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Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Ina Weisse’s “The Audition,” the tense psychological drama which world premiered at Toronto and went on to win the Silver Shell Award (for Nina Hoss) at San Sebastian.

Represented in international markets by Les Films du Losange, the film stars Hoss as Anna Bronsky, an obsessive violin teacher at a high school focused on honing young talent. When Anna finds a young student, Alexander, she sets off to create a model of herself but her dedication gradually creates a tense situation and affects her personal life with her husband and son.

“‘The Audition’ features such a powerful performance from Hoss that is heartbreaking, vulnerable and unforgettable, we are proud to have the film for North America” said Strand Releasing’s Jon Gerrans who negotiated the deal with Alice Lesort of Les Films du Losange. Strand plans to release “The Audition” next Spring or Summer.

Exclusive: Titles on Beta’s slate include films from Agnieszka Holland and Stefan Ruzowitzky.

German sales powerhouse Beta Cinema has revealed details of its new Cannes titles, among them the latest features from Oscar winner Stefan Ruzowitzky, Oscer nominee Agnieszka Holland, Un Certain Regard-winner Andreas Dresen and Golden Bear-winner Calin Peter Netzer.

Beta’s auteur-driven slate is headed by hard-boiled genre film Hell (working title, pictured), from Ruzowitzky, who won his Oscar for The Counterfeiters. Hell is a taut thriller about a young woman witnessing a brutal murder by a fanatic Islamist serial killer.

Shot by DoP Benedict Neuenfels (The Counterfeiters, Anonyma – A Woman In Berlin) and starring Violetta Schurawkow and Tobias Moretti, Hell is produced by genre experts Allegro Film and Amazing Film Company and is currently in post-production. First footage will be revealed at the Beta Cinema Cannes office.

Beta is also introducing buyers to Agnieszka Holland’s Game Count, a thriller...

The past year has been a great one as concerns the availability and restoration of several titles from Italian auteur Liliana Cavani, a director who came to fame and notoriety alongside peers such as Pasolini, Bellocchio, and Bertolucci. Her work has often faced difficulty in achieving the same sort of international acclaim as those male colleagues, each of them certified as a particular brand within the cinematic canon. And yet, Cavani is as equally provocative and prolific, with boundary pushing titles languishing in obscurity, usually historical reconstructions with gender or sexuality as a unique entry. Her work has often been described as having a feminist bent, but Cavani isn’t aspiring to create female agency in spaces dominated by masculinity. Rather, her concern resides in honest depictions of women ravaged by male dominated systems. Cavani’s most notorious title, 1974’s The Night Porter, received a Blu-ray transfer from Criterion recently,...

"You look very similar to someone." If you're interested in mysterious German suspense dramas, then you won't want to miss this one. Phoenix is the latest film from German filmmaker Christian Petzold, and it just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this week. To compliment its festival unveiling, the production has released the first trailer. The film stars Nina Hoss (A Woman in Berlin, Barbara, A Most Wanted Man) as a concentration camp survivor who ends up searching through postwar Berlin to find the man she believes betrayed her to the Nazis. The cast includes Ronald Zehrfeld and Nina Kunzendorf. I can't say this looks like something everyone will enjoy, but there's certainly an intriguing element to it. Take a look. Here's the first official trailer for Christian Petzold's Phoenix, posted on Vimeo (found via SlashFilm): Plot from the Tiff guide: "A concentration-camp survivor (Nina Hoss) searches ravaged...

Strand Releasing has acquired all U.S. rights to Max Faerberboeck's "A Woman in Berlin" from Beta Cinema.

The film, which stars Nina Hoss as a woman dealing with the Red Army invasion of Berlin in 1945, will be released theatrically in the summer.

"This is a bold, thought-provoking film that we are proud to introduce to the American marketplace," said Strand's Jon Gerrans, who negotiated the deal with Beta's Dirk Schuerhoff.

Munich-based Beta has sold the film in more than 20 countries to date.

COLOGNE, Germany -- Constantin Film has parted ways with director Volker Schlondorff on its adaptation of Donna Cross' best-seller Pope Joan, the company said Monday.

Constantin dropped Schlondorff after the Oscar-winning helmer of The Tin Drum publicly criticized the company's plan to produce two versions of Joan -- a feature-length film and a two-part miniseries for television.

Constantin used this strategy with Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall, which was a worldwide boxoffice hit and, in its television incarnation, a ratings success for German public broadcaster ARD.

But in an article for German daily the Suedeutsche Zeitung, Schlondorff attacked the plan, calling it an unacceptable restriction of his artistic freedom.

"The article was extremely unhelpful in our getting this project off the ground," Constantin Film production head Martin Moszkowicz said in an interview. "(So) we canceled our cooperation with Volker (Schlondorff)."

Moszkowicz said that producing both a film and TV version is the only way Constantin can successfully finance certain "big-budget" projects like Downfall or Pope Joan.

Constantin will be using the same strategy for two upcoming productions -- Uli Edel's 1970s terrorist drama Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex and the World War II period piece Anonyma, which Max Faberbock (Aimee and Jaguar) will direct.