Exclusive: New York-based sales company Visit Films has sold Geoff McFetridge: Drawing A Life, which debuted at SXSW, and New York Film Festival title The Practice to Gravitas Ventures for North American distribution.
Gravitas Ventures will release both films in July on all platforms.
The Practice (La Práctica) is directed by Martin Rejtman and premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival before playing fests around the circuit, including New York Film Festival and BFI London. The film follows Gustavo, a recently separated yoga instructor, as he must deal with increasingly absurd situations and relationships to land back on his feet. Starring are Esteban Bigliardi, and Camila Hirane (Fugitives). The Practice is a co-production of Un Puma, Quijote Films, Rosa Filmes, Pandora Film Produktion, África, in association with Arte/Zdf. It was produced by Joaquim Sapinho, Victoria Marotta, Christoph Friedel,...
Gravitas Ventures will release both films in July on all platforms.
The Practice (La Práctica) is directed by Martin Rejtman and premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival before playing fests around the circuit, including New York Film Festival and BFI London. The film follows Gustavo, a recently separated yoga instructor, as he must deal with increasingly absurd situations and relationships to land back on his feet. Starring are Esteban Bigliardi, and Camila Hirane (Fugitives). The Practice is a co-production of Un Puma, Quijote Films, Rosa Filmes, Pandora Film Produktion, África, in association with Arte/Zdf. It was produced by Joaquim Sapinho, Victoria Marotta, Christoph Friedel,...
- 4/18/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Andreas Dresen’s Berlinale competition film From Hilde, With Love from Beta Cinema.
The biopic stars Babylon Berlin’s Liv Lisa Fries as real-life German resistance fighter Hilde Coppi. The film depicts her relationship with Communist activist Hans Coppi, who brought her into the anti-Nazi resistance, and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment by the Gestapo while pregnant.
From Hilde With Love is written by Laila Stieler and produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel.
Johannes Hegemann, Lisa Wagner and Alexander Scheer also star.
From Hilde, With Love is produced by Pandora Film Produktion,...
The biopic stars Babylon Berlin’s Liv Lisa Fries as real-life German resistance fighter Hilde Coppi. The film depicts her relationship with Communist activist Hans Coppi, who brought her into the anti-Nazi resistance, and her subsequent arrest and imprisonment by the Gestapo while pregnant.
From Hilde With Love is written by Laila Stieler and produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel.
Johannes Hegemann, Lisa Wagner and Alexander Scheer also star.
From Hilde, With Love is produced by Pandora Film Produktion,...
- 3/4/2024
- ScreenDaily
Kirsten Niehuus, head of German film fund Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, is confident that the changes to film funding proposed by the German government recently will have a “very positive effect on the production scene in Berlin-Brandenburg.”
The proposed changes to the funding system were presented last week to German lawmakers in the Bundestag by commissioner for culture and media Claudia Roth (see here).
Kirsten Niehuus, Martin Moszkowicz
Speaking to Variety Saturday at a party Medienboard hosted at Berlin’s Holzmarkt, Niehuus said the changes “will mean that we would have a tax system in place that could compete, for instance, with Budapest or Prague, so that not so many German productions would go and shoot somewhere else, and more foreign productions would come and shoot in Germany.”
Looking at the media landscape across Germany she notes that one major challenge is the decision by high-end outlets such as Paramount+, HBO and Sky to cancel local productions,...
The proposed changes to the funding system were presented last week to German lawmakers in the Bundestag by commissioner for culture and media Claudia Roth (see here).
Kirsten Niehuus, Martin Moszkowicz
Speaking to Variety Saturday at a party Medienboard hosted at Berlin’s Holzmarkt, Niehuus said the changes “will mean that we would have a tax system in place that could compete, for instance, with Budapest or Prague, so that not so many German productions would go and shoot somewhere else, and more foreign productions would come and shoot in Germany.”
Looking at the media landscape across Germany she notes that one major challenge is the decision by high-end outlets such as Paramount+, HBO and Sky to cancel local productions,...
- 2/19/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
“From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, has debuted its trailer (below). The film, directed by Andreas Dresen, centers on a group of young anti-Nazi activists in Berlin during World War II. (Read Variety‘s review here.)
The film, which is being sold by Beta Cinema and is produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel for Pandora Film, stars “Babylon Berlin” breakout Liv Lisa Fries and Johannes Hegemann.
The film is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis. Hilde gave birth to her son in prison. He is alive today and was consulted about the production.
In an interview with Variety, Dresen said that when Laila Stieler’s script for...
The film, which is being sold by Beta Cinema and is produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel for Pandora Film, stars “Babylon Berlin” breakout Liv Lisa Fries and Johannes Hegemann.
The film is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis. Hilde gave birth to her son in prison. He is alive today and was consulted about the production.
In an interview with Variety, Dresen said that when Laila Stieler’s script for...
- 2/19/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
When Laila Stieler’s script for “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, first came to director Andreas Dresen he was a little reluctant to take the project on.
The issue was not the script but the subject-matter: set in Nazi-era Berlin, “From Hilde, With Love” is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis. Hilde gave birth to her son in prison. He is alive today and was consulted about the production.
“I was a little bit afraid of doing these films about Nazi times, because it’s always in sepia colors, you know, very historical, very artificial always, and this is not the style of cinema I like,” he tells Variety.
The issue was not the script but the subject-matter: set in Nazi-era Berlin, “From Hilde, With Love” is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis. Hilde gave birth to her son in prison. He is alive today and was consulted about the production.
“I was a little bit afraid of doing these films about Nazi times, because it’s always in sepia colors, you know, very historical, very artificial always, and this is not the style of cinema I like,” he tells Variety.
- 2/18/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Feature also screened at New York, London film festivals.
Visit Films will kick off talks at AFM in Santa Monica next week on San Sebastian absurdist comedy The Practice.
‘The Practice’: San Sebastian Review
Martín Rejtman wrote and directed the Argentina-Chile-Portugal- Germany co-production about recently separated yoga instructors Gustavo and Vanesa who find it difficult to live apart.
The film centres on a recently separated yoga instructor with a knee injury who must deal with the search for a new home, a meddling mother, and a flirtatious student.
Esteban Bigliardi, Camila Hirane (Fugitives), Manuela Oyarzún (The Good Life), and...
Visit Films will kick off talks at AFM in Santa Monica next week on San Sebastian absurdist comedy The Practice.
‘The Practice’: San Sebastian Review
Martín Rejtman wrote and directed the Argentina-Chile-Portugal- Germany co-production about recently separated yoga instructors Gustavo and Vanesa who find it difficult to live apart.
The film centres on a recently separated yoga instructor with a knee injury who must deal with the search for a new home, a meddling mother, and a flirtatious student.
Esteban Bigliardi, Camila Hirane (Fugitives), Manuela Oyarzún (The Good Life), and...
- 10/25/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Dark comedy stars Esteban Bigliardi from J.A. Bayona’s Spanish Oscar submission ’Society of The Snow’.
Ryan Kampe’s Visit Films has picked up worldwide sales excluding Argentina, Chile, Portugal and Germany to Argentine director Martín Rejtman’s The Practice (La Practica) ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian (September 22-30).
The dark comedy will subsequently receive its North American premiere in the 61st New York Film Festival’s (NYFF) Main Slate on September 30.
It stars Esteban Bigliardi from J.A. Bayona’s Spanish Oscar submission and San Sebastian entry Society Of The Snow and NYFF selection The Delinquents...
Ryan Kampe’s Visit Films has picked up worldwide sales excluding Argentina, Chile, Portugal and Germany to Argentine director Martín Rejtman’s The Practice (La Practica) ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian (September 22-30).
The dark comedy will subsequently receive its North American premiere in the 61st New York Film Festival’s (NYFF) Main Slate on September 30.
It stars Esteban Bigliardi from J.A. Bayona’s Spanish Oscar submission and San Sebastian entry Society Of The Snow and NYFF selection The Delinquents...
- 9/20/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Paris-based Luxbox has snapped up sales rights on “Puan,” the awaited new film from María Alche and Benjamín Naishtat, two of Argentina’s fastest-rising directors.
The new title co-stars Leonardo Sbaraglia.
“Puan” catches Alché after she won San Sebastian’s prestigious Horizontes Award in 2018 for her Visit Films-sold feature debut, “A Family Submerged,” before teaming on “Puan” with Naishat who, the same year at San Sebastian, won director, actor (Dario Grandinetti) and cinematography (Pedro Sotero) in main competition for “Rojo,” sparking a rave Variety review.
“Rojo” denounced the tacit collusion of many Argentineans in the violence of Argentina’s extreme right just months before the coup d’etat which brought the Junta to power.
Also written by Alché and Naishtat, “Puan” looks like another state of the nation take, delivered, however, in lighter comic terms, set at the “weirdly amazing” – Naishtat’s words – Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires,...
The new title co-stars Leonardo Sbaraglia.
“Puan” catches Alché after she won San Sebastian’s prestigious Horizontes Award in 2018 for her Visit Films-sold feature debut, “A Family Submerged,” before teaming on “Puan” with Naishat who, the same year at San Sebastian, won director, actor (Dario Grandinetti) and cinematography (Pedro Sotero) in main competition for “Rojo,” sparking a rave Variety review.
“Rojo” denounced the tacit collusion of many Argentineans in the violence of Argentina’s extreme right just months before the coup d’etat which brought the Junta to power.
Also written by Alché and Naishtat, “Puan” looks like another state of the nation take, delivered, however, in lighter comic terms, set at the “weirdly amazing” – Naishtat’s words – Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires,...
- 5/11/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Beta Cinema has international rights.
Babylon Berlin star Liv Lisa Fries will headline the cast of Andreas Dresen’s Second World War Resistance drama From Hilde With Love.
Beta Cinema has international rights to the project that will start principal photography in August.
Laila Stieler has written the film about a couple who fall in love and spend a joyful summer until they are captured by the Gestapo,
The producers are Pandora Film Produktion’s Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel with Cooky Ziesche’s rbb, Regina Ziegler’s Ziegler Film, and Dresen and Andreas Leusink’s Iskremas, with backing from Dfff,...
Babylon Berlin star Liv Lisa Fries will headline the cast of Andreas Dresen’s Second World War Resistance drama From Hilde With Love.
Beta Cinema has international rights to the project that will start principal photography in August.
Laila Stieler has written the film about a couple who fall in love and spend a joyful summer until they are captured by the Gestapo,
The producers are Pandora Film Produktion’s Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel with Cooky Ziesche’s rbb, Regina Ziegler’s Ziegler Film, and Dresen and Andreas Leusink’s Iskremas, with backing from Dfff,...
- 5/21/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Filmmakers Dominik Graf, Emily Atef, Sol Bondy among many who signed petition calling for executive to resign.
Frankfurt-based regional film fund HessenFilm has fired CEO Hans Joachim Mendig over a controversial meeting pictured in an Instagram post in which the businessman is seen sitting down with far-right politician Jörg Meuthen.
The fund’s supervisory board voted unanimously at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday (24) to terminate Mendig’s employment with immediate effect.
The decision came after growing calls from the German film community for Mendig to step down after a local Frankfurt newspaper reported on the Instagram post dated July 24 by Meuthen,...
Frankfurt-based regional film fund HessenFilm has fired CEO Hans Joachim Mendig over a controversial meeting pictured in an Instagram post in which the businessman is seen sitting down with far-right politician Jörg Meuthen.
The fund’s supervisory board voted unanimously at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday (24) to terminate Mendig’s employment with immediate effect.
The decision came after growing calls from the German film community for Mendig to step down after a local Frankfurt newspaper reported on the Instagram post dated July 24 by Meuthen,...
- 9/24/2019
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Madrid — Film Factory Entertainment, a premiere sales agent of Spanish-language films, has acquired sales rights to the U.S., Europe and Asia on Federico Veiroj’s “Asi habló el cambista” (“The Moneychanger”) which has just been announced as one of the 12 titles playing Toronto’s prestigious Platform program.
Buena Vista Intl. will release “The Moneychanger” in Latin America. World premiering at Toronto, “The Moneychanger” will also play the New York and San Sebastian festivals, featuring in the latter’s Horizontes Latinos section.
Veiroj’s fifth feature – after “Acne,” “A Useful Life,” “The Apostate” and “Belmonte” – “The Moneychanger” most certainly marks a step-up in scale and move towards the mainstream while retaining his hallmark sense of humor in a buoyantly withering chronicle.
Written by Veiroj, Arauco Hernandez, a writer on “A Useful Life” and cinematographer on “The Moneychanger,” and Martín Mauregui, co-scribe on Pablo Trapero’s “Lion’s Den,” “Carancho” and “The White Elephant,...
Buena Vista Intl. will release “The Moneychanger” in Latin America. World premiering at Toronto, “The Moneychanger” will also play the New York and San Sebastian festivals, featuring in the latter’s Horizontes Latinos section.
Veiroj’s fifth feature – after “Acne,” “A Useful Life,” “The Apostate” and “Belmonte” – “The Moneychanger” most certainly marks a step-up in scale and move towards the mainstream while retaining his hallmark sense of humor in a buoyantly withering chronicle.
Written by Veiroj, Arauco Hernandez, a writer on “A Useful Life” and cinematographer on “The Moneychanger,” and Martín Mauregui, co-scribe on Pablo Trapero’s “Lion’s Den,” “Carancho” and “The White Elephant,...
- 8/7/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Zhu Shengze’s ’Present.Perfect.’ takes Tiger award.
International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has announced the award winners for its 48th edition, with Zhu Shengze’s Present.Perfect. taking the Tiger Award, with €40,000 accompanying prize.
The Tiger jury, comprised of Alfredo Jaar, Daniela Michel, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Katriel Schory and Pimpaka Towira, described it as ”a daring film that takes us to places where we have never been…brings to light characters that want and need to be seen.”
Ena Sendijarević’s Take Me Somewhere Nice received the special jury award in the Tiger competition, praised by the jury as “a...
International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has announced the award winners for its 48th edition, with Zhu Shengze’s Present.Perfect. taking the Tiger Award, with €40,000 accompanying prize.
The Tiger jury, comprised of Alfredo Jaar, Daniela Michel, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Katriel Schory and Pimpaka Towira, described it as ”a daring film that takes us to places where we have never been…brings to light characters that want and need to be seen.”
Ena Sendijarević’s Take Me Somewhere Nice received the special jury award in the Tiger competition, praised by the jury as “a...
- 2/1/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
A24 has acquired North American rights to “High Life,” a science fiction drama starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche that marks the English language debut of French director Claire Denis.
The film, which world premiered Sunday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, follows a group of criminals on a mission toward a black hole in search of an alternative source of energy.
Tricked into thinking they’ll be freed in exchange for their participation, the criminals are instead subjected to sexual experiments by the scientists aboard their ship.
Also Read: 'Green Book' Film Review: Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali Take a Perilous Road Trip Through the Deep South
Written by Denis with Jean-Pol Fargeau, Nick Laird and Geoff Cox, the film also stars Mia Goth and André Benjamin.
It was produced by Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen, and Olivier Théry-Lapiney.
A24 will release “High Life” theatrically.
The film, which world premiered Sunday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, follows a group of criminals on a mission toward a black hole in search of an alternative source of energy.
Tricked into thinking they’ll be freed in exchange for their participation, the criminals are instead subjected to sexual experiments by the scientists aboard their ship.
Also Read: 'Green Book' Film Review: Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali Take a Perilous Road Trip Through the Deep South
Written by Denis with Jean-Pol Fargeau, Nick Laird and Geoff Cox, the film also stars Mia Goth and André Benjamin.
It was produced by Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen, and Olivier Théry-Lapiney.
A24 will release “High Life” theatrically.
- 9/13/2018
- by Ross A. Lincoln
- The Wrap
This year, Toronto will play host to 18 majority French films across its various sections and an eye-popping 39 minority productions.
While that first figure attests to the relative good health of the Gallic film industry, the sizable second one only emphasizes the outsized importance that industry has placed on international co-production.
“Working with international artists is a really a huge part of our culture,” says Isabelle Giordano, executive director of UniFrance. “It’s not an anomaly — it’s a matter of French pride. It’s an official policy, and we pursue it with a number of co-production accords through the Cnc. It’s structural. We really have a system, an ecosystem in France that calls for co-production.”
Indeed, with 57 international accords put in place by the Cnc, as the publicly funded Centre National du Cinema is known, France holds the world record for co-production treaties.
Films including Naomi Kawase’s “Vision...
While that first figure attests to the relative good health of the Gallic film industry, the sizable second one only emphasizes the outsized importance that industry has placed on international co-production.
“Working with international artists is a really a huge part of our culture,” says Isabelle Giordano, executive director of UniFrance. “It’s not an anomaly — it’s a matter of French pride. It’s an official policy, and we pursue it with a number of co-production accords through the Cnc. It’s structural. We really have a system, an ecosystem in France that calls for co-production.”
Indeed, with 57 international accords put in place by the Cnc, as the publicly funded Centre National du Cinema is known, France holds the world record for co-production treaties.
Films including Naomi Kawase’s “Vision...
- 9/13/2018
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
Wild Bunch represents international sales.
A24 has snapped up North American rights to Claire Denis’ English-language debut High Life starring Pattinson following its world premiere in Tiff.
The distributor plans a 2019 theatrical release for the film about criminals on board an imperilled spaceship that stars Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and André Benjamin.
Rounding out the cast are Lars Eidinger, Agata Buzek, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo, Scarlett Lindsey, Jessie Ross, and Victor Banerjee. Denis wrote the screenplay with Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox
High Life premiered in Gala Presentations and screens again to the public on Thursday and Friday.
A24 has snapped up North American rights to Claire Denis’ English-language debut High Life starring Pattinson following its world premiere in Tiff.
The distributor plans a 2019 theatrical release for the film about criminals on board an imperilled spaceship that stars Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and André Benjamin.
Rounding out the cast are Lars Eidinger, Agata Buzek, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo, Scarlett Lindsey, Jessie Ross, and Victor Banerjee. Denis wrote the screenplay with Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox
High Life premiered in Gala Presentations and screens again to the public on Thursday and Friday.
- 9/12/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Kirsten Niehuus, managing director of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, hosted a reception in Cannes on Saturday to celebrate the inclusion in the festival lineup of several films backed by the fund.
Among those pictures being feted in the garden of the Grand Hotel were two competition entries, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “The Wild Pear Tree” and Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro,” and Ulrich Koehler’s “In My Room” and Sergei Loznitsa’s “Donbass,” both in Un Certain Regard.
Among the producers attending the event were Benny Drechsel, Regina Ziegler, Fabian Gasmia, Stefan Arndt, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen, Martin Moszkowicz and Fabian Massah, who was selected by European Film Promotion as one of its Producers on the Move.
Also attending was South Africa’s Sibs Shongwe-la Mer, who is one of 15 filmmakers selected to take part in Cannes’ Cinefondation Workshop. Medienboard is backing his latest film, “The Sound of Animals Fighting,” through its German co-producer Rohfilm Productions.
Among those pictures being feted in the garden of the Grand Hotel were two competition entries, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “The Wild Pear Tree” and Alice Rohrwacher’s “Happy as Lazzaro,” and Ulrich Koehler’s “In My Room” and Sergei Loznitsa’s “Donbass,” both in Un Certain Regard.
Among the producers attending the event were Benny Drechsel, Regina Ziegler, Fabian Gasmia, Stefan Arndt, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen, Martin Moszkowicz and Fabian Massah, who was selected by European Film Promotion as one of its Producers on the Move.
Also attending was South Africa’s Sibs Shongwe-la Mer, who is one of 15 filmmakers selected to take part in Cannes’ Cinefondation Workshop. Medienboard is backing his latest film, “The Sound of Animals Fighting,” through its German co-producer Rohfilm Productions.
- 5/13/2018
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
At a time when the arthouse market is struggling with declining viewers, Germany’s Pandora Film continues to achieve success in both production and distribution with an eclectic lineup of domestic and international films.
The Cologne-based company’s shareholders, producers Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel, Reinhard Brundig and Raimond Goebel, attribute their strong performance in part to their close working relationships with filmmakers. Pandora’s recent co-productions include Claire Denis’ upcoming science fiction drama “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche, Marcelo Martinessi’s award-winning Paraguayan drama “The Heiresses” and Ulrich Köhler’s German feature “In My Room,” which premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.
Steffen and Friedel spoke with Variety about the company’s latest productions, the current industry climate and the company’s inner workings.
Where is Pandora Film today, both as a producer-distributor in Germany as well as a key co-production partner for international filmmakers?
Steffen: With...
The Cologne-based company’s shareholders, producers Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel, Reinhard Brundig and Raimond Goebel, attribute their strong performance in part to their close working relationships with filmmakers. Pandora’s recent co-productions include Claire Denis’ upcoming science fiction drama “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche, Marcelo Martinessi’s award-winning Paraguayan drama “The Heiresses” and Ulrich Köhler’s German feature “In My Room,” which premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.
Steffen and Friedel spoke with Variety about the company’s latest productions, the current industry climate and the company’s inner workings.
Where is Pandora Film today, both as a producer-distributor in Germany as well as a key co-production partner for international filmmakers?
Steffen: With...
- 5/12/2018
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
As the arthouse market is struggling with declining audiences, Germany’s Pandora Film continues to achieve success in both production and distribution with an eclectic lineup.
The Cologne-based company’s shareholders — producers Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel, Reinhard Brundig and Raimond Goebel — attribute their strong performance in part to their close working relationships with filmmakers. Pandora’s recent co-productions include Claire Denis’ upcoming science-fiction drama “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche; Marcelo Martinessi’s award-winning Paraguayan drama “The Heiresses”; and Ulrich Koehler’s German feature “In My Room,” which premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.
Steffen and Friedel spoke with Variety about the company’s latest productions, the current industry climate and the company’s inner workings.
Where is Pandora Film today, both as a producer-distributor in Germany and as a key partner for international filmmakers?
Steffen: With our distribution colleagues we have been reacting to the increasingly difficult German arthouse market.
The Cologne-based company’s shareholders — producers Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel, Reinhard Brundig and Raimond Goebel — attribute their strong performance in part to their close working relationships with filmmakers. Pandora’s recent co-productions include Claire Denis’ upcoming science-fiction drama “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche; Marcelo Martinessi’s award-winning Paraguayan drama “The Heiresses”; and Ulrich Koehler’s German feature “In My Room,” which premieres in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.
Steffen and Friedel spoke with Variety about the company’s latest productions, the current industry climate and the company’s inner workings.
Where is Pandora Film today, both as a producer-distributor in Germany and as a key partner for international filmmakers?
Steffen: With our distribution colleagues we have been reacting to the increasingly difficult German arthouse market.
- 5/12/2018
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
2019 release set for English-language feature.
High Life, Claire Denis’ sci-fi drama starring Robert Pattinson, has been picked up for UK distribution by Thunderbird Releasing.
The film is Denis’ first English-language feature and follows a group of convicts assigned a difficult space mission in the belief they will be freed if they are successful. Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and André Benjamin also star.
The deal was negotiated by Kevin Chan, acquisitions manager of Thunderbird Releasing, and Olivier Barbier from sales agent Wild Bunch. The film has been slated for a UK release in early 2019.
“It’s a hugely ambitious and daring...
High Life, Claire Denis’ sci-fi drama starring Robert Pattinson, has been picked up for UK distribution by Thunderbird Releasing.
The film is Denis’ first English-language feature and follows a group of convicts assigned a difficult space mission in the belief they will be freed if they are successful. Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and André Benjamin also star.
The deal was negotiated by Kevin Chan, acquisitions manager of Thunderbird Releasing, and Olivier Barbier from sales agent Wild Bunch. The film has been slated for a UK release in early 2019.
“It’s a hugely ambitious and daring...
- 5/4/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Robert Pattinson is lost in thought in this exclusive first-look picture from High Life, acclaimed French director Claire Denis’ English-language — and sci-fi — in which a father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space.
Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, Andre Benjamin, Lars Eidinger and Jessie Ross also star in the film, in which a father and daughter struggle to survive in deep space.
High Life, written by Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox and Nick Laird, comes from Andrew Lauren Productions, Apocalypse Films, Alcatraz Films, Pandora Filmproduktion and Madants. Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Andrew Lauren, DJ Gugenheim, Claudia...
Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, Andre Benjamin, Lars Eidinger and Jessie Ross also star in the film, in which a father and daughter struggle to survive in deep space.
High Life, written by Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox and Nick Laird, comes from Andrew Lauren Productions, Apocalypse Films, Alcatraz Films, Pandora Filmproduktion and Madants. Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Andrew Lauren, DJ Gugenheim, Claudia...
- 2/15/2018
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Robert Pattinson is lost in thought in this exclusive first-look picture from High Life, acclaimed French director Claire Denis’ English-language — and sci-fi — debut, in which a father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space.
Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, Andre Benjamin, Lars Eidinger and Jessie Ross also star in the film.
High Life, written by Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox and Nick Laird, comes from Andrew Lauren Productions, Apocalypse Films, Alcatraz Films, Pandora Filmproduktion and Madants. Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Andrew Lauren, D.J. Gugenheim, Claudia Steffen, Olivier Thery-Lapiney and Klaudia Smeija are producing.
Wild Bunch ...
Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, Andre Benjamin, Lars Eidinger and Jessie Ross also star in the film.
High Life, written by Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Geoff Cox and Nick Laird, comes from Andrew Lauren Productions, Apocalypse Films, Alcatraz Films, Pandora Filmproduktion and Madants. Laurence Clerc, Oliver Dungey, Christoph Friedel, Andrew Lauren, D.J. Gugenheim, Claudia Steffen, Olivier Thery-Lapiney and Klaudia Smeija are producing.
Wild Bunch ...
- 2/15/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Energy company Aet has been one of the festival’s four primary sponsors for 15 years.
The decision by the local energy concern Azienda Elettrica Ticinese (Aet) to pull the plug on its sponsorship after this year’s edition of the Locarno Film Festival (Aug 3-13) is “a disaster”, according to festival president Marco Solari.
A report by local news outlet Ticinonews suggested that, although the sponsors’ contributions are not made public, “a rapid calculation” would translate into a “weighty particpation” in the six digit range.
In a statement, Aet’s CEO Roberto Pronini explained that “the deep structural changes affecting Europe’s electric energy market and the ensuing difficulties based in Switzerland” had forced Aet into “a drastic downsizing“ of its sponsorship policy.
Aet had been one of Locarno’s four main sponsors for 15 consecutive editions since 2002.
The energy concern is also pulling out of sponsoring hockey clubs in Lugano and Ambri-Piotta and the annual JazzAscona festival...
The decision by the local energy concern Azienda Elettrica Ticinese (Aet) to pull the plug on its sponsorship after this year’s edition of the Locarno Film Festival (Aug 3-13) is “a disaster”, according to festival president Marco Solari.
A report by local news outlet Ticinonews suggested that, although the sponsors’ contributions are not made public, “a rapid calculation” would translate into a “weighty particpation” in the six digit range.
In a statement, Aet’s CEO Roberto Pronini explained that “the deep structural changes affecting Europe’s electric energy market and the ensuing difficulties based in Switzerland” had forced Aet into “a drastic downsizing“ of its sponsorship policy.
Aet had been one of Locarno’s four main sponsors for 15 consecutive editions since 2002.
The energy concern is also pulling out of sponsoring hockey clubs in Lugano and Ambri-Piotta and the annual JazzAscona festival...
- 8/12/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Tale of Ukrainian woman’s struggle to build new life in Germany was produced by Pandora.
Paris-based Luxbox has picked up world sales rights to German director Michael Koch’s migrant drama Marija ahead of its premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival in August.
The debut feature revolves around a young Ukrainian woman who makes a living cleaning hotel rooms in the German city of Dortmund but dreams of owning her own hair salon.
Determined to achieve her ambitions, she is willing to compromise her body, personal relationships and even suppress her own feelings in the process. Russian-born, Germany-based actress Margarita Breitkreiz plays the titular role.
Cologne-based Pandora Film Produktion lead-produced the film with Swiss Hugofilm and Germany’s Little Shark Entertainment on board as co-producers.
“For Pandora, it is very important to continue producing artistic first films from Germany,” commented Pandora producer Christoph Friedel. “With Marija, Michael Koch achieves...
Paris-based Luxbox has picked up world sales rights to German director Michael Koch’s migrant drama Marija ahead of its premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival in August.
The debut feature revolves around a young Ukrainian woman who makes a living cleaning hotel rooms in the German city of Dortmund but dreams of owning her own hair salon.
Determined to achieve her ambitions, she is willing to compromise her body, personal relationships and even suppress her own feelings in the process. Russian-born, Germany-based actress Margarita Breitkreiz plays the titular role.
Cologne-based Pandora Film Produktion lead-produced the film with Swiss Hugofilm and Germany’s Little Shark Entertainment on board as co-producers.
“For Pandora, it is very important to continue producing artistic first films from Germany,” commented Pandora producer Christoph Friedel. “With Marija, Michael Koch achieves...
- 7/13/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Oscar-winner joins sci-fi alongside Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth.
Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) has joined Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Mia Goth (The Survivalist) in the cast of Claire Denis’ anticipated untitled sci-fi, written by UK novelist Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
Denis’ English-language debut, due to shoot next year, is understood to follow a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.
The project, which ScreenDaily first reported in June, marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director.
The story is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and [link=nm...
Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) has joined Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Mia Goth (The Survivalist) in the cast of Claire Denis’ anticipated untitled sci-fi, written by UK novelist Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
Denis’ English-language debut, due to shoot next year, is understood to follow a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.
The project, which ScreenDaily first reported in June, marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director.
The story is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and [link=nm...
- 10/26/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Robert Pattinson is attached to play the lead role in Claire Denis’ upcoming English-language sci-fi film, written with British writer Zadie Smith.
Pattinson is set to play the astronaut lead role in the as-yet-untitled film, which Screen first reported on in June.
Plot details are being kept under wraps but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Paris-based producers...
Pattinson is set to play the astronaut lead role in the as-yet-untitled film, which Screen first reported on in June.
Plot details are being kept under wraps but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Paris-based producers...
- 8/26/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: French director’s first English-language film is set in space; artist Olafur Eliasson among collaborators.
French director Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space.
Plot details are being kept under wraps on the as-yet untitled adventure-sci-fi but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Alcatraz and Pandora produced Denis’ most recent feature Bastards, which debuted...
French director Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space.
Plot details are being kept under wraps on the as-yet untitled adventure-sci-fi but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Alcatraz and Pandora produced Denis’ most recent feature Bastards, which debuted...
- 6/29/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Paula Modersohn-Becker biopic to star Carla Juri.
The Match Factory has bolstered its Cannes slate with director Christian Schwochow‘s (Novemberkind, The Tower) drama Paula, about German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Despite dying aged 31, Modersohn-Becker is considered one of the pioneers of German Expressionism.
Stefan Kolditz and Stephan Suschke’s script weaves together episodes from the final years of the acclaimed painter’s life, including her breaks with social convention and artistic radicalism.
Wetlands actress Carla Juri is set to star in the title role with Roxane Duran (The White Ribbon) on board to play sculptor Clara Rilke-Westhoff, the wife of poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
The German-French production is produced by Pandora Film Produktion, Grown Up Films and Alcatraz Films in co-production with Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Degeto Film, Radio Bremen.
Producers are Ingelore König, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen. Pandora will also distribute in Germany in 2016.
Shoot is due to get underway in mid-September 2015 in Germany and France...
The Match Factory has bolstered its Cannes slate with director Christian Schwochow‘s (Novemberkind, The Tower) drama Paula, about German expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Despite dying aged 31, Modersohn-Becker is considered one of the pioneers of German Expressionism.
Stefan Kolditz and Stephan Suschke’s script weaves together episodes from the final years of the acclaimed painter’s life, including her breaks with social convention and artistic radicalism.
Wetlands actress Carla Juri is set to star in the title role with Roxane Duran (The White Ribbon) on board to play sculptor Clara Rilke-Westhoff, the wife of poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
The German-French production is produced by Pandora Film Produktion, Grown Up Films and Alcatraz Films in co-production with Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Degeto Film, Radio Bremen.
Producers are Ingelore König, Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen. Pandora will also distribute in Germany in 2016.
Shoot is due to get underway in mid-September 2015 in Germany and France...
- 5/8/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Independent production and distribution company Main Street Films (which recently had a domestic success with the male stripper doc "La Bare") will theatrically release Christian Schwochow’s acclaimed spy drama "West" across the U.S. on November 7. Set during the Berlin Wall-era, the film’s release date will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. "West" was also one of the films shortlisted to be Germany’s candidate for the Foreign Language Academy Award.
The film was also part of the Kino! Fetival of German Films, which we covered back in June. Read More Here
"'West' is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall-era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Craig Chang, Chairman of Main Street Films.
“This is a very personal film for me,” said Christian Schwochow, director. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator. Releasing "West" during the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is very special, especially after having the opportunity to collaborate with my mother, who wrote the screenplay.”
Winning the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and the Best Actress award for Jôrdis Triebel at the 2014 German Film Awards, West is based on Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire and adapted by the director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner, Heide Schwochow.
Set during the late 1970s, three years after Nelly Senff’s boyfriend Wassilij’s apparent death, she decides to escape from behind the Berlin Wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij’s mysterious disappearance. Fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.
"West" stars Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel, and Jacky Ido (who is currently the lead actor in Luc Besson's TV series Taxi Brooklyn), and is produced by ö Filmproduktion’s Katrin Schlösser, zero one film’s Thomas Kufus, and Terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel. Helge Sasse of Senator Film Produktion, Barbara Buhl of Wdr, Stefanie Groß of Swr, Cooky Ziesche of rbb, and Georg Steinert of Arte are co-producers.
Take a look at this exclusive trailer courtesy of Main Street Films
About Main Street Films
Established in 2007, Main Street Films is an independent film entertainment company and has emerged as one of the industry's most exciting production, acquisition, and distribution driven ensembles. On the distribution side, Main Street Films focuses on creating and distributing high quality films across multiple genres for diverse audiences within the entertainment space. Opening later this year is the critically acclaimed The Turning starring Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, based on Tim Winton’s award-winning collection of short stories.
The film was also part of the Kino! Fetival of German Films, which we covered back in June. Read More Here
"'West' is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall-era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Craig Chang, Chairman of Main Street Films.
“This is a very personal film for me,” said Christian Schwochow, director. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator. Releasing "West" during the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is very special, especially after having the opportunity to collaborate with my mother, who wrote the screenplay.”
Winning the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and the Best Actress award for Jôrdis Triebel at the 2014 German Film Awards, West is based on Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire and adapted by the director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner, Heide Schwochow.
Set during the late 1970s, three years after Nelly Senff’s boyfriend Wassilij’s apparent death, she decides to escape from behind the Berlin Wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij’s mysterious disappearance. Fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.
"West" stars Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel, and Jacky Ido (who is currently the lead actor in Luc Besson's TV series Taxi Brooklyn), and is produced by ö Filmproduktion’s Katrin Schlösser, zero one film’s Thomas Kufus, and Terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel. Helge Sasse of Senator Film Produktion, Barbara Buhl of Wdr, Stefanie Groß of Swr, Cooky Ziesche of rbb, and Georg Steinert of Arte are co-producers.
Take a look at this exclusive trailer courtesy of Main Street Films
About Main Street Films
Established in 2007, Main Street Films is an independent film entertainment company and has emerged as one of the industry's most exciting production, acquisition, and distribution driven ensembles. On the distribution side, Main Street Films focuses on creating and distributing high quality films across multiple genres for diverse audiences within the entertainment space. Opening later this year is the critically acclaimed The Turning starring Oscar® winner Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, based on Tim Winton’s award-winning collection of short stories.
- 9/19/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Main Street Films will theatrically release Christian Schwochow’s spy drama and German foreign-language Oscar submission West in the Us on November 7.
The film takes place during the Berlin Wall era and the release commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9.
“West is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang.
“West is a very personal film for me,” said Schwochow. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator.
The director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner Heide Schwochow adapted the screenplay from Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire...
The film takes place during the Berlin Wall era and the release commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9.
“West is a strong and emotional film that accurately portrays the fear and tension that existed between the East and the West during the Berlin Wall era and is an important reminder of Germany’s recent history,” said Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang.
“West is a very personal film for me,” said Schwochow. “My family left in 1989 just after the wall came down, but it was still a time of great uncertainty. All we had was hope that life would be better and that’s a great motivator.
The director’s mother and regular screenwriting partner Heide Schwochow adapted the screenplay from Julia Franck’s autobiographical novel Camp Fire...
- 8/12/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
German director Christian Schwochow will present his film West and participate in a Q&A on the opening night gala of Kino! Festival Of German Films in New York on June 12.
West won the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and is based on Julia Franck’s novel Lagerfeuer.
Heide Schwochow adapted the Berlin Wall-era mystery starring Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel and Jacky Ido.
Ö Filmproduktion’s Karin Schlösser produced with zero one film’s Thomas Kufus and terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel.
Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang and president Harrison Kordestani plan to release the film theatrically later this year.
West won the Fipresci prize at the 2013 Montreal Film Festival and is based on Julia Franck’s novel Lagerfeuer.
Heide Schwochow adapted the Berlin Wall-era mystery starring Jördis Triebel, Alexander Scheer, Tristan Göbel and Jacky Ido.
Ö Filmproduktion’s Karin Schlösser produced with zero one film’s Thomas Kufus and terz Filmproduktion’s Christoph Friedel.
Main Street Films chairman Craig Chang and president Harrison Kordestani plan to release the film theatrically later this year.
- 6/12/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
International co-production and co-production markets around the globe will not be the same now following the news that the internationally respected German producer-distributor Karl Baumgartner has died at the age of 65.
Known affectionately by friends and colleagues alike as ¨Baumi¨, Baumgartner hailed from the South Tyrol, but was ¨ at home¨ in different countries and cultures, working with film-makers on projects located in some of the seemingly most inaccessible or logistically nightmarish parts of the planet.
Hearing him recount the making of Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov’s Luna Papa at one of the countless co-production panels with his tales of the shooting being stopped by floods washing the set away, the outbreak of civil war and being evacuated by the Red Cross floods, one often wondered whether he purposely looked for such challenges.
Not to speak of the challenge of putting such delicate and time-consuming co-production structures together involving tried-and-tested production partners, public funders and broadcasters from across Europe and beyond...
Known affectionately by friends and colleagues alike as ¨Baumi¨, Baumgartner hailed from the South Tyrol, but was ¨ at home¨ in different countries and cultures, working with film-makers on projects located in some of the seemingly most inaccessible or logistically nightmarish parts of the planet.
Hearing him recount the making of Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov’s Luna Papa at one of the countless co-production panels with his tales of the shooting being stopped by floods washing the set away, the outbreak of civil war and being evacuated by the Red Cross floods, one often wondered whether he purposely looked for such challenges.
Not to speak of the challenge of putting such delicate and time-consuming co-production structures together involving tried-and-tested production partners, public funders and broadcasters from across Europe and beyond...
- 3/19/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Film-makers from Georgia were the big winners at the Open Doors awards ceremony at the Locarno Film Festival.
The prizes were handed out at the end of the 11th edition of Locarno’s four-day co-production lab devoted to cinema from the South Caucasus, with a focus on Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
See You In Chechnya, a feature documentary about war correspondents, won the Open Doors Production Award worth $22,600 (20,000 Chf).
The film, directed by Georgia’s Alexander Kvatashidze, also won the Arte Open Doors Award worth $8,000 (€6,000). Set for release next year, it already has French, Dutch and Estonian partners on board.
Abysm, directed by Armenia’s Oksana Mirzoyan, picked up the Open Doors Development Award while Madona, by Georgian director Nino Gogua, won the Open Doors Post-Production Award. Both prizes are worth $16,000 (15,000 Chf).
Sleeping Lessons, the second feature from Georgia’s Rusudan Pirvelli, won the Cnc Award, worth $9,300 (€7,000).
The 12 projects that participated in the co-pro lab were selected...
The prizes were handed out at the end of the 11th edition of Locarno’s four-day co-production lab devoted to cinema from the South Caucasus, with a focus on Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
See You In Chechnya, a feature documentary about war correspondents, won the Open Doors Production Award worth $22,600 (20,000 Chf).
The film, directed by Georgia’s Alexander Kvatashidze, also won the Arte Open Doors Award worth $8,000 (€6,000). Set for release next year, it already has French, Dutch and Estonian partners on board.
Abysm, directed by Armenia’s Oksana Mirzoyan, picked up the Open Doors Development Award while Madona, by Georgian director Nino Gogua, won the Open Doors Post-Production Award. Both prizes are worth $16,000 (15,000 Chf).
Sleeping Lessons, the second feature from Georgia’s Rusudan Pirvelli, won the Cnc Award, worth $9,300 (€7,000).
The 12 projects that participated in the co-pro lab were selected...
- 8/13/2013
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
The Los Angeles Film Festival has announced the world premiere of Richard Linklater's Bernie as the opening night film for the 2011 festival.
The film will kick off the festival on June 16 at Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 at L.A. Live. It is written by Skip Hollandsworth and director Linklater and stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey.
The film follows a beloved mortician (Black) from a small Texas town, even winning over the town's richest, meanest widow (MacLaine). Even after Bernie commits a horrible crime, people still will not utter a bad word against him.
"We're thrilled to be opening the Festival with the world premiere of this delicious black comedy - a treat from one of the most original and exciting voices in independent film, Richard Linklater," said Festival director Rebecca Yeldham. "With its fabulous all-star cast, Bernie is a perfect stage setter for the incredible line-up of...
The film will kick off the festival on June 16 at Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 at L.A. Live. It is written by Skip Hollandsworth and director Linklater and stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey.
The film follows a beloved mortician (Black) from a small Texas town, even winning over the town's richest, meanest widow (MacLaine). Even after Bernie commits a horrible crime, people still will not utter a bad word against him.
"We're thrilled to be opening the Festival with the world premiere of this delicious black comedy - a treat from one of the most original and exciting voices in independent film, Richard Linklater," said Festival director Rebecca Yeldham. "With its fabulous all-star cast, Bernie is a perfect stage setter for the incredible line-up of...
- 5/30/2011
- by alyssa@mediavine.com (Alyssa Caverley)
- Reel Movie News
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Individual questions of belonging and reconciliation resonate with contentious geopolitical ones in the new film by Amos Gitai, a story that prefers to draw connections obliquely and without rendering direct judgment. Challenging at times but ultimately affecting, it should find viewers receptive at the more rarefied end of the arthouse marketplace.
Juliette Binoche plays Ana, an odd bird whose jarring sense of humor -- weird vocal tics, overly sexual flirtation with her half-brother Uli -- may or may not be a temporary side-effect of grief. Her father is dead, lying in repose within the dilapidated luxury of an Avignon estate that (to judge from a nearly surreal one-off scene) appears to have a village of squatters lurking quietly in the basement.
Gitai dallies in this limbo, placing the recently reunited siblings in some meandering rebonding scenes before the postfuneral revelation: For years, Ana's father knew about the daughter she had in secret and abandoned on a kibbutz. His will requires Ana to go to the Gaza Strip and introduce herself to Dana, now a schoolteacher in an Israeli settlement.
Coincidentally, Uli's police unit has been tasked with disbanding those settlements, and the story's second half, more dramatically driven but still moving at its own pace, follows brother and sister on their separate missions into this emotionally and politically charged territory.
The characters transform when freed from their father's home, Ana becoming an accidental witness to history (Binoche looks more at home here, raw and apprehensively wide-eyed) and Uli a cautious participant in it, trying to avert disaster while doing his duty. The closer we get to the removal of settlers, the more Gitai's pacing choices make sense: extra moments spent along a line of police practicing crowd control here or the slow crawl through a temple full of desperate settlers there convey the gravity of the conflict better than dialogue would, and offer stronger emotional shading to the mother/daughter reunion taking place at the same time. Gitai doesn't reveal just where that relationship is going to go, any more than he predicts the next phase in Israel/Palestine relations; clearly, this moment of interaction is the important thing to witness.
A wryly sexy prologue to the film offers two strangers on a train, each a mixed bag of ethnic and political identities, sharing a cigarette despite a customs official's insulting suggestion that their countrymen wouldn't approve. There's no symbolism here, one replies, right before the Israeli and the Palestinian fall into a torrid embrace. The delivery of the line sounds like a facetious disclaimer on the filmmaker's part, daring viewers to make sense in dramatic terms of relationships that are still being negotiated in the real world.
DISENGAGEMENT
Studio Canal
Agav Films / Agat Films & CIE / Pandora Films / Hamon Hafakot/ R&C Produzioni / Intereurop / ARTE France
Credits:
Director: Amos Gitai
Writers: Amos Gitai, Marie-Jose Sanselme
Producer: Laurent Truchot
Executive Producers: Amos Gitai, Laurent Truchot
Director of photography: Christian Berger
Production designers: Emmanuel de Chauvigny, Tim Pannen, Eli Zion
Music: Simon Stockhausen
Co-producers: Tilde Corsi, Christoph Friedel, Patrick Sobelman, Claudia Steffen
Costume designer: Moira Douguet
Editor: Isabelle Ingold
Cast:
Ana: Juliette Binoche
Uli: Liron Levo
Dana: Dana Ivgy
Running time -- 117 minutes
No MPAA rating...
TORONTO -- Individual questions of belonging and reconciliation resonate with contentious geopolitical ones in the new film by Amos Gitai, a story that prefers to draw connections obliquely and without rendering direct judgment. Challenging at times but ultimately affecting, it should find viewers receptive at the more rarefied end of the arthouse marketplace.
Juliette Binoche plays Ana, an odd bird whose jarring sense of humor -- weird vocal tics, overly sexual flirtation with her half-brother Uli -- may or may not be a temporary side-effect of grief. Her father is dead, lying in repose within the dilapidated luxury of an Avignon estate that (to judge from a nearly surreal one-off scene) appears to have a village of squatters lurking quietly in the basement.
Gitai dallies in this limbo, placing the recently reunited siblings in some meandering rebonding scenes before the postfuneral revelation: For years, Ana's father knew about the daughter she had in secret and abandoned on a kibbutz. His will requires Ana to go to the Gaza Strip and introduce herself to Dana, now a schoolteacher in an Israeli settlement.
Coincidentally, Uli's police unit has been tasked with disbanding those settlements, and the story's second half, more dramatically driven but still moving at its own pace, follows brother and sister on their separate missions into this emotionally and politically charged territory.
The characters transform when freed from their father's home, Ana becoming an accidental witness to history (Binoche looks more at home here, raw and apprehensively wide-eyed) and Uli a cautious participant in it, trying to avert disaster while doing his duty. The closer we get to the removal of settlers, the more Gitai's pacing choices make sense: extra moments spent along a line of police practicing crowd control here or the slow crawl through a temple full of desperate settlers there convey the gravity of the conflict better than dialogue would, and offer stronger emotional shading to the mother/daughter reunion taking place at the same time. Gitai doesn't reveal just where that relationship is going to go, any more than he predicts the next phase in Israel/Palestine relations; clearly, this moment of interaction is the important thing to witness.
A wryly sexy prologue to the film offers two strangers on a train, each a mixed bag of ethnic and political identities, sharing a cigarette despite a customs official's insulting suggestion that their countrymen wouldn't approve. There's no symbolism here, one replies, right before the Israeli and the Palestinian fall into a torrid embrace. The delivery of the line sounds like a facetious disclaimer on the filmmaker's part, daring viewers to make sense in dramatic terms of relationships that are still being negotiated in the real world.
DISENGAGEMENT
Studio Canal
Agav Films / Agat Films & CIE / Pandora Films / Hamon Hafakot/ R&C Produzioni / Intereurop / ARTE France
Credits:
Director: Amos Gitai
Writers: Amos Gitai, Marie-Jose Sanselme
Producer: Laurent Truchot
Executive Producers: Amos Gitai, Laurent Truchot
Director of photography: Christian Berger
Production designers: Emmanuel de Chauvigny, Tim Pannen, Eli Zion
Music: Simon Stockhausen
Co-producers: Tilde Corsi, Christoph Friedel, Patrick Sobelman, Claudia Steffen
Costume designer: Moira Douguet
Editor: Isabelle Ingold
Cast:
Ana: Juliette Binoche
Uli: Liron Levo
Dana: Dana Ivgy
Running time -- 117 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/10/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Super 8 Stories by Emir Kusturica" is "A Hard Day's Night Balkan-Style." Or better yet, "The Sarajevo Social Club". We're on the road and in concert with Kusturica and his band, the No Smoking Orchestra, formed two decades ago in the former Yug oslavia. In this sort-of documentary, Kusturica, director of "Time of the Gypsies" and "Underground" and a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, demonstrates he is as passionate about music as he is about movies.
In "Super 8 Stories", he slaps tog ether concert footage, jokey interviews with band members, the shooting of a music video designed to look like a black-and-white silent comedy and what appear to be home movies to create a mock profile of his band.
No Smoking has terrific energy and musical smarts, and watching the guys cavort onstage is great fun. But the "behind the scenes" stuff is self-indulgent by half. And the opportunity to explore how their music relates to the Balkans and its troubled history gets squandered for the sake of horseplay that will interest only family members and really, really hard-core fans. What we have here is a definite cult movie, good for festivals, midnight screenings and special bookings, but it's not "The Buena Vista Social Club".
The music is what recommends the film. No Smoking plays hard-driving rock, yet it contains influences never found in any American or English band. Their songs can mix jazz and gypsy music using instruments not associated with rock, including a tuba, an accordion and a violin. One British musician aptly calls it "Greek-Jewish wedding music".
Onstage, an anything-goes spirit takes hold with crazy costumes and antics. The band interviews are never serious, and in a photo session with an Italian photographer -- returned to constantly throughout the film -- no one can stop goofing around. But the film never examines what lies behind this need for ceaseless clowning. We can't help speculating that this acts as a kind of denial of Balkan reality, glimpsed only in the very last shot when a boat drifts past a bridge destroyed by NATO bombs.
The nonconcert footage is shot haphazardly with -- one assumes -- deliberate use of grainy stock and poor-quality video to simulate the look of home movies. But the effect is self-conscious and strained.
The movie, in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, doesn't hold up as a true documentary. But as a promo for the band's CDs, "Super 8 Stories" is not bad.
SUPER 8 STORIES BY EMIR KUSTURICA
Fandango, Pandora film, Rasta Films & Cooperativa Edison
Producers: Carlo Cresto-Dina, Raimond Goebel
Director: Emir Kusturica
Executive producers: Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel, Domenico Procacci, Emir Kusturica
Photography: Michael Amathieu, Chico de Luigi, Petar Popovic and others
Music: The No Smoking Orchestra
Costumes: Aleksandra Keskinov
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajic
Color and black & white/stereo
Cast: The No Smoking Orchestra
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In "Super 8 Stories", he slaps tog ether concert footage, jokey interviews with band members, the shooting of a music video designed to look like a black-and-white silent comedy and what appear to be home movies to create a mock profile of his band.
No Smoking has terrific energy and musical smarts, and watching the guys cavort onstage is great fun. But the "behind the scenes" stuff is self-indulgent by half. And the opportunity to explore how their music relates to the Balkans and its troubled history gets squandered for the sake of horseplay that will interest only family members and really, really hard-core fans. What we have here is a definite cult movie, good for festivals, midnight screenings and special bookings, but it's not "The Buena Vista Social Club".
The music is what recommends the film. No Smoking plays hard-driving rock, yet it contains influences never found in any American or English band. Their songs can mix jazz and gypsy music using instruments not associated with rock, including a tuba, an accordion and a violin. One British musician aptly calls it "Greek-Jewish wedding music".
Onstage, an anything-goes spirit takes hold with crazy costumes and antics. The band interviews are never serious, and in a photo session with an Italian photographer -- returned to constantly throughout the film -- no one can stop goofing around. But the film never examines what lies behind this need for ceaseless clowning. We can't help speculating that this acts as a kind of denial of Balkan reality, glimpsed only in the very last shot when a boat drifts past a bridge destroyed by NATO bombs.
The nonconcert footage is shot haphazardly with -- one assumes -- deliberate use of grainy stock and poor-quality video to simulate the look of home movies. But the effect is self-conscious and strained.
The movie, in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, doesn't hold up as a true documentary. But as a promo for the band's CDs, "Super 8 Stories" is not bad.
SUPER 8 STORIES BY EMIR KUSTURICA
Fandango, Pandora film, Rasta Films & Cooperativa Edison
Producers: Carlo Cresto-Dina, Raimond Goebel
Director: Emir Kusturica
Executive producers: Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel, Domenico Procacci, Emir Kusturica
Photography: Michael Amathieu, Chico de Luigi, Petar Popovic and others
Music: The No Smoking Orchestra
Costumes: Aleksandra Keskinov
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajic
Color and black & white/stereo
Cast: The No Smoking Orchestra
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mostly Martha" is a mostly undercooked tale about food and love and how if you want to make either, things have to get a little messy. For the most part, the ingredients are there. But an unwillingness to explore beyond the surfaces of her characters prevents Nettelbeck's film from coming together.
While the German film does achieve touching moments, especially those involving a young girl finding a home in a busy kitchen, "Mostly Martha" is too weak and generic to attract business in North America beyond a couple of weeks in urban areas.
Martha (Martina Gedeck) is the perfectionist head chef in a gourmet restaurant in Hamburg. She has no life outside of her spotless kitchen. Then an auto accident kills her sister and leaves Martha to care for an 8-year-old niece, Lina (Maxine Foerste). (Unless the fault lies with the English subtitles, Martha's familial relationship to the young girl is needlessly unclear for much of the film.) While she is coping with the often grumpy child, the restaurant's owner (Sibylle Canonnica) hires a scruffy but charming Italian sous chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto), without consulting her chef. (This would never happen in any gourmet kitchen, but never mind.)
Naturally, conflicts arise with each new person. The loss of her mother has made Lina temperamental and gloomy. Despite living with "the second-best chef in Hamburg," she won't eat. Meanwhile, Martha's Teutonic precision clashes repeatedly with Mario's Latin casualness. Predictably, one problem solves the other. Hurting for a baby-sitter, Martha brings Lina to work one evening. Mario then coaxes her to eat his pasta. Soon Martha is looking at Mario in a new light.
The main problem here is that Martha is a real head-scratcher. OK, so she is anal and obsessed with food. Aren't most three-star chefs? But why is Martha emotionally stunted? Why is she not interested in the nice architect (Ulrich Thomsen) who lives downstairs? Why does she go to a shrink and talk about nothing but food? What is it about her relationship with her sister or parents -- who are never once mentioned -- that makes her life so joyless? Why does she not even know where to find Lina's father (Diego Ribon)?
The back stories for every character are missing. People's behavior comes from script directions rather than inner lives. And how will they change over the course of the movie is all too obvious.
Nettelbeck has clearly borrowed from one of the best restaurant movies ever, "Big Night": Everyone is passionate over food. A chef berates customers for not appreciating her cooking. "Classic Italian" music dominates the soundtrack -- i.e., Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Paolo Conte and others. But the movie fails to capture the things that made "Big Night" so wonderful -- the interplay of food and life, the beautifully realized characters operating under stress, the quiet observations of idiosyncratic behavior.
Despite the sketchy writing, Gedeck handles her character's emotional shifts adroitly while Castellitto, dubbed almost imperceptibly into German, keeps the earthy Italian chef from tumbling into cliche. Technical credits are solid with Michael Bertl's lensing of wintry Hamburg giving the film a romantic feel not usually associated with that city.
MOSTLY MARTHA
Paramount Classics
A Pandora Film Produktion presentation of a Pandora/Kinowelt Filmproduktion/Prisma Fillm/T&C Film/Palomar production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Christoph Friedel, Karl Baumgartner
Director of photography: Michael Bertl
Production designer: Thomas Freudenthal
Music: Manfred Eicher
Costume designer: Bettina Helmi
Editor: Mona Brauer
Cast:
Martha Klein: Martina Gedeck
Lina: Maxine Foerste
Mario: Sergio Castellitto
Frida: Sibylle Canonnica
Sam: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
While the German film does achieve touching moments, especially those involving a young girl finding a home in a busy kitchen, "Mostly Martha" is too weak and generic to attract business in North America beyond a couple of weeks in urban areas.
Martha (Martina Gedeck) is the perfectionist head chef in a gourmet restaurant in Hamburg. She has no life outside of her spotless kitchen. Then an auto accident kills her sister and leaves Martha to care for an 8-year-old niece, Lina (Maxine Foerste). (Unless the fault lies with the English subtitles, Martha's familial relationship to the young girl is needlessly unclear for much of the film.) While she is coping with the often grumpy child, the restaurant's owner (Sibylle Canonnica) hires a scruffy but charming Italian sous chef, Mario (Sergio Castellitto), without consulting her chef. (This would never happen in any gourmet kitchen, but never mind.)
Naturally, conflicts arise with each new person. The loss of her mother has made Lina temperamental and gloomy. Despite living with "the second-best chef in Hamburg," she won't eat. Meanwhile, Martha's Teutonic precision clashes repeatedly with Mario's Latin casualness. Predictably, one problem solves the other. Hurting for a baby-sitter, Martha brings Lina to work one evening. Mario then coaxes her to eat his pasta. Soon Martha is looking at Mario in a new light.
The main problem here is that Martha is a real head-scratcher. OK, so she is anal and obsessed with food. Aren't most three-star chefs? But why is Martha emotionally stunted? Why is she not interested in the nice architect (Ulrich Thomsen) who lives downstairs? Why does she go to a shrink and talk about nothing but food? What is it about her relationship with her sister or parents -- who are never once mentioned -- that makes her life so joyless? Why does she not even know where to find Lina's father (Diego Ribon)?
The back stories for every character are missing. People's behavior comes from script directions rather than inner lives. And how will they change over the course of the movie is all too obvious.
Nettelbeck has clearly borrowed from one of the best restaurant movies ever, "Big Night": Everyone is passionate over food. A chef berates customers for not appreciating her cooking. "Classic Italian" music dominates the soundtrack -- i.e., Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Paolo Conte and others. But the movie fails to capture the things that made "Big Night" so wonderful -- the interplay of food and life, the beautifully realized characters operating under stress, the quiet observations of idiosyncratic behavior.
Despite the sketchy writing, Gedeck handles her character's emotional shifts adroitly while Castellitto, dubbed almost imperceptibly into German, keeps the earthy Italian chef from tumbling into cliche. Technical credits are solid with Michael Bertl's lensing of wintry Hamburg giving the film a romantic feel not usually associated with that city.
MOSTLY MARTHA
Paramount Classics
A Pandora Film Produktion presentation of a Pandora/Kinowelt Filmproduktion/Prisma Fillm/T&C Film/Palomar production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Christoph Friedel, Karl Baumgartner
Director of photography: Michael Bertl
Production designer: Thomas Freudenthal
Music: Manfred Eicher
Costume designer: Bettina Helmi
Editor: Mona Brauer
Cast:
Martha Klein: Martina Gedeck
Lina: Maxine Foerste
Mario: Sergio Castellitto
Frida: Sibylle Canonnica
Sam: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 107 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 8/13/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Super 8 Stories by Emir Kusturica" is "A Hard Day's Night Balkan-Style." Or better yet, "The Sarajevo Social Club". We're on the road and in concert with Kusturica and his band, the No Smoking Orchestra, formed two decades ago in the former Yug oslavia. In this sort-of documentary, Kusturica, director of "Time of the Gypsies" and "Underground" and a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, demonstrates he is as passionate about music as he is about movies.
In "Super 8 Stories", he slaps tog ether concert footage, jokey interviews with band members, the shooting of a music video designed to look like a black-and-white silent comedy and what appear to be home movies to create a mock profile of his band.
No Smoking has terrific energy and musical smarts, and watching the guys cavort onstage is great fun. But the "behind the scenes" stuff is self-indulgent by half. And the opportunity to explore how their music relates to the Balkans and its troubled history gets squandered for the sake of horseplay that will interest only family members and really, really hard-core fans. What we have here is a definite cult movie, good for festivals, midnight screenings and special bookings, but it's not "The Buena Vista Social Club".
The music is what recommends the film. No Smoking plays hard-driving rock, yet it contains influences never found in any American or English band. Their songs can mix jazz and gypsy music using instruments not associated with rock, including a tuba, an accordion and a violin. One British musician aptly calls it "Greek-Jewish wedding music".
Onstage, an anything-goes spirit takes hold with crazy costumes and antics. The band interviews are never serious, and in a photo session with an Italian photographer -- returned to constantly throughout the film -- no one can stop goofing around. But the film never examines what lies behind this need for ceaseless clowning. We can't help speculating that this acts as a kind of denial of Balkan reality, glimpsed only in the very last shot when a boat drifts past a bridge destroyed by NATO bombs.
The nonconcert footage is shot haphazardly with -- one assumes -- deliberate use of grainy stock and poor-quality video to simulate the look of home movies. But the effect is self-conscious and strained.
The movie, in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, doesn't hold up as a true documentary. But as a promo for the band's CDs, "Super 8 Stories" is not bad.
SUPER 8 STORIES BY EMIR KUSTURICA
Fandango, Pandora film, Rasta Films & Cooperativa Edison
Producers: Carlo Cresto-Dina, Raimond Goebel
Director: Emir Kusturica
Executive producers: Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel, Domenico Procacci, Emir Kusturica
Photography: Michael Amathieu, Chico de Luigi, Petar Popovic and others
Music: The No Smoking Orchestra
Costumes: Aleksandra Keskinov
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajic
Color and black & white/stereo
Cast: The No Smoking Orchestra
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In "Super 8 Stories", he slaps tog ether concert footage, jokey interviews with band members, the shooting of a music video designed to look like a black-and-white silent comedy and what appear to be home movies to create a mock profile of his band.
No Smoking has terrific energy and musical smarts, and watching the guys cavort onstage is great fun. But the "behind the scenes" stuff is self-indulgent by half. And the opportunity to explore how their music relates to the Balkans and its troubled history gets squandered for the sake of horseplay that will interest only family members and really, really hard-core fans. What we have here is a definite cult movie, good for festivals, midnight screenings and special bookings, but it's not "The Buena Vista Social Club".
The music is what recommends the film. No Smoking plays hard-driving rock, yet it contains influences never found in any American or English band. Their songs can mix jazz and gypsy music using instruments not associated with rock, including a tuba, an accordion and a violin. One British musician aptly calls it "Greek-Jewish wedding music".
Onstage, an anything-goes spirit takes hold with crazy costumes and antics. The band interviews are never serious, and in a photo session with an Italian photographer -- returned to constantly throughout the film -- no one can stop goofing around. But the film never examines what lies behind this need for ceaseless clowning. We can't help speculating that this acts as a kind of denial of Balkan reality, glimpsed only in the very last shot when a boat drifts past a bridge destroyed by NATO bombs.
The nonconcert footage is shot haphazardly with -- one assumes -- deliberate use of grainy stock and poor-quality video to simulate the look of home movies. But the effect is self-conscious and strained.
The movie, in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, doesn't hold up as a true documentary. But as a promo for the band's CDs, "Super 8 Stories" is not bad.
SUPER 8 STORIES BY EMIR KUSTURICA
Fandango, Pandora film, Rasta Films & Cooperativa Edison
Producers: Carlo Cresto-Dina, Raimond Goebel
Director: Emir Kusturica
Executive producers: Karl Baumgartner, Christoph Friedel, Domenico Procacci, Emir Kusturica
Photography: Michael Amathieu, Chico de Luigi, Petar Popovic and others
Music: The No Smoking Orchestra
Costumes: Aleksandra Keskinov
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajic
Color and black & white/stereo
Cast: The No Smoking Orchestra
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/15/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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