Berlin Film Festival Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

In “Schindler’s List,” most of the actors spoke English, using accents to indicate their characters’ origins. In “Son of Saul,” the cast struggles to communicate in a mish-mosh of languages, as Jews of different nationalities were thrown together in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stories about the Holocaust — so vital in trying to reconcile the horrors of the past century — must at some point take a philosophical stand on how to deal with how their characters express themselves.

Queen Latifah and Madalen Mills star in Ray Giarratana’s “The Tiger Rising.” The drama is based on Kate DiCamillo’s New York Times Bestselling children’s book and produced by Deborah Giarratana and Ryan Donnell Smith.  Highland Film Group is handling worldwide sales, which are under at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Queen Latifah and Madalen Mills star in Ray Giarratana’s “The Tiger Rising.” The drama is based on Kate DiCamillo’s New York Times Bestselling children’s book and produced by Deborah Giarratana and Ryan Donnell Smith.  Highland Film Group is handling worldwide sales, which are under at the European Film Market in Berlin.

TrustNordisk has close several territory deals on “The Other Lamb,” Malgorzata Szumowska’s English-language debut, which competed at last year’s San Sebastian and played at Toronto.

Charades, the Paris-based sales company behind the Oscar-nominated “I Lost My Body” and “Mirai,” has closed a raft of deals on high-profile animated features, including “Little Nicholas” and “Marona’s Fantastic Tale.”

For 25 years, from 1992’s “La Frontera” through 2017’s ”A Fantastic Woman,” a subsequent Oscar winner, the Berlinale has prized a rich trove of Chilean movies.

Liam Neeson is set to star in the action crime thriller “Memory” to be directed by the U.K.’s Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Goldeneye”). STX International is handling the international sales rights and will unveil the project at the Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market.

Charades has scooped up international sales rights to “Shorta,” the buzzed-about Danish project that was presented at Les Arcs’s work-in-progress and Goteborg’s Nordic Film Market.

A mass shooting in the West German city of Hanau has raised security concerns for the Berlin Film Festival, which kicks off on Thursday.

A24 has bought North American rights to the thriller “The Stars at Noon,” starring Robert Pattinson and Margaret Qualley.

In the run up to Berlin’s European Film Market, Indie Sales has unveiled the trailer for Thor Klein’s “Adventures of a Mathematician” which had its world premiere in Palm Springs.

There’s much talk these days of microaggressions: words and gestures of disrespect toward others, particularly those of other social groups, that betray prejudice even when everyday or unintentional.

Rocket Science and Amusement Park have acquired the rights and Amusement Park will produce anti-war drama “All Quiet on the Western Front,” to be directed by BAFTA winner and Emmy nominee Edward Berger (“Patrick Melrose,” “Jack,” “Deutschland ’83”). Daniel Bruehl is attached for the ensemble cast and will executive produce.

MADRID —  Paris-based sales agent Best Friend Forever has dropped a first trailer for Colombian Camilo Restrepo’s feature debut “Los Conductos,” a movie which captures the shattered mental landscape of a man on the run from a sect.

Picture Tree Intl. has secured global sales rights of Berlin comedy “Nightlife,” directed by Simon Verhoeven, following his last film “Welcome to Germany,” which was Germany’s comic relief to the refugee crisis. The film sold to more than 60 territories and screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide, while being the No.1 box office hit in Germany in 2016.

In the run to the Berlin Film Festival, MovieChainer, the cloud-based app allowing right-holders to model and track the legal and financial structure of their film projects, has added German sales powerhouse The Match Factory and France’s Memento Film Distribution, to its client roster.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” which premieres in the Berlinale Special Gala section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Variety has been given an exclusive clip from Berlin Film Festival competition film “Volevo Nascondermi” (Hidden Away) by Giorgio Diritti. The film stars Cannes award-winner Elio Germano (“La nostra vita”) as the 20th century Naïve artist Antonio Ligabue.

London-based sales agency Film Republic has boarded Finnish film “Eden” as it prepares for the European Film Market in Berlin. The company has released a teaser for the film.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Christian Petzold’s “Undine,” which world premieres in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Petzold won the Silver Berlin Bear for best director for “Barbara” in 2012.

Berlin-based sales agent Films Boutique expands their slate for the upcoming Berlin Film Festival with global sales rights on “Last and First Men,” from the late Icelandic-born filmmaker-composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, which will world premiere in the Berlinale Special section.

Berlin-based sales agent M-appeal has picked up Norwegian children’s film “Sisters: The Summer We Found Our Superpowers,” ahead of the European Film Market in Berlin, where it will screen.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the first clip from Berlinale Special Gala film “Curveball,” which is inspired by the true story of how the work of the German secret service led to the Iraq War.

London-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation has added Tim Sutton’s Berlinale title “Funny Face” to its international sales slate. UTA is representing North American rights.

American playwright and filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, French actor and “The Artist” star Bérénice Bejo, and Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir will serve on the International Jury of the Berlin Film Festival.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired U.K. rights from TrustNordisk for Maria Sødahl’s “Hope,” which stars Stellan Skarsgård and Andrea Bræin Hovig, and will have its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival this month.

The Japanese film “37 Seconds” is deceptively delicate and quietly tough. Not unlike its protagonist.

The Berlin Film Festival has suspended its Alfred Bauer Prize following revelations that the award’s namesake and the Berlinale’s first director was much more closely affiliated with the Nazi Party than previously known.

It’s not that the knives were out, exactly. It’s just that the faint whiff of lame duckishness has hung over the Berlin Film Festival since the announcement of longtime director Dieter Kosslick’s 2019 departure, an impression that intensified during the last two editions, which were generally regarded as among the weakest the festival has recently seen.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for Swiss/Croatian feature film “Mare,” written and directed by Andrea Staka, which will have its world premiere in the Panorama Section of the Berlin Film Festival.

MADRID  —  Just minutes after the Berlinale confirmed on Wednesday its selection in main competition, the pedigree producers of Argentine Natalia Meta’s “The Intruder” (“El Prófugo”) have dropped a first teaser-trailer for what has been described as a “pyscho-sexual fantastic thriller.”

The Berlin Film Festival is unveiling its main competition line-up this morning, alongside additional galas.

Imagine a high-ratings, high-stakes game show that trivializes a convict’s life-or-death fate for public consumption. As wild as it sounds, a version of this reality TV entertainment apparently really exists in modern-day Iran, where writer-director Massoud Bakhshi’s “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness” is set, and where a wildly popular edition of it has been airing for nearly a decade.

Reel Suspects has acquired international sales rights to Caru Alves de Souza’s coming-of-age tale “My Name is Baghdad,” which will world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in the Generation 14 section.

A big year for the Berlin Film Festival, the 70th edition of the Berlinale will open with Philippe Falardeau’s anticipated “My Salinger Year,” headlined by a powerful female duo, Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley.

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever acquired two debut features, Camilo Restrepo’s Berlinale-bound “Los Conductos” and Pascal Tagnati’s “Corsican Summer.” Both films are produced by up and coming outfit 5à7 films.