News

From Namibian western to animated revenge thriller, from Bosnian family saga to a lesbian vampire breakup story, 10 upscale scripted TV projects were spotlighted at the Berlinale Series Market’s Co-Pro Series on Tuesday morning, representing “unique and bold choices with regard to genre and perspective, on top of great storytelling,” Martina Bleis, Head of the Berlinale Co-Production Market, observed before the presentation..

“This should attract buyers and co-producers now, and will surely convince discerning audiences once they have been made,”

With Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy joining climate change satire “S.O.L.,” created by late Ruth McCance, or Cannes-awarded director Aida Begić now focusing on “Mirrors,” it was a high-profile affair.

“This female family chronicle serves as a bridge between two centuries, two eras and two societies, shedding light on the hidden lives of Balkan women. Female secrets touch on taboos such as sexuality, violence and mental health. What would...

Ahead of the film’s world premiere at Locarno Film Festival, Variety has been given exclusive access to the debut trailer for “Hinterland,” the crime thriller from Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won the Foreign Language Film Oscar with “The Counterfeiters.”

The film is a center-piece of the festival with a prestigious first weekend primetime premiere on Friday, Aug. 6 in the event’s iconic open-air venue, Piazza Grande. Beta Cinema, the film’s sales agent, is looking to close further deals out of Locarno to follow up on Cannes Pre-Screenings deals soon to be announced.

“Hinterland,” starring Murathan Muslu (“Pelican Blood”) and Liv Lisa Fries (“Babylon Berlin”), is set in Vienna in 1920, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Peter Perg (Muslu) returns home from the Great War, after years of captivity, but the Vienna he comes home to is nothing like the place he once knew.

The new Austrian...

‘Next Door’ is directed by Daniel Brühl and Dan Stevens stars in ‘In Your Man’.

World sales agent Beta Cinema has swooped on international rights to Daniel Brühl’s directorial debut Next Door and Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man, which will both premiere in Competition at the Berlin International Film Festival (March 1-5).

The Munich-based outfit will introduce the features to buyers at the European Film Market (EFM), which will run alongside this year’s industry-focused, online-only event.

Next Door marks the directing debut of Brühl, who also stars in the black comedy alongside Peter Kurth and Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps.

Cinemas are looking to bounce back from a week of bad news.

France, opening Wednesday September 23

UFO Distribution and Potemkine Films joined forces this week for a rare general release of a medium-length film to launch Gaspar Noé’s 51-minute work Lux Æterna on 47 prints. Co-starring Beatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a director and actress locked in a hellish shoot, the work debuted Out of Competition in Cannes in 2019.

Noé’s cult status at home ensured plenty of press and according to France’s Cbo Box Office the picture came in fifth out of 15 new releases on its first day in cinemas,...

The 24th edition of Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) closed off on Thursday in limited capacity, finishing up the first fully-hybrid film festival in the world. Unlike many of its peers this year, Bifan hosted screenings in-theaters (at 35% capacity) alongside its online program on local streaming service Watcha. Because of the in-person offering, Bifan unwittingly witnessed the world premiere of more films than originally intended, including Annecy contender “Beauty Water”. The famous genre film festival has stood as a monumental alternative to the popular online festival format.

Among this year’s winners, German production “Pelican Blood” (Katrin Gebbe) won Best of Bucheon with raving reviews. Pouya Aminpori’s Iranian short “The Third Person” championed the Best Short Film, and regularly sold-out screenings “Saint Maud” and “Sheep Without a Shepherd” carved out their own fair share of recognition. Perhaps the most stand-out feature in the festival, however, is Kim Lok-kyong’s first feature,...

Documentary features rediscovered lost footage of writer at peak of literary success.

Kino Lorber and Slamdance Film Festival are partnering on the virtual theatrical release of You Never Had it – An Evening With Charles Bukowski.

Matteo Borgardt directed the documentary, which features rediscovered lost footage of the writer in conversation with arts entertainment journalist Silvia Bizio at his San Pedro home in 1981 when he was at the height of his literary success.

Bizio, who also produced, found the video of the interview in her garage in 2014, some 20 years after Bukowski died. The film also features Bizio reminiscing about her encounter with the author.

The unusual time saw a Zoom closing party and pre-recorded Q&As mixed with physical events.

Katrin Gebbe’s mother-daughter drama Pelican Blood won the Best of Bucheon Award at the hybrid edition of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) which wrapped in South Korea on Thursday July 16.

The award comes with KW20m in prize money and the festival closes with a screening of the winning title. The Germany-Bulgaria co-production is Gebbe’s sophomore feature after Nothing Bad Can Happen which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2013. Pelican Blood opened Venice’s Orrizonti section in 2019.

The closing...

Goteborg Film Festival, the biggest showcase of local and international movies in the Nordics, will kick off its 43rd edition with Maria Bäck’s “”Psychosis,” and will close with actor-turned-director Mårten Klingberg’s “My Father Mary Anne.”

Both timely Swedish dramas dealing with trauma post-sexual abuse, and the experience of a transgender priest, respectively, “Psychosis” and “My Father Mary Anne” will have their world premiere at Goteborg.

Stellan Skarsgård, who just won a Golden Globe for his performance in the hit HBO series “Tchernobyl,” will receive the prestigious Nordic Honorary Dragon Award and will be honored with a retrospective of some of the greatest films of his career. As part of the tribute, the estival will also host the Nordic premiere of “The Painted Bird” which was recently shortlisted for the international feature film category at the Oscars. During the festival, Skarsgård will also having a masterclass.

In addition to opening the festival,...

The festival, held in the French Alps, will have a timely ecological angle for the first time.

The Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 11th edition, which will unfold in the French Alps Dec 14-21, with a timely ecological angle for the first time.

Artistic director Frédéric Boyer has selected 120 films, which will play across six sections, including the Competition, Playtime, Hauteur and Avant-Premieres sidebars. Some 22,000 public and professional attendees are expected to attend in line with 2018.

Dutch actor-turned-director Halina Reijn’s psychological thriller Instinct, Fyzal Boulifa’s UK tragic female friendship tale Lynn + Lucy and...

Psychological drama marks the feature debut of Michael Venus.

Global Screen is to handle international sales on Michael Venus’ feature debut Sleep (Schlaf), a psychological drama starring Sandra Hüller and Gro Swantje Kohlhof.

The film, co-written with Thomas Friedrich, has a cast led by Hüller, known to international audiences for her starring performance in Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann, and Kohlhof, a co-lead in Carolina Hellsgård’s zombie horror Ever After (Endzeit).

The duo play a mother and daughter in the drama, which centres on three generations of women fatefully connected and is set in a village community in northern Germany’s...

One of the defining traits of a mother is her unconditional love. No matter how rotten a child can be, a mother’s love can be undying and never waiver through troubled waters. It is both a blessing and a curse – this endless devotion and sacrifice that comes with being a parent. But just how […]

The post ‘Pelican Blood’ Review: A Powerful Portrait of Sacrifice and Motherhood [Fantastic Fest 2019] appeared first on /Film.

If there is anything that horror nerds know, it’s that you can’t always trust kids. Sure, they might seem cute, and some of them are even innocent. But in other cases, the minute your back is turned, they become a Damien or an Esther or a Rhoda. From Katrin Gebbe (Nothing Bad Can Happen) comes a film that offers a fascinating and touching spin on the evil kid subgenre.

Wiebke (Nina Hoss) is a single mother, raising her daughter Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo) and training horses in the German countryside. Her work informs her general outlook on the world—it takes time, dedication, and above all, patience. True connection comes through trust and through communication. It’s a concept that she puts to use every day, in every aspect of her life.

When she decides to adopt a second child, she knows that the young girl named Raya...

The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.

German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.

This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...

Arthouse cinema isn’t generally inclined toward “Alien vs. Predator”-style franchise mashups, but if some kind of icy faceoff were engineered between the troubled, seething music instructors of Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” and Ina Weisse’s “The Audition,” all bets would be off. As played with customary, finely razored emotional control by Nina Hoss, violin teacher Anna Bronsky might seem more outwardly functional than Isabelle Huppert’s lonely, repressed paraphiliac Erika Kohut: In a stable middle-class marriage with a gifted son following in her footsteps, Anna seemingly hasn’t much to complain about besides her own stifled musical dreams. Yet the old “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” maxim takes on more dangerous implications when her dedication to one underdog student veers into obsessive territory; Weisse’s gripping, cool-blooded drama upends all manner of inspirational-educator clichés.

Appearing in San Sebastian’s official competition following...

The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.

German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.

This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...

”I wonder if this has something to do with countries going through a crisis.” he said.

Albert Wiederspiel has become synonymous with Germany’s FilmFest Hamburg during his 16 years at the helm as festival director. He recently extended his contract for a further three years until 2023. The festival opens tonight (September 26) with the German premiere of French comedy-drama La Belle Époque with director Nicolas Bedos and lead actress Doria Tillier in attendance.

It will close with the German premiere of Ken Loach’s socio-political drama Sorry We Missed You on October 5.

More than 40,000 film fans are expected to attend across 10 days of screenings,...

Festival director also discusses selecting films by women directors.

Albert Wiederspiel is set to enter his 16th Filmfest Hamburg (September 26 to October 5) as festival director, having extended his contract last year through 2023.

This year’s edition will present 144 films from 56 countries in 12 sections. It will open on Thursday (September 26) with the German premiere of French comedy-drama La Belle Époque with director Nicolas Bedos and lead actress Doria Tillier in attendance.

More than 40,000 film fans are expected to attend across ten days of screenings, concerts, film talks, and industry events. It will draw to a close on with the German premiere...

Festival director also discusses selecting films by women directors.

Albert Wiederspiel is set to enter his 16th Filmfest Hamburg (September 26 to October 5) as festival director, having extended his contract last year through 2023.

This year’s edition will present 144 films from 56 countries in 12 sections. It will open on Thursday (September 26) with the German premiere of French comedy-drama La Belle Époque with director Nicolas Bedos and lead actress Doria Tillier in attendance.

More than 40,000 film fans are expected to attend across ten days of screenings, concerts, film talks, and industry events. It will draw to a close on with the German premiere...

Writer/director Katrin Gebbe is not messing around with her latest film Pelican Blood. What starts as a psychological drama about a mother desperate to provide her new daughter the love necessary to free her from the demons of a traumatic past gradually escalates into a supernatural thriller augmenting what science attempts to prove. So while the explanation of a piece of artwork depicting a pelican that pierced its chest to reanimate its dead children with its blood first appears as metaphor, it just might be transformed into a darkly hopeful reality of rebirth. The film is ultimately about a mother’s love refusing to falter after the world has told her enough is enough. When everyone gives up on young Raya (Katerina Lipovska), Wiebke (Nina Hoss) remains stalwart.

Is it strength that keeps her by the girl’s side after everything that happens or irrationality, though? Most gave her...

This is not a story of sorcery and witchcraft or even of healing the damaged child adopted by a single mother and her other adopted daughter as much as it is a parable about following your own inner direction as dictated by your heart and soul.

When Wiebke, a horse trainer and adoptive mother to Nicolina, adopts a second daughter, she is faced with a broken soul who menaces her very existence. The film could be The Bad Seed meets Three Faces of Eve, but it is more than that.

When mother and daughter return from Bulgaria with Raya, a cute five-year-old orphan, Wiebke learns that her new daughter suffers from an attachment disorder and cannot build emotional connections to those around her, and further, she begins exhibiting shocking behavior and grows increasingly violent, claiming her actions are motivated by the provocation of a dark spirit.

After a psychologist explains...

If someone decided to make a documentary about those mothers who go on Dr. Phil to talk about how their young child is trying to stab them in their sleep, it would probably look something like Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood. It’s an incredibly effective drama about how children’s actions have powerful effects on a family, about a mother’s resilience, and the desperate lengths she goes through to save her family.

The German-language film follows Wiebke (Nina Hoss), a single mother who owns a horse training facility for riot police. She has an adopted daughter, Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Ocleppo), and the film’s first half highlights Wiebke’s desire and success in adopting another little girl, Raya (Katerina Lipovska). Both of her little girls bond quickly, and they seem to be the perfect family, but it’s clear that there’s something wrong. Darkness follows Raya, as indicated...

One of the strengths of German cinema is its diversity, says Simone Baumann, managing director of the national film promotion agency German Films.

As well as the three films at Toronto directed by female German helmers, there was also German filmmaker Thomas Heise’s documentary film essay “Heimat Is a Space in Time.” Then there were the many German-funded films directed by non-Germans, including “My Zoe,” by France’s Julie Delpy, and “Guns Akimbo,” by New Zealander Jason Lei Howden.

The country is one of the world’s leading coproduction nations, which was much in evidence in Toronto – with 30 German films in the festival, including coproductions such as U.S. helmer Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” Swede Roy Andersson’s “About Endlessness,” and “Proxima,” by France’s Alice Winocour.

It is hard to make generalization about German cinema, a point the filmmakers make themselves. Since the heyday of the Berlin School,...

Four feature films by German filmmakers screened at the Toronto Film Festival, and three of them were directed by women – Angela Schanelec’s “I Was at Home, But…,” winner of the Berlinale’s best director prize, Ina Weisse’s “The Audition,” and Katrin Gebbe’s “Pelican Blood,” the latter two both starring Nina Hoss. Germany’s Oscar entry this year, “System Crasher,” also has a female helmer.

“It’s a good time for female filmmakers… at least in Germany,” says Nora Fingscheidt, the director of “System Crasher,” which won a Silver Bear at Berlin. After the festival she received 35 scripts to consider, and is now working on a major project, as yet under wraps, for a global studio. The film’s child star, Helena Zengel, has just been cast to play opposite Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass’ “News of the World.”

Fingscheidt says that being a woman – at least in...

Exclusive: Fantastic Fest is set to honor legendary filmmaker Takashi Miike with the Lifetime Achievement Award and a and a special screening of The Happiness of the Katakuris. In addition, the fest has revealed its final wave of programming which includes the U.S. premiere of Jeremy Clapin’s I Lost My Body which recently debuted at Cannes Critics Week and won the Cristal for Best Animated Feature and the Audience Award Première at the 2019 Annecy Int’l Animated Film Festival. Fantastic Fest kicks off September 19 and continues through September 26.

Miike, who has been featured at Fantastic Fest multiple times, has over 100 films on his resume and in addition to a screening of The Happiness of the Katakuris, the fest will feature the U.S. premiere of his film First Love which follows an aspiring boxer named Leo who discovers that he may not have long to live. He goes...

Mother May I Sleep with Martyr?: Gebbe Dresses in Distress with Maternal Drama

It’s always lamentable to find a charismatic actor stymied by a poorly realized narrative, especially when their performance has the power to elevate a film’s faultier foundations. Such is the case with the effervescent Nina Hoss, one of German cinema’s most revered contemporary performers and arguably the visual forefront of the Berlin School thanks to her collaborations with Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan. She headlines the sophomore feature from Katrin Gebbe in Pelican Blood, a film thematically similar to her grueling 2013 debut Nothing Bad Can Happen (review), as both relish in excessive, overwrought narrative ploys from lead characters who are gluttons for pain and suffering.…...

Chris Feil takes a look at two performances by one of the greatest German actresses...

Katrin Gebbe follows her relentlessly grim Nothing Bad Can Happen with another slow-building horror-adjacent character study with Pelican Blood, a portrait of motherly conviction that love isn’t enough and hope is toxic. Nina Hoss is Wiebke, a skilled horse trainer and mother bringing a second adoptive daughter Raya (Katerina Lipovska) to her ranch. Shy at first, Raya quickly establishes herself as deeply troubled and a threat to her older daughter Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo). Misbehaving turns ominous, with Wiebke determined to show Raya the love she has been denied even as something evil within destroys Wiebke’s life...

Following a general pattern of decline since its ‘20s golden age, over the past two decades, Germany has seen a moderate revival of its limited—and drastically underfunded—film industry. Even so, despite a greater output of movies and higher box office returns, few recent German productions achieved mainstream success. Wolfgang Becker’s ingenious tragicomedy “Good Bye, Lenin!” and Tom Tykwer’s disturbing psychological thriller “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” are two internationally-acclaimed exceptions that prove the rule.

Continue reading ‘Pelican Blood’: Katrin Gebbe’s Astonishing Psycho-Drama Opens The Door To A Pint-Sized Psycho [Tiff Review] at The Playlist.

After exploring (frighteningly) the dark mind of a psychopath in her 2013 debut Nothing Bad Can Happen — which premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard — German director Katrin Gebbe wanted to go deeper. "I thought, 'What makes a person evil? What does their childhood look like?'" she says.

An answer, of a sort, is in Gebbe’s second feature, Pelican Blood, which will have its world premiere Sept. 8 as a special presentation at Tiff.

Nina Hoss stars as Wiebke, a horse trainer and adoptive mother to a young Bulgarian girl. They share an idyllic life in the German countryside ...

After exploring (frighteningly) the dark mind of a psychopath in her 2013 debut Nothing Bad Can Happen — which premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard — German director Katrin Gebbe wanted to go deeper. "I thought, 'What makes a person evil? What does their childhood look like?'" she says.

An answer, of a sort, is in Gebbe’s second feature, Pelican Blood, which will have its world premiere Sept. 8 as a special presentation at Tiff.

Nina Hoss stars as Wiebke, a horse trainer and adoptive mother to a young Bulgarian girl. They share an idyllic life in the German countryside ...

Sometimes horror films don't have much horror, and sometimes dramas can be just as horrifying as horror films. Sometimes films defy labels and don't fit into any one genre. Pelican Blood is a good example of all of this, a film that presents itself as a challenging straight-forward drama about a woman adopting children. But there's something much more sinister going on within, and it reveals itself part of the way through. This film is the ultimate "and you thought your child was evil, wait until you see this one" joke, but it also has something beautiful to offer - an earnestness that separates it from all the other horror films that integrate similar concepts about evil children. Pelican Blood (originally titled Pelikanblut) is a German film from filmmaker Katrin Gebbe, and it's one of the most unique discoveries at the Venice Film Festival this year. Both written and directed...

Eager as ever to attend Tiff, a festival I have missed only once in the last 29 years, because a cat bite sent me to the hospital, I am looking forward to discoveries and have booked my calendar tight with films!

I am lucky to have seen three films already, two in Cannes, both wonderful, memorable funny and absurd films, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, So. Korea’s submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and a likely winner, as well as So. Korea’s first-ever Palm d’Or winner in Cannes this year; and Elia Suleiman’s This Must Be Heaven, sweetly surreal, as funny as a Jacques Tati film, wryly observing our human race and with a funny little cameo with Gael Garcia Bernal introducing Suleiman to his agent. The third, Synonyms, won this year’s Berlinale Golden Bear. A coproduction of France, Israel and Germany, it...

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth puts spotlight on motherhood, female relationships and the nature of cinema itself.

The Venice Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday night (Aug 28) with Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s French-language debut The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche.

The generally well-received feature made for a fitting opening film amid the ongoing debate over female representation at the festival, spurred by the fact that just two of the 21 films in competition this year are directed by women.

Deneuve plays a steely cinema diva who has put career ahead of friends and family throughout her life, opposite Binoche as her long-suffering,...

While Chancellor Angela Merkel could arguably be described as the stern but ultimately benevolent materfamilias of the still-sane inhabitants of the Western world, it is fascinating to note that some (female) filmmakers from Germany have taken an interest in chronicling the lives of troubled kids and their caretakers lately. What can you do with children that are uncontrollable and seem incapable of listening and learning?

The best German film at this year’s Berlinale was Nora Fingscheidt’s intense shaky-cam ride streaked with hot pink called System Crasher, which tells the story of a wild child too violent for even professional ...

Like most great actors, Nina Hoss has the gift of bringing innate credibility to writing not necessarily blessed with the same virtue: When a character’s choices make little sense, or their backstory seems incompletely shaded, she can play these flaws as messy human glitches rather than conceptual gaps. That ability counts for a lot in “Pelican Blood,” a handsome, initially intriguing twist on the old “bad seed” horror premise from genre-mixing German writer-director Katrin Gebbe. As a single mother trying every available route to avoid giving up on (or simply giving up) the seemingly psychotic five-year-old girl she has recently adopted, Hoss’s teeth-gritted commitment to the role keeps us on side through more questionable stages of maternal meltdown than many a talented thesp would manage.

But to look a gift Hoss in the mouth for a moment, the star’s best efforts can’t prevent “Pelican Blood” from...