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Director Hansal Mehta known for his brilliant work in film and series, most recently for his hit The Buckingham Murders starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, penned a lengthy post on his X account (@mehtahansal) about his thoughts on the state of Hindi cinema. It is a fascinating look from inside the industry and a first-hand knowledge of what it was, what it is, and where it should go. Pointing out some of the problems he feels are happening within the filmmaking industry and highlighting some of the actors he wants to see more of, he also expands on what he thinks can help. We thought we would share the entire post to showcase his point of view.

“Hindi Cinema Needs a Reset

For those predicting doom for Bollywood—pause. The industry isn’t dying. It’s waiting to be disrupted. The problem isn’t the audience losing interest.

The sales company will start talking to buyesr

German sales outfit Global Screen has snapped up world sales rights to odd couple romantic comedy The Intangible Joy Of Love, directed by Lars Kraume and will start talking to buyers at TIFF.

Based on Simon Stephens’ play Heisenberg, the film stars Caroline Peters and Burghart Klaussner, who both also starred in the original stage production. The film is about the unlikely romance between a bankrupt elderly butcher and an unpredictable school secretary.

Klaussner initially brought the project to X Filme and made the first connection with Stephens. The film is produced...

Picture Tree Intl. has come on board to handle the international sales of black comedy “Shooting Blanks,” written and directed by Žiga Virc. The Slovenian film looks at what happens when a family goes to war with itself.

The film is in post-production. Pti will present a first private market screening at the Marché du Film in Cannes.

Vida’s father France worships his father, a hero of the partisan resistance. When a German supermarket chain decides to build a new store in his hometown, demolishing a statue of his father in the process, France declares war on this new “enemy.”

Vida could not care less about the past – she is trying to get pregnant, and it is not going well. While she and her husband Toni wait for news from the fertility clinic, France leads local volunteers dressed up as partisans and Nazis into maneuvers against the supermarket.

But...

Picture Tree Intl. has picked up international sales duties on “Manta Manta: Legacy,” directed by and starring Til Schweiger. The action comedy is a sequel to the first “Manta, Manta” feature film from 1991, with a market premiere for both movies planned at the Cannes Film Market.

Released by Constantin Film Verleih on March 30, “Manta Manta: Legacy” has reached over 800,000 admissions and was the number one movie in Germany in its opening week.

Produced by Bernd Eichinger, Peter Zenk and Martin Moszkowicz, and directed by Wolfgang Büld, the first movie launched the acting career of Schweiger in a newly reunified Germany. Generating more than 1.2 million theatrical admissions, the film went on to be the most successful film on German commercial television.

“Manta Manta: Legacy” reunites the leading cast of the 1991 original: Schweiger, Tina Ruland (“Ants in the Pants”) and Michael Kessler. The ensemble cast also includes Tim Oliver Schultz, Luna Schweiger,...

Directors making war movies often pass up the Cold War, because it didn't actually involve any major battles; it was more of a psychological game where both sides - the capitalist countries and the communist states - would try to one-up each other in terms of pride and achievements while spreading lies and propaganda about their enemies, gathering intelligence through acts of espionage, and funding small wars known as surrogate or "proxy wars." The conflict lasted from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the fall of the Ussr in 1991 allowing for a wide variety of Cold War movies to explore the era.

The decades keep marching on, opening the gap between the Cold War and the present day, and filmmakers keep making movies about it. They range from the typical spy thrillers to rousing sports dramas, from the beginning of the conflict itself to present-day movies. Some...

Lars Kraume, who explores Germany’s 19th-century, bloody colonization of Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia) in his latest work, “Measures of Men,” has lined up his next project, a feature film inspired by a California prison program that brings together young inmates with aging prisoners suffering from dementia.

Developed at the California Men’s Colony State Prison in San Luis Obispo, the Gold Coat program selects inmates, known as Gold Coats, to assist severely cognitively impaired inmates.

Kraume’s story is set in a Berlin prison with a multi-ethnic population, where a young man signs up for the program in an effort to get early parole only to realize that he has for the first time in his life started to love and care for someone.

“It’s a beautiful story,” said Kraume, but adds that original screenplays are becoming increasingly difficult to get financed.

Kraume had similar challenges with “Measures of Men,...

Picture Tree Intl. has boarded Berlin Film Festival title “Measures of Men,” which focuses on the genocide committed by the German army against the Ovaherero and Nama tribes in Southwestern Africa. The trailer debuts (below).

The film is written and directed by Lars Kraume, whose credits include Berlin’s “The Silent Revolution” and Toronto’s “The People vs. Fritz Bauer.” It stars Leonard Scheicher, Namibian actor Girley Charlene Jazama and “Toni Erdmann” star Peter Simonischek.

The film has its world premiere on Feb. 22 in the Berlinale Special section, and will be released in Germany by Studiocanal in late March.

The film begins in Berlin at the end of the 19th century when a delegation of the Ovaherero and Nama tribes travels to the city. Alexander Hoffmann, a student of ethnology, is impressed by the intellect of their translator Kezia Kambazembi, and begins to question the racial theories of white supremacy.

Sales agent M-Appeal has closed distribution deals for LGBT coming-of-age movie “Cocoon,” the opening film of Generation 14Plus at the Berlin Film Festival, with the U.K. and several other territories.

The film, directed by Leonie Krippendorff, stars Jella Haase and Lena Klenke. Haase won the talent showcase Shooting Stars at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016. She also starred in this year’s Berlinale competition film “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” directed by Burhan Qurbani. Klenke starred in Lars Kraume’s “The Silent Revolution” and Netflix series “How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).”

Peccadillo Pictures will distribute “Cocoon” in the U.K and Ireland, with theatrical and premium VOD releases expected at the end of October. Queer Kino has acquired all rights in Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, except free TV, and it’s planning to release the title in theaters in December.

CutAway has acquired all rights in North Macedonia and Albania,...

New York-based Distrib Films Us has acquired three films from Studiocanal, including “One Nation, One King,” Pierre Schoeller’s sprawling movie about the French Revolution, which world premiered out of competition at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

“One Nation, One King” is headlined by a strong French cast, including Gaspard Ulliel, Adele Haenel, Olivier Gourmet, Louis Garrel, Niels Schneider and Denis Lavant. The big-budget film unfolds in 1789 Paris and is told from the perspectives of revolutionaries.

Produced by Denis Freyd at Archipel 35 (“The Kid With a Bike”), “One Nation, One King” follows Françoise, a young washerwoman, and Basile, a drifter, who begin to fulfill a dream of emancipation in the newly formed assembly where they witness the creation of a new political system along with the working-class people of Paris.

Distrib Films Us will release “One Nation, One King” in the U.S., along with two more Studiocanal films,...

Teutonic promotional organization German Films has announced that its annual initiative supporting German filmmaking internationally, Face to Face With German Films, will focus on actors and actresses as the campaign enters its fourth year.

Six of Germany’s leading thesps – Maria Dragus, Christian Friedel, Luise Heyer, Jonas Nay, Jördis Triebel and Fahri Yardim – will represent the German film and television industry’s recent accomplishments through activities at next month’s Berlin Film Festival, including a panel event in association with Variety and Drama Series Days, the European Film Market program focusing on serialized content.

The initiative launched in 2016 with six German actresses headlining the campaign – including “Toni Erdmann’s” Sandra Hüller, and Paula Beer of “Frantz” and the Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated “Never Look Away.” In 2017, the second phase of the initiative launched during Cannes and featured six of Germany’s most exciting actors, including established names such as Alexander Fehling and Tom Schilling,...

Germany has selected Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Venice-premiere title “Never Look Away” as its entry for best foreign language film at this year’s 91st Academy Awards. German Films, the local body for the promotion of German cinema worldwide, announced the choice Thursday.

It is the second time the director has had a film chosen as German’s Oscar submission following his Oscar-winning 2006 film “The Lives of Others.” “Never Look Away” has its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 4 and will see its North American premiere in the special presentations section of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival on Sept. 8.

“My actors, producers and I asked ourselves in the making of ‘Never Look Away’: What movie would we like to see on the screen? The result is a love story, a family drama, a biography of Germany in the 20th century, and a stroll through modern art,...

Emily Atef’s film about actress Romy Schneider receives 10 nods including best film, best direction.

Emily Atef’s Berlinale Competition film 3 Days in Quiberon has dominated the nominations for this year’s German Film Awards (also known as the Lola Awards).

It scored ten nods, including best feature film, best direction, best lead actress (for Marie Bäumer), best supporting actor, best cinematography and best film score.

The Rohfilm Factory production will compete in the best feature film category with another of this year’s Berlinale competition films, Thomas Stuber’s In The Aisles, the Berlinale Special title The Silent Revolution,...

Company also reports deals on One Nation, One King, The Silent Revolution and Sink Or Swim.

Paris-based Studiocanal is reporting near sell-out sales on French director Gilles de Maistre’s South Africa-set family film Mia And The White Lion at last week’s Efm.

The English-language drama revolves around a rebellious young girl who bonds with a white lion cub, and then runs away with him as he approaches full size to prevent his sale into the big game, trophy-hunting business.

The ambitious production was shot over the course of three years so that the film’s young star Daniah De Villiers and other supporting cast members could truly bond and grow with the animals that appear in the film.

This approach as well as a powerful trailer struck a chord with buyers, said Studiocanal head of international sales Anne Cherel.

“We knew we had something special in our hands but even we were surprised by the enthusiasm...

Berlin follows in the footsteps of Oldenburg and Tribeca.

Source: Studiocanal

The Silent Revolution

The Berlin Film Festival (February 15 - 24) will screen a film in a local prison for the first time this year.

The festival’s local outreach strand Berlinale Goes Kiez, which spotlights neighbourhood cinemas, has been extended to include a screening at the penal institution Jva in Tegel on February 23.

Lars Kraume’s (The People vs Fritz Bauer) Berlinale Special feature The Silent Revolution has been selected for the prison screening. Starring Joerdis Triebel (Emma’s Bliss) and Maxim Mehmet (The Red Baron), the film tells the true-life story of a class of sixth-grade students who in 1956 stood up to the East German regime. They initially showed their solidarity with the victims of the 1956 Hungarian uprising by staging a minute’s silence in class. Kraume will be on hand after to discuss the film with inmates.

Germany’s Oldenburg Film Festival has screened films in prisons...

The Berlin Film Festival has announced the first group of films slated to compete for the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, including new titles from Gus Van Sant and Benoît Jacquot. Heading to Berlinale after its Sundance premiere is Van Sant’s “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot,” a biopic about quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill and Rooney Mara. Jacquot, best known for 2012’s “Farewell, My Queen,” will premiere his remake of the the 1962 Jeanne Moreau vehicle “Eva,” starring Isabelle Huppert and Gaspard Ulliel. The previously announced opening night film is Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” which will also play in competition.

Read More:Wes Anderson’s ‘Isle of Dogs’ to Open 2018 Berlin Film Festival

Two Berlinale Special Galas have also been unveiled: Isabel Coixet’s “The Bookshop” and Lars Kraume’s “Das Schweigende Klassenzimmer.” The 2018 Berlin International Film...