by the experiences of French writer Antoine Leiris, whose wife was killed in the Bataclan nightclub during the November 13, 2015 Paris terror attacks, leaving him to raise their young son alone.

Marta Balaga Alliance 4 Development, a co-development initiative for film projects from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland hosted by Locarno Pro, has revealed 11 titles selected for its 7th edition.The majority of the projects will be directed by women, from Giorgia Wurth’s “Allegra” about a late-life sexual awakening to Malina Mackiewicz’s “Bottom of the Ocean Electric Fish” and Mariko Minoguchi’s upcoming “Element.” The latter will address some environmental fears as a team of scientists tries to ensure that Earth’s water supply won’t suddenly disappear.Minoguchi, who previously co-wrote the script to Tim Fehlbaum’s “The Colony,” is hoping to develop a German science fiction film that “doesn’t shy away from big emotions or images,” she stated, “that makes you think and reflect and, above all, is a moving and impressive cinematic experience.” Big emotions will also fuel Manon Coubia’s “Songs of the Fallen Mountains,” with old lovers reunited on a mythical mountain, and Stéphane Riethauser’s “Orpheus” about a relationship between a young dancer and his choreographer.“‘There is no love; there are only proofs of love.’ These words by Jean Cocteau will guide me to direct my first fiction feature,” he promised, calling it “a film beyond labels, barriers and genres. A film that reminds us that freedom to love is the most precious thing we have.

Sky Studios has poached Academy Award-nominated producer Tobias Rosen from Warner Bros. International Television Production to the newly-created role of Vice President in Germany.

and a lesbian who met her wife 15 years ago at the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The two tied the knot in 2017.“I feel really fortunate that we are able to make that work,” Chavez told Metro Weekly a few years ago.