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At the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival back in 2021, several films directly tackled the subject of environmental issues (including the International Critics' Jury Winner that year). This year, the selection skewed more towards emotions of grief, loss, failed relationships. One film at the festival this year could effortlessly have been in both selections though: Ulaa Salim's science fiction drama For Evigt a.k.a. Eternal. At the beginning of Eternal, an earthquake in Iceland opens a huge fissure in the ocean's floor, raising the water temperature, destabilizing the tectonic plates, altering the electromagnetic field surrounding Earth and allowing lethal space radiation to reach the surface. In short: the end of the world is suddenly visible, and mere decades away. Part of the planet's population starts partying...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Thea Hvistendahl’s atmospheric slow-burn “Handling the Undead” took top honors at this year’s Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), claiming the festival’s H.R. Giger “Narcisse” prize alongside the Silver Méliès for best fantastic European feature.

Toplined by “The Worst Person in the World” stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, director Thea Hvistendahl’s feature debut repurposes walking-dead tropes, reimagining the traditional zombie movie as a more ambient reflection on family grief.

“Full of frail, mortal feeling and overcast last-days imagery, ‘Handling the Undead’ lingers coolly in the bones longer than many zombie films that offer more immediate, grisly gratification,” Variety’s Guy Lodge wrote out of Sundance. “It’s a living-dead nightmare with a brain and a heart, and, most importantly and indelibly, a soul.”

This year’s international jury – made up of sci-fi author Saul Pandelakis, filmmakers Ishan Shukla and João Pedro Rodrigues, festival programmer Annick Mahnert,...

New Europe Film Sales has sold US rights to Ulaa Salim’s sci-fi romance Eternal to Dark Star Pictures and has boarded Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s next feature Hot Spot.

Eternal recently world premiered in the Big Screen Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Dark Star is planning a theatrical release in the US.

The film centres on an obsessive, young climate change scientist who leaves behind his girlfriend to participate in a multi-year research mission exploring a fissure on the ocean floor that threatens the world. Years later, during his mission, he experiences a vision of what his life...

What makes the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) so endearing beyond its penchant for experimentation is an atmosphere that’s joyful and devoid of stress or self-importance. That was evident at this year’s festival, inside theaters where it seemed like the experience was about sharing cinematic pearls and not about arranging financial deals. The film selection was once again a delightfully uneven mishmash of bold stories with, perhaps, a through line having to do with our complicated relationship to otherness.

In Ulaa Salim’s Eternal, this otherness takes the shape of the Earth itself and of a woman’s body. These two are metaphorically linked through the figure of a fracture, which appears as a sign of the end of times after an earthquake in Iceland cracks the Earth open, and is poetically mapped onto the body of Anita (Anna Søgaard Frandsen) when she and Elias (Viktor Hjelmsø) first have sex.

Line-up for the 25th edition of the market includes 16 completed features, 15 Wip, 17 films in development.

Films by Sweat director Magnus von Horn and Margrete: Queen of the North filmmaker Charlotte Sieling will be presented at the 25th Nordic Film Market (January 31-February 2), the film marketplace of Goteborg Film Festival.

The projects are among the 15 Nordic films in post-production being showcased in the Works in Progress strand.

Scroll down for the full Market selection

Swedish director von Horn attends with The Girl With The Needle, a horror story set in 1910s Denmark, starring Trine Dyrholm and produced by Creative Alliance’s Malene Blenkov.

Festival selection includes Nikolaj Arcel’s ‘The Promised Land’ and Ernst De Geer’s ‘The Hypnosis’.

Goteborg Film Festival has selected almost 250 films for its 47th edition, including recent Nordic favourites The Promised Land starring Mads Mikkelsen and The Hypnosis by Ernst De Geer.

The festival, which runs from January 26 to February 4, has also programmed events including a talk between Ruben Ostlund and Cannes director Thierry Fremaux; and selected Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen to receive its Nordic Honorary Dragon award.

Scroll down for the list of festival titles

The 10 films competing in the Nordic Competition include Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land,...

The Göteborg Film Festival has unveiled the competition titles selected for its 47th edition, which runs from January 26 to February 4. (Scroll down for the full list).

Göteborg is split into four competition strands. The main strand is the Nordic Competition, which features nine films from the Nordic region. The competition’s winner takes home the Dragon Award and a Sek 400,000 cash prize. The rest of the festival comprises the Nordic Documentary Competition, the Ingmar Bergman Competition for first-time filmmakers, and the International Competition.

Among the Nordic highlights is Madame Luna, Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa’s return to Nordic filmmaking following a series of Hollywood titles such as Morbius and Safe House. Inspired by real-life events, the film follows an Eritrean refugee who gets stuck in Libya and becomes a notorious human trafficker known as “Mama Luna” with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. When she is forced to flee to...

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its lineup for the Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competitions. The festival runs from January 25-February 4. Scroll down for the full lists.

Head South by Jonathan Ogilvie will open the proceedings with M. Raihan Halim’s comedy La Luna on closing duties. The Tiger Competition jury will be comprised of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Herman Yau and Billy Woodberry.

Also confirmed are the first names for the Talks lineup including Marco Bellocchio, Anne Fontaine, Alexander Kluge and Rachel Maclean.

Festival director Vanja Kaludjercic said today, “For over half a century, IFFR has stood as a haven for diverse voices – a convergence where artists share perspectives. Our program celebrates the resilience and creativity of global filmmakers, a testament to cinema’s power to transcend borders. From Indian to Japanese epics, a Kazakh thriller, Finnish Freudian reinterpretations, Dominican sci-fi and underground Iranian cinema,...

Head South.International Film Festival Rotterdam have announced the lineup for their 53rd edition, which will take place between January 25 to February 4. Opening FILMHead South (Jonathan Ogilvie)The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire.Tiger COMPETITIONThe Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich)Flathead (Jaydon Martin)Grey Bees (Dmytro Moiseiev)Kiss Wagon (Midhun Murali)Me, Maryam, the Children and 26 Others (Farshad Hashemi)MosesLa Parra (Alberto Gracia)Praia Formosa (Julia De Simone)Rei (Tanaka Toshihiko)Reise der Schatten (Yves Netzhammer)She Fell to Earth (Susie Au)sr (Lea Hartlaub)Swimming Home (Justin Anderson)Under a Blue Sun (Daniel Mann)Milk Teeth.Big Screen COMPETITIONAire: Just Breathe (Leticia Tonos Paniagua)Children of War and Peace (Ville Suhonen)Confidenza (Daniele Luchetti)Eternal (Ulaa Salim)Milk Teeth (Sophia Bösch)The Old Bachelor (Oktay Baraheni)Portrait of a Certain Orient (Marcelo Gomes)Seven Seas Seven Hills (Ram)Steppenwolf (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)TenementThe Worst Man in London (Rodrigo Areias...

‘Swimming Home’ is directed by Justin Anderson and stars Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the Tiger and Big Screen programmes for the 3rd edition, taking place January 25 – February 4, 2024 in the Netherlands.

Justin Anderson’s Swimming Home, starring Mackenzie Davies, Christopher Abbott and Ariane Labed, is among the titles world premiering in the Tiger Competition.

Scroll down for full line-up

The drama is adapted from Deborah Levy’s novel about a woman who implores the help of a naked stranger found floating in her pool. It is produced by Emily Morgan’s UK outfit Quiddity Films,...

Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales has unveiled fresh deals for Danish director Ulaa Salim’s sci-fi drama Eternal.

The film has sold to France (Kmbo Films), Benelux (Cineart), Poland (Galapagos), ex-Yugoslavia (Five Stars) and Hungary (Mozinet).

Eternal is Ulaa Salim’s second film after his 2019 provocative, conspiracy thriller debut Sons Of Denmark.

Simon Sears stars as a scientist who ditches his relationship with an aspiring singer to join a mission exploring a dangerous climate change phenomenon linked to a mysterious fracture on the ocean floor.

Years later, during the mission, he experiences a vision of what his life could have been like if he made a different choice, and his new obsession becomes to get his old life and love back.

Nanna Øland Fabricius, Magnus Krepper, Halldóra Geirhardsdóttir, Zaki Youssef and Morten Holst round out the cast.

The feature reunites Salim with Sons Of Denmark producer Daniel Mühlendorph at Hyæne Film,...

Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold North American distribution rights for its Berlinale-selected drama “Delegation” to Greenwich Entertainment.

“Delegation” is a story of three Israeli high school friends who take part in a class trip visiting Holocaust sites in Poland – their last time together before going to the army. During the trip, shy boy Frisch, aspiring artist Nitzan and class heartthrob Ido deal with issues of love, friendship and politics against the backdrop of concentration camps and memorial sites. The journey will change them forever.

The deal for the film, which had its premiere in the Generation 14Plus competition, was negotiated by Naszewski and Greenwich co-president Edward Arentz.

“While it appeared in Gen14 and its main characters are teenagers, this is not what you would think of as a typical YA film or typical YA filmmaking, nor will the audience be limited to young adults.

The buzzy project was showcased at Goteborg Work in Progress.

New Europe Film Sales is kicking off sales at the European Film Market on Ulaa Salim’s anticipated Eternal, by closing the first deal with Plaion for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The sci-fi love story is now in post and is stirring a lot of buzz after its Goteborg Work in Progress presentation earlier this month. It is about a scientist researching a mysterious fracture on the ocean floor who reunites with a past love. The cast includes Simon Sears, Nanna Øland Fabricius, Magnus Krepper, Halldóra Geirhardsdóttir, Zaki Youssef and Morten Holst.

Exclusive: Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales has boarded international sales on Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping For Beginners starring top Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca as an unmaternal, gay woman who suddenly finds herself responsible for her partner’s two young daughters.

The drama is one of the buzziest productions to come out of Southeastern Europe this year and brings together a host of hot indie producers from three continents.

Australian-Macedonian director Stolevski’s star has been rising ever since Focus Features pre-acquired world rights to his debut feature, the Serbian mountains-shot horror You Won’t Be Alone, featuring Marinca, Noomi Rapace and Alice Englert in the cast.

After a Sundance debut, the film launched theatrically in the US in April 2022, via Universal. Focus Features also pre-acquired Stolevski’s Australia-set second feature Of An Age which opens in the U.S. on February 17.

Marinca plays the character of Dita, whose mansion in the...

The award comes with 38,000, making it one of the world’s largest film prizes.

Goteborg’s lucrative Dragon Award for best Nordic film has gone to Danish director Malou Reymann’s second feature Unruly.

The drama premiered at Toronto and had its Swedish premiere at Goteborg. TrustNordisk handles sales and the Danish cinema release is planned for spring 2023.

Reymann previously directed Rotterdam Big Screen winner A Perfectly Normal Family.

Unruly is about the Sprogø Women’s Institution in the 1930s, when “morally feeble” girls and women were sent to the island to become more compliant. The story focuses on Maren,...

Göteborg Film Festival, running from Jan. 27-Feb. 5, will welcome back some familiar faces during its 46th edition. But it keeps on looking out for skillful newcomers, says Josef Kullengård, head of industry at the festival and the Nordic Film Market. “We want to be the place where you discover new Nordic talent,” he tells Variety.

“It’s a strong year for projects in development, while the workin-progress section combines established directors such as Erik Poppe [presenting ‘Quisling’] with first-timers or people like Ulaa Salim, following ‘Sons of Denmark’ with ‘Eternal.’ It definitely mirrors what the current Nordic film landscape looks like.”

Oscar-winning actor Alicia Vikander will also introduce a new wave of directors, unveiling films produced by the students of educational film program Alicia Vikander Film Lab 2022.

“When she was appointed honorary fellow by the Sten A. Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture, her response was: ‘Let’s do something with this money,...

Seasoned helmers Ole Bornedal, Erik Poppe, Mikael Håfström, newcomers Mika Gustafson, Sara Gyllenstierna and rising talent Ulaa Salim are some of the 15 Nordic helmers set to pitch their feature projects in post-production at this year’s Nordic Film Market.

The leading Nordic film confab is due to run Feb. 2-5 in a hybrid version, parallel to Sweden’s 46th Göteborg Film Festival (Jan.27-Feb. 5), the biggest film-tv event in Scandinavia.

For its first full-scale outing post-covid and first year under the helm of industry chief Josef Kullengård, the Nordic Film Market is set to draw a record 500 delegates on-site, on top of nearly 60 on-line visitors. “The interest from the international industry is amazing! It will be a record year for us, even compared to pre-pandemic times,” boasts. Kullengård, a habitué of the event’s backstage gigs who took over from Cia Edström in October to allow her to focus on...

The Göteborg Film Festival has unveiled the 53 Nordic Films that will take part in the latest edition of the Nordic Film Market, running February 2 – 5. Scroll down for the list.

The line-up consists of 17 completed feature films, 15 works in progress, 11 films in development presented at the market’s co-financing platform Discovery, and another 10 features in development from up-and-coming Swedish creators at Talent to Watch.

The 2023 edition of Nordic Film Market will comprise a full on-site event in Göteborg alongside digital screenings on the festival’s dedicated industry platform. This year the festival has said close to 500 invited buyers, distributors, sales agents, producers, festival programmers, and other key industry delegates from 32 countries are expected to attend.

Elsewhere, the 17th edition of the TV Drama Vision summit will run February 1–2.

Göteborg will run January 27 – February 5. As previously announced, Holy Spider breakout Zar Amir Ebrahimi will head the jury of the festival’s Nordic Competition.

Lithuanian comedy ‘Tasty’ won the Screen International best pitch award at Tallinn’s Baltic Event in 2020.

UK-based Film Republic has secured international rights to Lithuanian director Eglė Vertelytė’s Tasty, the winner of the Screen International best pitch award at Tallinn’s Baltic Event in 2020.

Tasty is a comedy about two friends working in a canteen who take part in a cooking competition on TV. Principal photography will take place in Vilnius and Kaunas from October.

The €720,000 project has received development and production funding from the Lithuanian Film Centre (Lfc).

It is produced by Viktorija Cook of Vilnius-based Inscript and...

New Europe also sold Salim’s 2019 debut feature Sons Of Denmark.

New Europe Film Sales has boarded sales on Ulaa Salim’s second feature, sci-fi love story Eternal, which has started shooting in Aarhus, Denmark; Bergen; Norway; and Iceland.

Daniel Mühlendorph of Hyæne Film is producing.

New Europe also sold Salim’s 2019 debut feature Sons Of Denmark (which premiered in competition at Rotterdam), and has a long history with the film’s Icelandic co-producer, Netop Films.

Salim writes and directs the film, which is set after an earthquake causes a mysterious fracture on the ocean floor, which accelerates climate change.

Since “Sons of Denmark’s” world bow at Rotterdam in 2019, Danish writer/director Ulaa Salim and producer Daniel Mühlendorph have enjoyed invites to 50 world festivals, and won nine awards – including best director at Seattle – and distribution in eight territories, negotiated by New Europe Film Sales. Those take in China (Huanxi Films), the U.K./Ireland (Eureka), Benelux (Windmill), Germany (Koch Media), Filmin (Spain), Programestore (France), Windmill (Benelux), Ale Kino (Poland) and Arthouse Traffic (Ukraine).

The partners in the fledging Danish outfit Hyæne Film are at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market with two titles from recent Danish Film School graduates: Lisa Jespersen’s “Persona non Grata” (“Hvor kragerne vender”) pitched at the work in progress session, and Christian Bengtson’s “Chrysanthemum,” showcased within the Discovery section.

For her debut feature, Jespersen has attracted heavyweight DoP and Lars von Trier’s regular cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro (“Melancholia”), and an ensemble cast of...

Ulaa Salim's Sons of Denmark is showing January 24 –February 22, 2020 on Mubi as part of the series Direct from Rotterdam.What causes a man to become extreme? That was one of the main questions I asked my self with this film. I saw a world that was on the edge of a major change. Everybody was closing in on each other and from the unknown. I wanted to tell a story about the next, perhaps inevitable, step in our society. What happens when normalization of extreme voices take place and these voices gain power and authority? What happens when the hard rhetoric is no longer just words, but is put into action?I started writing the script for Sons of Denmark six years before actually getting the opportunity to shoot it. I was still in film school and had the urge to speak up about the extreme voices and the...

Other titles set for release include ‘Black Christmas’, ‘The Kingmaker’ and ‘Pink Wall’.

Action sequel Jumanji: The Next Level and Blumhouse horror Black Christmas lead this weekend’s releases at the UK box office, which may see Frozen II fall from the top slot.

Released through Sony, Jumanji: The Next Level reunites stars Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black with director Jake Kasdan.

Together, they scored a box office hit with Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle in December 2017, which opened with £8.15m (including £4.11m in previews) and went on to gross £38.5m.

The sequel sees four young...

A misjudged scene depicting an acid attack fatally undermines this drama about radicalisation and anti-Muslim nationalism

Sons of Denmark is the debut feature of Danish director Ulaa Salim, drawing on his observations of that country as the child of Iraqi-born parents. It is a strange film and, having found it initially engaging and even quite exciting, I came away with a strange taste in my mouth.

This is a conspiracy thriller with a plot that takes you to unexpected places. But it doesn’t live up to the (high) expectations engendered by its opening act – and then the film simply left me behind with a crassly violent and questionably conceived acid-attack scene, targeted at a woman, there to facilitate a revenge flourish that does not close down the narrative in any satisfactory way.

Other winners include ’Ghost Tropic’, ‘The Fourth Wall’ and ’A Certain Kind of Silence’.

Immigrant drama I Am No Longer Here, from Mexican director Fernando Frias, has won the Golden Pyramid for best film at the 41st Cairo International Film Festival.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Frias’ timely drama centres on a Mexican teenager forced to move to the Us after getting on the wrong side of a drugs cartel. Its young star, Juan Daniel Garcia Trevino, was feted with best actor.

Also in the international competition, Belgian director Bas Devos won the Silver Pyramid for urban night-time odyssey tale Ghost Tropic.

Films will be available to stream for free in 45 European countries.

Danish political thriller Sons of Denmark and Serbian stolen child drama Stiches are among the ten European features due to be showcased in the fourth edition of the competitive Artekino Festival, running December 1 to 31, its organisers have announced.

The online festival - which is a joint venture between Franco-German broadcaster Arte and Paris-based digital platform Festival Scope – will be available for free in 45 countries across Europe.

Under the initiative, aimed at promoting the circulation of European films that have not found wide theatrical distribution - 5,000 virtual seats are made...

50,000 tickets are up for grabs for ten art house films available digitally, in ten languages and in 45 countries across Europe, from 1 December. The ArteKino Festival, launched in 2016 by Arte and Festival Scope with the support of Europe Créative in order to showcase and promote European arthouse cinema, is back for its 4th edition, set to take place from Sunday 1 to Tuesday 31 December. On the menu are ten features (helmed by five female and five male directors), including seven feature debuts, which will be available online, free of charge with a total of 50,000 tickets available, to be requested via artekinofestival.com and the ArteKino app. The line-up is accessible in 45 countries and in ten languages.Standing out from the programme is the explosive politico-familial thriller Sons of Denmark by Ulaa Salim...

It includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory and Little Joe.

The 46 films recommended for nomination for the 2019 European Film Awards have been announced.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

The selection includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and Little Joe.

The films were selected by a committee consisting of the Efa board and experts Giorgio Gosetti (festival programmer), Kathrin Kohlstedde (festival programmer), Paz Lazaro (festival programmer), Mary Nazari (exhibitor), Edvinas...

It includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory and Little Joe.

The 46 films recommended for nomination for the 2019 European Film Awards have been announced.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

The selection includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and Little Joe.

The films were selected by a committee consisting of the Efa board and experts Giorgio Gosetti (festival programmer), Kathrin Kohlstedde (festival programmer), Paz Lazaro (festival programmer), Mary Nazari (exhibitor), Edvinas...

The Niff Extended programme of the Swiss festival is attracting high-level international guests.

Nifff Extended, the section of Swiss festival Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) probing the future of cinema, launches today with a wide-ranging programme exploring how games, transmedia and VFX are helping to change storytelling in feature filmmaking.

The programme is becoming the main industry focus of the festival, attracting high-level guests and featuring premieres and cutting- edge debates.

“The Neuchâtel festival has the name ‘film festival’ because it is a historical brand but we really have broadened our vision of what we show and what we discuss,...

The Niff Extended programme of the Swiss festival is attracting high-level international guests.

Nifff Extended, the section of Swiss festival Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) probing the future of cinema, launches today with a wide-ranging programme exploring how games, transmedia and VFX are helping to change storytelling in feature filmmaking.

The programme is becoming the main industry focus of the festival, attracting high-level guests and featuring premieres and cutting- edge debates.

“The Neuchâtel festival has the name ‘film festival’ because it is a historical brand but we really have broadened our vision of what we show and what we discuss,...

The Niff Extended programme of the Swiss festival is attracting high-level international guests.

Niff Extended, the section of Swiss festival Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival probing the future of cinema, launches today with a wide-ranging programme exploring how games, transmedia and VFX are helping to change storytelling in feature filmmaking.

The programme is ecoming the main industry focus of the festival, attracting high- level guests and featuring premieres and cutting- edge debates.

“The Neuchâtel festival has the name ‘film festival’ because it is a historical brand but we really have broadened our vision of what we show and what we discuss,...

Danish director Ulaa Salim talks to Variety about his provocative debut feature, thriller “Sons Of Denmark,” which made a strong showing in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition and just screened at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The film is set in 2025, and unfolds in a Denmark where an ultra-nationalist politician, Martin Nordahl, is poised to assume the premiership, one year after an Islamic terror attack on the Copenhagen Metro. Nordahl’s extreme rhetoric and fear mongering in regard to the country’s Muslim citizens and immigrants goads the far-right organization Sons of Denmark into committing hate crimes. Meanwhile, some of the country’s Arabic minority make plans to resist.

Salim, a recent graduate of the Danish National Film School, was born in Denmark to Iraqi-émigré parents. He and producer Daniel Mühlendorph, a film school classmate, established their own company Hyæne Film, and this is their first feature production.

I saw that your...

Titles include Miguel Llansó’s ’Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway’.

Switzerland’s Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff) has unveiled the programme for its 2019 edition (July 5 – 13), with a line-up including 90 feature films.

Among the 16 titles playing in the International Competition strand is the world premiere of Spanish director Miguel Llansó’s Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway, about two CIA agents tasked with destroying a computer virus called ‘Soviet Union’.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The film is Llansó’s first since 2015’s Crumbs, which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam and subsequently won...

The Seattle Film Festival wrapped Sunday with top Golden Space Needle audience awards going to “Tel Aviv on Fire” for best film and “We Are the Radical Monarchs” for best documentary.

Ulaa Salim won best director for “Sons of Denmark,” while Damla Sonmez won best actress for “Sibel” and Julius Weckauf won best actor for “All About Me.” Best short film went to “Stepdaddy.”

Juried award winners included “House of Hummingbird” for the official competition, “The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia” for New Directors; “The Awakening of the Ants” for the Ibero-American Competition, “International Falls” for the New American Cinema competition and “Q Ball” for documentary.

The largest festival in the United States, it featured more than 400 films from 86 countries including 12 feature premieres.

“It’s been an incredible 25 days full of important stories from around the world. We’re incredibly proud to showcase women in comedy, from jump starting the...

Line-up includes the world premieres of two Taiwanese films: Hsieh Pei-ju’s Heavy Craving and Shih Li’s Wild Sparrow.

The 21st Taipei Film Festival has unveiled a line-up of 12 films from 15 countries for its international new talent competition, including the world premiere of two Taiwanese films Hsieh Pei-ju’s first feature Heavy Craving and Shih Li’s second feature Wild Sparrow.

The former, which was selected for Berlinale Talents’ Script Station and Produire au Sud Taipei Workshop, is about an overweight woman who is in love with a bright young courier, while the latter is about grandparenting, life and...

Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has picked up world sales rights for the upcoming drama “Fools,” by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski (“United States of Love”), produced by Ewa Puszczynska, the producer behind Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winner “Ida” and nominee “Cold War.”

Leading Polish actors Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat star in a film about the difficult relationship between a mother and son, and how their choices have dramatic consequences.

Puszczynska is producing for her company Extreme Emotions, in co-production with Ada Solomon at Romania’s Hi-Film and Jamila Wenske of Germany’s One Two Films, and in association with Nem Corp. Romanian DoP Oleg Mutu returns after his previous collaboration with Wasilewski on “United States of Love,” which New Europe sold to over 30 territories.

New Europe’s Cannes line-up includes the Critics’ Week selection “A White, White Day,” by Hlynur Palmason, which sold...

Urban Distribution has bought rights for France and Palace has taken rights for Australia to Hlynur Palmason’s “A White, White Day” from New Europe Film Sales, ahead of the film’s world premiere in Cannes this week, where it competes in Critics’ Week.

The film is Palmason’s second feature after “Winter Brothers,” which won four prizes at its world premiere in Locarno, and then played more than 60 festivals and won more than 30 prizes and was released in more than 10 territories.

“A White, White Day” is the story of an off-duty police chief from a remote Icelandic town, who begins to suspect a local man of having had an affair with his late wife, who died in a tragic accident two years earlier. Gradually his obsession with finding out the truth accumulates and inevitably begins to endanger himself and his loved ones. The film’s team calls it “a story of grief,...

The Danish film industry is on a roll this year with berths secured at major festivals besides the Berlinale where Lone Scherfig’s “The Kindness of Strangers” landed the opening slot, just as Susanne Bier’s Sandra Bullock starrer “Bird Box” is breaking records on Netflix and first-timer Gustav Möller’s “The Guilty” made the foreign-language Oscar shortlist.

It’s a particularly good time because different types of local productions are performing well both at home, where the domestic share of total admissions was a strong 29% in 2018, and in the international arena, which is seeing a new generation of Danish directors coming to the fore.

Last year there were 26 homegrown titles released in Denmark that sold 3.8 million tickets total, up from 2.5 million tickets in 2017, when the national market share was 20%.

Aside from new works by known names such as Christoffer Boe, whose high-profile crimer “The Purity of Vengeance” topped the 2018 chart,...

Goteborg — The 20th Nordic Film Market, held parallel to the Göteborg Film Festival, closed Sunday after three days of screenings and pitchings of 48 Nordic films and projects. Following, five key takeaways or trends:

Standout Nordic Brand Quality

An excellent crop, better than 2018, with a large diversity of content, catering to arthouse/mainstream as well as local/international audiences – these were prevailing reactions from international buyers and programmers polled yesterday in Göteborg. A senior A festival programmer – who asked to remain anonymous- even said: “Today the Nordics are perhaps the strongest region in Europe creatively across TV drama, feature and documentary film.”

Although most titles had already been snatched by the big Nordic sellers – TrustNordisk, LevelK, New Europe Film Sales, The Yellow Affair, Sf Studios – a dozen small offers in post, or in development at the Discovery section, still open for negotiations, made the Göteborg stop-over – fully worthwhile for the 25-plus sales reps in attendance.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for the opening film of Rotterdam Film Festival’s Tiger Competition, “Sons of Denmark.”

The film is a political thriller set in Denmark in 2025, a year after a bomb attack in Copenhagen, when ethnic tensions are running high. An ultra-nationalist politician, Martin Nordahl, and his National Movement are leading in the polls, and influenced by his anti-immigrant rhetoric, society has rapidly turned on ethnic minorities.

In this climate, 19-year-old Zakaria feels compelled to act to protect his family’s safety. However, to do what he feels is necessary to turn the political tide, he needs to abandon his mother and little brother, and get involved in a radical organization.

“The film is a very personal and visual thriller that packs a powerful punch and really catches the zeitgeist of Europe today,” according to New Europe Film Sales, which is handling world sales.

Around The World When You Were My AgeThe titles for the 48th International Film Festival Rotterdam are being announced in anticipation of the event running January 23 – February 3, 2018. We will update the program as new films are revealed.Tiger COMPETITIONSons of Denmark (Ulaa Salim)Take Me Somewhere Nice (Ena Sendijarević)Present.Perfect. (Shengze Zhu)Sheena667 (Grigory Dobrygin)Nona. If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them (Camila José Donoso)Koko-di Koko-da (Johannes Nyholm)Els dies que vindran (Carlos Marqués-Marcet)Bright Future COMPETITIONAlva (Ico Costa)Chèche lavi (Sam Ellison)De nuevo otra vez (Romina Paula)Doozy (Richard Squires)Dreissig (Simona Kostova)Ende der Saison (Elmar Imanov)Fabiana (Brunna Laboissière)The Gold-Laden Sheep & the Sacred Mountain (Ridham Janve)Heroes (Köken Ergun)Historia de mi nombre (Karin Cuyul)Last Night I Saw You Smiling (Kavich Neang)Lost Holiday (Michael Kerry Matthews/Thomas Matthews)Maggie (Yi Okseop)Mens (Isabelle Prim)No Data Plan (Miko Revereza...

Danish thriller set for Iffr bow.

Danish thriller Sons Of Denmark, which will open this year’s Tiger Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr), has been boarded for world sales by New Europe.

Directed by Ulaa Salim, the film is set one year after a major bomb attack in Copenhagen, with ethnic tensions running high around the country and a nationalist political leader set for a landslide victory. Against that backdrop, a 19-year-old becomes involved in a radical organisation, with grave consequences.

The film was produced by Daniel Mühlendorph, who runs Hyaene Film together with director Salim – this...

Big Screen Competition line-up also announced.

The 48th International Film Festival Rotterdam (23 Jan – 3 Feb) has revealed the eight films that will compete in its 2018 Hivos Tiger Competition.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The award includes a cash prize of €40,000, to be divided between filmmaker and producer. There is also a special jury award worth €10,000.

This year’s selection includes new feature films by directors including Johannes Nyholm, Ena Sendijarević, Ulaa Salim and Shengze Zhu. There are seven world premieres and one international premiere.

This year’s jury will comprise of Chilean filmmaker and artist Alfredo Jaar; Daniela Michel, festival...

The $34,000 prize is aimed at promoting gender equality.

The Goteborg Film Festival will open with Miia Tervo’s Aurora from Finland, about a party animal Finnish woman in Lapland who meets an Iranian asylum seeker, on January 26.

The festival will close with the world premiere of Swedish directors’ Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein’s Swoon on February 4. The period romance is about two young lovers from families who own rival amusement parks.

The festival will screen 376 films from 83 countries.

Full lists of the films in the festival’s five competitions below.

The festival will host Eurimages’ Audentia Award competition for...

Eurimages Lab Project Award goes to performance artist story Burning Man from Norway.

Two Danish films were the buzz hits of Haugesund’s works in progress presentations this week. They were Queen Of Hearts, a drama starring Trine Dyrholm as a middle-aged woman having an affair; and political thriller Sons Of Denmark.

Dyrholm, whose credits include The Commune, Oscar winner In A Better World and TV’s The Legacy, stars in May el-Toukhy’s second feature Queen Of Hearts alongside rising Swedish actor Gustav Lindh. The story is about Anne, a lawyer who works with troubled youth, who shockingly starts...