News

New titles include series about the Circeo massacre and El Chapo’s wife.

US streaming platform Paramount+ has unveiled a seven-strong film and series international slate ahead of its launch in the UK and Ireland later this week (June 22).

The originals will be produced in partnership with Vis, Paramount’s international studio. Paramount+ is aiming to commission 150 international originals by 2025.

New projects are Mexican suspense thriller film One Must Die, about seven people who are kidnapped and suddenly find themselves part of a deadly game. It Is directed by and stars Colombian actor Manolo Cardona, with Spanish actress Maribel Verdú also starring.

Sophie Lowe, Louisa Krause star in survival thriller, set to shoot later summer in Malta, Germany.

Augenschein Sales and Protagonist Pictures have struck a worldwide sales partnership on select films from Augenschein’s slate of English-speaking films and will kick off virtual Cannes market talks on survival thriller The Dive.

Protagonist will serve as executive producers on the projects and will help augenschein source additional financing.

The companies will invest a portion of the funds generated by the non-exclusive partnership into co-development of select projects as they assemble a co-production slate.

The Dive is scheduled to commence production in mid-August...

Romantic comedy “Berlin, Berlin” is one of the top titles on the slate for Studio Hamburg Enterprises at Berlin’s European Film Market.

The film picks up the story of the turbulent love life of Lolle, played by Felicitas Woll, 15 years after the end of the German hit series. The film will have its theatrical release by Constantin Film in March, and She will screen the film at Efm for buyers.

Also on the slate is “Too Far Away,” which tells the story of a friendship formed amid the refugee crisis and on the soccer pitch. It will be shown on Feb. 28 as part of the Lola @ Berlinale section.

She is also offering thrillers and crime series with strong female characters at the center, such as “The Informer,” with Aylin Tezel, and “Wolfsland,” with Yvonne Catterfeld.

The thriller series “Marnow Murders” showcases Petra Schmidt-Schaller amidst a murderous conspiracy of decades past.

Global Screen has picked up international distribution rights to spy thriller “1989 – A Spy Story,” as the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches. Inspired by true events, it tells the story of a female Stasi agent, placed in the U.S. embassy in the 1980s. When the Berlin Wall comes down, she expects to be uncovered any moment, but in a cat-and-mouse-game, she tries to escape detection.

Alexandra Heidrich, head of TV sales and acquisitions at Global Screen, said the show is “fast-paced, highly atmospheric and features a top-notch cast.” She added: “Knowing that several real-life Stasi spies live unexposed among us, makes the plot all the more relevant and intriguing.”

The series is produced by Moovie, a subsidiary of Constantin Film, in co-production with Rbb and Ard Degeto, supported by Mbb and Fff Bayern. It is set for a primetime broadcast on Ard Das Erste around...

Nö

German director Dietrich Brüggemann has commenced shooting his sixth feature Nö, produced by Martin Heisler and Gabriele Simon for Flare Film. Starring the director’s sister, Anna Brüggemann (who also co-wrote) as the lead, the film also features Alexander Khuon, Isolde Barth, Hanns Zischler, Rudiger Vogler (of Wim Wenders’ Road Trilogy) and Petra Schmidt-Schaller. Brüggemann’s usual Dp Alexander Sass is lensing the feature. Brüggemann’s breakout was his 2014 feature Stations of the Cross (review), which competed in Berlin and took home the Silver Bear for Best Script as well as the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. His last feature, 2015’s Heil, competed in Karlovy Vary.…...

John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary and new films by Michel Gondry, Kutlug Ataman and Robert Lepage are to feature in the Berlinale’s Panorama strand, which will open with Jalil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent.Scroll down for first batch of titles

A total of 50 features will be chosen for the Panorama section of the 2014 Berlinale (Feb 6-16), films that “provide insight on new directions in art house cinema”, and the first 19 have been announced. A total of 11 of those selected are world premieres.

The opening film will mark the international premiere of Jalil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent, a look at the life of the French designer from the beginning of his career in 1958 when he met his lover and business partner, Pierre Berge.

The opening screening on Feb 7 will see Berlin’s flagship cinema, the Zoo Palast, re-inaugurated as a Berlinale venue after extensive renovations.

Also in the line-up are new films from Michel Gondry, Kutluğ...

The Good Neighbour

Directed by Stephan Rick

Germany 2011

Falling somewhere between cold psychodrama and deliberate thriller, Stephan Rick’s The Good Neighbour is a slick, cyclical drama filled with moral anxieties and suburban violence.

David (Maxim Mehmet) moves next door to Robert (Charly Hübner). David is good-looking, young and ambitious. Robert is the opposite, yet the two form a friendship based on, if nothing else, proximity. On the drive home from a bar, David strikes a young woman with his car and kills her. Robert convinces him to leave the scene of the crime, but soon David falls for the victim’s sister Vanessa (Petra Schmidt-Schaller). Robert begins to feel left out…and doesn’t take it very well.

Director Rick maintains a fairly minimal style throughout, though his is far from the sparse, grief-stricken narratives of many of his German contemporaries. Preferring to stay mostly in medium shots, Rick...