XYZ Boards World Sales On Sci-Fi ‘Night Raiders’, Berlin Fest Entry Exec-Produced By Taika Waititi — EFM

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Natural Light,” a portrait of the attrition and atrocity of war set at a benighted village in occupied Western Soviet Union in 1943, has clinched its first sales as Paris-based Luxbox rolls out the Berlin Competition player at the European Film Market.Nour Films, whose past pickups include Berlin Golden Bear winner “Touch Me Not,” has closed rights to France.Nour will open “Natural Light” “with great conviction and pleasure” on at least 60 prints

Christopher Vourlias One year ago, as thousands of global film and TV industry reps descended on Berlin for the European Film Market, executives from Nigerian production and distribution powerhouse FilmOne Entertainment had good reason to feel optimistic. The company had recently unveiled a $1 million film fund with China’s Huahua Media and South Africa’s Empire Entertainment, an unprecedented pact for the Nigerian movie industry.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winner Allison Janney, Schitt’s Creek Emmy winner Annie Murphy and Dear Evan Hansen star Ben Platt are set for The People We Hate At The Wedding. Emmy winner Claire Scanlon (Set It Up) is directing an adaptation of the Grant Ginder novel that is a character-driven wedding comedy that aspires to be a next generation Four Weddings and a Funeral. UTA Independent Film Group is introducing it today at the Virtual Berlin Market.

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

Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders, executive produced by Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit writer-director Taika Waititi, is no typical sci-fi thriller. An entry in this year’s Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section and Goulet’s feature debut, the film flips the genre on its head by using the future to confront Canada’s past colonization and subjugation of its First Nation peoples.

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.

Lise Pedersen The new action-horror film set to be shot by acclaimed blockbuster director Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2,” “Cliffhanger”) is being introduced online at Berlin’s virtual European Film Market.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based distributor FilmRise has struck a deal with sales firm WaZabi Films for U.S. rights to TIFF 2020 and Berlin 2021 drama Beans.

Spain brings an extraordinary gamut of movie titles to Berlin. Some highlights:“All the Moons,” (Igor Legarreta)A France-Spain co-production, “All the Moons” tracks two vampires in the northern Spain during the last Carlist war.

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.

Director Tony Stone delves into the world of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski in Ted K, premiering in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival. More of a mood piece than a biopic, it stars an understated Sharlto Copley as the former math professor, who’s living off grid in the Montana mountains, fostering a burgeoning grudge against technology.

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.

Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel and Cécile de France, “Peaceful,” directed by Cannes best actress winner Emmanuelle Bercot, will head Studiocanal’s 2021 Berlin slate.“Peaceful” is produced by Les Films du Kiosque, whose credits include “La Belle Epoque” and Bercot’s own “Standing Tall.”Introduced to buyers from Feb.

EXCLUSIVE: In what shapes up as a hot package for the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin, Ryan Gosling has committed to star in The Actor, with Duke Johnson directing a script he wrote with Stephen Cooney, based on Donald E. Westlake’s hard boiled novel Memory.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based sales outfit Reel Suspects has taken world sales, excluding Russia, on Uldus Bakhtiozina’s debut feature film Tzarevna Scaling, which has been selected for this year’s Berlinale Forum program.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey is set to direct Better Man, a fantastical coming of age story about the unlikely rise of celebrated singer/songwriter Robbie Williams. The package is going out shortly to the Berlin buying crowd, for a film that Gracey wrote along with first-time screenwriters Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: After making a name for himself for his British gangster pics, Guy Ritchie has set his sights on the World War II genre as sources tell Deadline Ritchie has signed on to write and direct Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare for Paramount Pictures. Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman will produce on behalf of Jerry Bruckheimer Films.