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Picture Tree International (Pti) has boarded Vena, the debut feature of German writer-director Chiara Fleischhacker.

The gritty social drama is in the late stages of post-production, and Pti will launch a first trailer at the Cannes Film Market.

Weltkino is to distribute the film in Germany, and has set a tentative release date for late autumn 2024.

The film stars Emma Nova, whose credits include The Tobacconist and Manta Manta Legacy; 7500’s Paul Wollin; and The Reader and Hannah Arendt’s Friederike Becht.

Nova plays a woman grappling with an unexpected pregnancy alongside her boyfriend (Wollin). Both seek solace in...

Packhowl Media, an independent audio fiction production company and Realm partner, is thrilled to announce the launch of a Kickstarter for the second season of groundbreaking political science fantasy podcast, The Madness of Chartrulean.

Showrunner H.M. Radcliff is raising funds to help support an award-nominated cast, led by Aud Andrews (Ambies 2023 nominee for "Best Performance in Audio Ficton"), Kathleen Klein, Christian Collado, Adam Neill, and Magnus Carlssen. As audio fiction continues to grow in popularity, The Madness of Chartrulean seeks to establish itself as a standout production that challenges the conventions of the medium.

Described as a unique fusion of Dune, Game of Thrones, and Shakespearean tragedy, the series has captivated audiences since its release in September 2022 with cinematic sound design, haunting original score by award-winning composer Sean Renner, and enigmatic performances.

The show matches the ambition and quality of big-budget productions. Magnus Carlssen, the voice of King Starbringer...

Deutsche Telekom’s first major original, “Wild Republic,” is set to bow April 15 on the telco giant’s Ott service MagentaTV after production was postponed last year due to the ongoing pandemic.

The eight-part adventure series follows a group of young offenders who end up fending for themselves high in the Alps after a mysterious death disrupts the experiential educational program in which they are taking part.

Created by Jan Martin Scharf, Arne Nolting and Klaus Wolfertstetter, the series is produced by Lailaps Pictures, X Filme Creative Pool and Handwritten Pictures in co-production with Deutsche Telekom, Arte and Ard broadcasters Wdr, Swr and One.

“Wild Republic” was initially inspired by Erwin S. Strauss’ 1979 book “How to Start Your Own Country,” which explored the micronation movement of the 1960s, according to Lailaps CEO Nils Dünker. Eric Bouley, now managing partner at Handwritten Pictures, helped develop the original premise while working at Lailaps.

Picture Tree Intl. has picked up the global sales rights on comedy drama “Risks and Side Effects,” which follows a woman’s kidney transplant journey that threatens to break-up her friendships and marriage. The sales agency will launch sales at the European Film Market (March 1-5). Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer.

Austrian helmer Michael Kreihsl wrote and directed the film, which is based on a play of the same name by Stefan Vögel. It stars Samuel Finzi and Inka Friedrich (“God You’re Such a Pr—“), alongside Pia Hierzegger and Thomas Mraz (“The Tobacconist”).

In the film a routine check-up reveals that Pilates trainer Kathrin is suffering from kidney disease and needs a transplant. Her husband Arnold is a successful architect in the middle of a large project and is afraid of donating one of his kidneys. Götz, a friend of the couple’s, would undergo...

Both the film itself and its theatrical and day and date streaming releases are of interest to cinephiles and cineastes.

The Tobacconist, a film by Nikolau Leytner based on the international bestseller by Robert Seethaler, is an idealistic story of a seventeen-year-old man who leaves his home in the countryside of Austria where his single mother works as a housekeeper. He journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop where he meets Sigmund Freud, a regular customer. Over time, as the Nazis move in to occupy Vienna, the two very different men form a singular friendship.

The young friend, played by Simon Morzé, succeeds in convincing Freud to leave Vienna and while in real life, this may not have actually happened, the story is a good one in that it illustrates the innate goodness and real friendship that is possible to cultivate during times as dire as the Nazi era,...

Finally, a movie that has the courage to ask: “Was it okay to be horny during the Holocaust?” While Nikolaus Leytner’s “The Tobacconist” poses several other provocative questions along the way, this stiff and milquetoast coming-of-age drama — — fails to ask any of them with the same clarity, and probably would have fared much better had it stuck to the subject at hand rather than try and leverage it toward some kind of deeper meaning. Of course, certain traps are hard to avoid when you’re adapting a Robert Seethaler novel about an über-hormonal Austrian teenager who finds himself getting romantic advice from Sigmund Freud (played by the late Bruno Ganz in the last of the actor’s films to be released in America).

A country boy with Aryan features who grew up on the green shores of Austria’s bucolic lake Attersee, Franz (a strapping but somewhat blank Simon Morzé...

A cigar is never just a cigar where Sigmund Freud is concerned. The father of psychoanalysis serves as a supporting character in “The Tobacconist” — and none other than the great Bruno Ganz embodies the iconic smoker, making this one of the German actor’s last (and least bombastic) performances.

Ganz, whom many will recognize from his role as Adolf Hitler in “Downfall,” now plays one of the Führer’s many victims, a Jewish-born atheist forced to flee his comfortable Viennese home during the Anschluss of 1938, when Germany annexed Austria and occupied its capital, meeting with enthusiastic support from National Socialists and anti-Semites who agreed with his policies. This was an undeniably shameful time in Austria’s history, seen through the eyes of a naive young gentile who’s more concerned with falling in love and losing his virginity than with the rise of fascism, at least in TV director Nikolaus Leytner’s somewhat treacly telling.

The Tobacconist (Der trafikant) Menemsha Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Nickolaus Leytner Screenwriters: Klaus Richter, Nikolaus Leytner, based on Robert Seethaler’s novel Cast: Simon Morzé, Bruno Ganz, Johannes Krisch, Emma Drogunova Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/29/20 Opens: July10, 2020 “Sometimes a cigar is just a […]

The post The Tobacconist Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Bavaria Filmproduktion, whose latest film, Oskar Roehler’s “Enfant Terrible,” is part of Cannes’ Official Selection this year, is next producing projects from acclaimed filmmaker Hans Steinbichler (“The Diary of Anne Frank”) and writer-director duo Felix Fuchssteiner and Katharina Schöde, makers of the hugely popular “Ruby Red” fantasy-adventure trilogy.

Steinbichler is directing an adaptation of writer-actor Robert Seethaler’s bestseller “A Whole Life,” which spans a solitary man’s life in a remote Alpine valley. Bavaria Filmproduktion, the feature film unit of German entertainment giant Bavaria Film, is partnering on the project with Vienna-based Epo-Film, co-producer of Sky Deutschland’s murder-mystery series “Pagan Peak.”

“A Whole Life” reunites Steinbichler and Seethaler, who wrote the screenplay for the filmmaker’s 2008 drama “My Mother, My Bride and I.”

Seethaler’s works also include “The Tobacconist,” which served as the basis of Nikolaus Leytner’s 2018 release starring the late Bruno Ganz.

Bavaria Filmproduktion...

Drama played Edinburgh last summer, stars Bruno Ganz (Downfall) in penultimate role.

Kino Lorber has partnered with Menemsha Films on the virtual theatrical release of Nikolaus Leytner’s Austrian coming-of-age drama The Tobacconist starring the late Bruno Ganz.

The film will launch on Kino Marquee on July 10 and will also open in theatrical engagements as cinemas open in key markets across the Us over the coming months.

The release marks Kino Lorber’s latest virtual cinema collaboration with other distributors after it worked with Well Go USA on House Of Hummingbird, which debuts on June 26, and Good Deed Entertainment on Extra Ordinary and Lucky Grandma.

Bruno Ganz, who died last week at the age of 77, had 121 acting credits to his name, from his debut as a hotel page in the 1960 comedy The Man in the Black Derby to his final role as a judge in Terrence Malick’s yet to be released Radegund. His underworld guide in Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built would have been at the very least a fitting send-off, but since that film premiered in Cannes last year he has also played Sigmund Freud in The Tobacconist and starred in a Macedonian war crimes drama, I Witness. Born in Zurich, to Swiss and Italian parents, Ganz was a truly international star, working with Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Volker Schlöndorff in Germany, but also Eric Rohmer, Jerzy Skolimowski, Alain Tanner, Gillian Armstrong, Jonathan Demme, Theo Angelopoulos, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Atom Egoyan, Barbet Schroeder, Bille August, Sally Potter,...

Each year the European Film Promotion highlight the work of ten of the most promising rising talents from around the continent. Their ‘Shooting Stars’ for 2019 have been revealed and we’re very pleased to premiere the trailer for the ten actors, showcasing some of their recent work. Their achievement will be honoured at the Berlin Film Festival next month, where we will sit down each of them to talk about their career so far, and their plans for the future.

Last year we spoke to the 2018 Shooting Stars, some of whom have come to the fore in the last twelve months. If you’ve seen Rain on Netflix then you’ll know the name Alba August, whom we spoke to before the series had hit our screens. Michaela Coel has become a regular on the red carpet across the world, with her Netflix film Been So Long and many more.

The Efp (European Film Promotion) has named its ten best up and coming talents to be honoured as European Shooting Stars during the 69th Berlin International Film Festival in 2019.

In its 22nd year, the European Shooting Stars has taken the best from Europe in the industry who they deem are ready to step out onto the international film scene by a jury of industry experts.

Elliott Crosset Hove from Denmark swayed the jury with his “raw ability to shift from transparent vulnerability to intimidation” in Winter Brothers, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Locarno and Vilinus Film Festivals, and a Robert, the Danish Academy Award.

Also in the news – Jodie Foster to take the helm on English language remake of ‘Woman at War’

Rea Lest-Liik from Estonia impressed with her “fierceness, forcefulness and passion” depicted in November.

The youngest up-and-coming star is Emma Drogunova from Germany.

Film support agency European Film Promotion has selected this year’s ten European Shooting Stars, the emerging talent roster celebrated during the Berlin Film Festival. Making the grade were Elliott Crosset Hove from Denmark, star of Winter Brothers; Estonian actress Lest-Liik, star of feature November; Emma Drogunova from Germany, star of The Tobacconist; and Kristín Thora

Haraldsdóttir from Iceland, star of And Breathe Normally. Also chosen were Aisling Franciosi from Ireland, whose credits include Games Of Thrones and The Nightingale; Macedonian actor Blagoj Veselinov of Secret Ingredient; Dawid Ogrodnik from Poland, star of Silent Night; Norwegian actress Ine Marie Wilmann, known for Sonja: The White Swan; Serbian actor Milan Marić from Dovlatov, which screened this year in competition in Berlin; and The

Charmer star Ardalan Esmaili from Sweden. Previous Shooting Stars include Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Domhnall Gleeson and Baltasar Kormákur. The 2019 jury included U.S. casting director Avy Kaufman,...

Aisling Franciosi (“The Nightingale”), Ardalan Esmaili (“The Charmer”) and Elliott Crosset Hove (“Winter Brothers”) are among the 10 actors and actresses who have been named as the European Film Promotion’s Shooting Stars.

Previous Shooting Stars include Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Pilou Asbæk and Baltasar Kormákur. The new crop of up-and-coming talent for the 22nd edition of the program will be honored during the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

Crosset Hove from Denmark won the best actor award at Locarno and a Robert prize (Denmark’s equivalent of the Oscars) for his performance in Hlynur Palmason’s “Winter Brothers.” The jury praised the actor for his “raw ability to shift from transparent vulnerability to intimidation.”

Franciosi, an Italian-born Irish actress, has been acclaimed for her performance in Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale,” which won two nods at the Venice Film Festival, including the Special Jury Prize. The jury said Franciosi, whose other...

Germany’s leading sales companies have descended on the American Film Market with a wide range of titles that span horror and historical fare to arthouse, animation and family pics.

Supernatural thrillers look to be especially prevalent this year, with such chilling titles as “The Sonata,” “Hanna’s Homecoming” and “Party Hard, Die Young” — all from Arri Media Intl.

Directed by Andrew Desmond and starring Freya Tingley, Simon Abkarian and Rutger Hauer, “The Sonata” follows a young violinist who inadvertently triggers dark forces after discovering a mysterious music score composed by her late father. The film world premiered at Afm.

Esther Bialas’ “Hanna’s Homecoming,” likewise having its market premiere, centers on a teen girl who is shunned in her village because her mother was widely believed to be a witch and responsible for the deaths of several men. The pic premiered in October at the Hof Film Festival.

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