News

Exclusive: Zdf Studios has acquired international distribution rights to Black Fruit (Schwarze Früchte), the buzzy debut series from actor-writer Lamin Leroy Gibba.

A co-production between Jünglinge Film, Studio Zentral, and Ard Degeto, Black Fruit debuted at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival before a highly-publicized release on Ard in Germany.

Set in contemporary Hamburg, the series follows the journey of mid-twenty Lalo (Gibba) as he grapples with the sudden loss of his father, embarking on a tumultuous path of impulsive decisions that reverberate through his life and those around him. Alongside his ambitious best friend Karla, Lalo strives to define his identity amidst societal pressures and personal struggles. The show is one of the first serial productions in Germany to chronicle the lives of Queer people of color.

Gibba stars in the series and also serves as the showrunner. Writers on the show include Sophia Ayissi, Naomi Kelechi Odhiambo, Lisa Tracy Michalik,...

After wowing audiences with their 2020 debut film, the award-winning Berlinale screener “No Hard Feelings,” and branching out into TV, Paulina Lorenz and Faraz Shariat of Berlin-based Jünglinge Film are set for their next big-screen project from an increasingly voluminous pipeline.

Lorenz and Shariat, who are celebrating their company’s 10th anniversary this year, are also developing their first English-language pic and working with some of Germany’s highest-profile producers on ambitious series.

Jünglinge is scheduled to begin production in May on “Prosecution” (“Staatsschutz”), a legal thriller that explores right-wing violence in the German justice system, which Shariat will direct.

Chen Emilie Yan, Alev Irmak, Sebastian Urzendowsky and Arnd Klawitter star in the film, which follows a young Korean-German public prosecutor (Yan) who’s starting her first job in a small eastern German town.

“It’s her story of resistance and trying to figure out whether you can resist within the...

Dissident Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran last week after being given an 8-year prison sentence, will be in Cannes for the world premiere of his new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig.

Representatives of Rasoulof confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Rasoulof will attend the premiere of The Seed of the Sacred Tree in Cannes on Friday, May 24, and will do press events and promotion for the movie.

The director escaped Iran by ditching all his trackable electronic devices and fleeing by foot over the mountains out of the country. He has found shelter in Germany. In an interview with The Guardian, Rasoulof said he expects he will soon return to his home country and sit out his prison sentence, but that he had “no choice” but to flee the country because he was determined to continue to make movies about his people and the real situation in Iran.

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof is set to attend the Cannes premiere of his latest feature, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, after receiving an eight-year prison sentence from Iranian authorities and fleeing his home country.

Speculation had been rife that the dissident director would attend the festival when the film receives its world premiere in Competition on Friday (May 24), having found asylum in Germany, but Cannes’ general delegate Thierry Fremaux has now confirmed his attendance.

“We are particularly touched to welcome [Rasoulof] here as a filmmaker,” Fremaux said in a statement to Agence France-Presse (Afp).

Our joy will be that of...

International filmmakers are calling for solidarity with Mohammad Rasoulof and persecuted filmmakers in Iran in an open letter, shared with Variety.

Rasoulof – about to screen his latest film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in Cannes’ main competition – was sentenced to imprisonment and torture by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He fled the country.

“We condemn the inhumane treatment of Rasoulof and numerous other independent artists in Iran, who are being severely punished, criminalized and silenced for exercising their artistic freedom,” it was stated in the letter, already signed by “Holy Spider” star Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Fatih Akin, Atom Egoyan, Ildiko Enyedi, Andrew Haigh, Agnieszka Holland, Laura Poitras, Sandra Hüller, Sean Baker, Payal Kapadia and Ariane Labed.

“We stand in full solidarity with Rasoulof’s demands and call upon the international film community to raise our voices against an Islamist dictatorship that systematically oppresses every aspect of their society’s lives.

Pictures: Netflix – Illustration by What’s on Netflix

It’s time for another slate preview, and today we’ll look through all the upcoming German-language movies and series we know are in development at Netflix for release in 2024 and beyond.

2023 was a big year for new German-language Netflix Originals, with a dozen releases in total. Dear Child was perhaps the biggest, spending six weeks in the global top 10s in total. As a reminder, all the new German titles included:

1899 (Multilingual) Big Mäck: Gangsters and Gold Blood & Gold Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld Dear Child Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate Hard Feelings Making All Quiet on the Western Front Paradise Sleeping Dog Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom Too Hot to Handle: Germany Woman of the Dead

This list is everything currently announced and Netflix De (or Netflix Europe) has yet to put out an...

The European Film Academy (Efa) has unveiled 462 film professionals as new members in an announcement timed to coincide with Europe Day on May 9.

The new arrivals will be eligible to vote in the academy’s European Film Awards, the region’s equivalent to the Academy Awards, as well as contribute to its other initiatives across the year.

The Efa said a record number of professionals had accepted to join the organization this year, adding that 50% were female, 49%, were male, and 1% defined as non-binary.

The bigger intake comes amid a drive to revamp the academy which recently announced it would be moving the Efa ceremony to January in 2026, from its traditional December slot, to make it more relevant in the annual film awards season culminating with the Oscars.

The Efa currently now counts 4,600 members based in 52 countries.

The new members mainly hailed from Germany (68), France (38), Switzerland (37), Poland (36), Italy (33), Spain (24), UK (28) and...

Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool will adapt one of the most successful German-language podcasts, “Zeit Crime” (“Zeit Verbrechen”) into an anthology series for Paramount +.

Awarded the German Podcast Prize, “Zeit Crime” is based on the criminal investigations of Sabine Rückert and Andreas Sentker. According to producer Jorgo Narjes, it currently boasts 5 million streams per month and an average of 1.5 million listeners per episode, “most of them female and in their late twenties.” So far, the podcast consists of more than 100 episodes.

Filming started this month and will continue until the end of June 2023.

The show is helmed by four directors, making four separate 60-minute-long films, each one inspired by a specific story from the podcast. Faraz Shariat, also behind HBO/Sky show “The Baby,” Helene Hegemann (“Axolotl Overkill”), Jan Bonny (Netflix’s “King of Stonks”) and Mariko Minoguchi, who recently brought sci-fi “Element” to Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development,...

“Euphoria” is set to get a German adaptation, Variety can reveal.

German’s Zeitsprung Pictures (“Lieber Thomas”) have optioned the show from production and distribution company Add Content, who rep international rights to the format and series.

“Euphoria” is an Israeli original created by Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin. The show follows a group of high school students navigating friendship and love at the same time as struggling with drugs, sex, trauma and social media.

The original version was produced by Tedy productions and aired on Israeli broadcaster Hot. A U.S. adaptation of the show from HBO, starring Zendaya (pictured above), Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney, soon followed and has since become a runaway success, with the series set to return for a third season.

The German adaptation has already tapped writers Jonas Lindt (“Druck”) and Paulina Lorenz (“Druck“) to work on the project.

“We are happy that the...

M-Appeal secures sales at the virtual Cannes market.

Berlin-based M-Appeal has closed Us and UK deals for Berlinale queer award-winner No Hard Feelings.

The romantic drama has been acquired by leading LGBT distributor Tla Releasing, which will represent the film in North American and work with London-based outfit Compulsory on distribution in the UK and Ireland. It is the first move into distribution for London-based production company Compulsory.

The film, which marks the directorial debut of Faraz Shariat, received its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlinale in February, where it won two Teddy Awards including best...

At dawn in an orderly, middle-class suburb in regional Germany, three young people — a girl and two guys — stagger home from a night out. Two of them are siblings, two of them friends and two of them are falling in love. One of them is very drunk and tripping over the long blond wig he wore all night, but in the flat light of early morning, it all seems somehow hilarious and easy because this is how it is to be young, even when there are asylum applications, cultural misunderstandings and language barriers hanging over your head.

The characters in Faraz Shariat’s buzzy, bright-eyed “No Hard Feelings” may grapple with overlapping aspects of their sexual and ethnic identities in their search for somewhere to belong — legally, socially, culturally and emotionally — but the vibrant, observant film they’re in, by contrast, knows exactly what it is: an immigrant love song...

The German production is the feature debut of Faraz Shariat.

Berlin-based M-Appeal has acquired world sales rights to Faraz Shariat’s No Hard Feelings and will present the project to buyers at next week’s Cannes Film Festival.

The German production follows Parvis, the son of exiled Iranians, who copes with life in his small hometown by indulging himself with pop culture, Grindr dates, and raves. After being caught shoplifting, he is sentenced to community service at a refugee shelter where he meets siblings Banafshe and Amon, who have fled Iran. As a romantic attraction between Parvis and Amon grows,...