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Netflix’s recent Nordic Noir series, The Are Murders, an adaptation of Viveca Sten’s thriller novels, revolves around two different cases of murder mystery set in the Swedish town of Are, and the investigating detective duo are the connecting factor between them. The first case, which concerns teenager Amanda Halvorsen’s murder, is inspired by “Hidden in Snow” and focuses on the disturbing real-world crisis of immigrant exploitation and human trafficking. On the other hand, the second one, the investigation into Johan Andersson’s murder, unearths deep-seated familial issues and relationship troubles as the reasons behind the act. A common factor in both these cases is the way they challenge the existing idealized image of community spirit and familial values, which allows the devious criminal elements to conceal themselves and beguile others. The cast and crew involved in the series emulated this factor very well through their performances, strengthening...

"Life writes its own story." Strand Releasing has debuted their own official US trailer for the German film titled Rhinegold (originally written as Rheingold in German for their release), from the Turkish-German director Fatih Akin. This already opened in Germany back in 2022 - we posted the trailer back then as well. It didn't have much of an impact, and I doubt anyone in the US will be watching this movie either. Fatih Akin's Rhinegold captures the life of German hip-hop rapper, entrepreneur, and ex-convict Giwar Hajabi - best known by his stage name "X A T A R" or Xatar. Born to Kurdish parents in Iran, he was imprisoned in Iraq for being Kurdish. From the hell of that Iraqi prison, Giwar Hajabi came to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and fought through even more challenges to make a name for himself in music.

Diane Kruger is re-teaming with her In the Fade director Fatih Akin on the new German period drama Amrum, which began principal photography in Hamburg today.

The film follows a family living in a small village on Amrum Island in rural northern Germany in early 1945, in the final days of World War II. The story is based on the childhood memories of Akin’s In the Fade co-screenwriter, German author and director Hark Bohm. Bohm had initially planned to direct the film himself before handing the reins over to Akin, who co-wrote the Amrum screenplay.

The movie is a coming-of-age story of Nanning, a 12-year-old boy (played by Jasper Billerbeck) and his best friend Hermann (Kian Köppke). Laura Tonke (When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before) plays Nanning’s mother, Hille Hagener. Kruger plays Tessa Bendixen, a farmer’s wife. Matthias Schweighöfer (Oppenheimer), Detlev Buck (Same Same...

Fatih Akin’s WWII coming-of-age tale Amrum has begun shooting in Hamburg with newcomer Jasper Billerbeck joining German stars Laura Tonke and Diane Kruger in the cast.

The feature, which was first announced in 2022, is set on Germany’s North Sea island of Amrum in the spring of 1945, in the final days of World War Two.

It revolves around a 12-year-old boy called Nanning who goes seal hunting, fishing at night and toils in the fields to help his mother feed the family. When peace is declared, completely new conflicts arise, and Nanning must learn to find his own way.

The screenplay is based on the childhood memories of German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm, a long-standing friend of Akin.

The pair previously collaborated on the screenplay of Turkish-German director Akin’s award-winning 2017 feature In The Fade.

“What began as a Hark Bohm film now becomes my twelfth feature film...

Beta Cinema is launching international sales in Cannes for director Fatih Akin’s upcoming film “Amrum,” which starts shooting in Hamburg Monday. The film stars Jasper Billerbeck, Laura Tonke and Diane Kruger.

“Amrum” will be released in German theaters in September 2025, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

It is set on the island of Amrum in spring 1945. Seal hunting, fishing at night, toiling in the fields – nothing is too dangerous or too arduous for 12-year-old Nanning to help his mother feed the family in the final days of World War II. With the longed-for peace, however, completely new conflicts arise, and Nanning must learn to find his own way.

The story is based on the childhood memories of German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm. Akin said: “What began as a Hark Bohm film now becomes my 12th feature film and an extraordinary mission: ‘Amrum’ is the journey of young Nanning, who...

Italian directors Marco and Antonio Manetti, a.k.a. the Manetti Bros. and best known for the “Diabolik” franchise, are producing the next film by “Orlando” filmmaker Daniele Vicari. The film, titled “You Get Tired of Killing,” is based on the life of a real-life gangster who grew tired of being in charge of running the Mafia’s dirty business.

Speaking exclusively with Variety at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where they are the subject of a career-spanning retrospective, the directing duo confirmed “You Get Tired of Killing” is in pre-production. The film is being produced by Mompracem, the production company run by the Manettis alongside German sales company Beta Film and actor/producer Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, the son of Italian director Marco Bellocchio.

Vicari, whose previous work includes “Diaz — Don’t Clean Up This Blood,” “Velocità Massima” and Venice Film Festival award-winning “The Human Cargo,” joins a growing talent roster at Mompracem.

Exec has previously headed sales for HanWay, Protagonist and eOne.

Lemming Film, the Netherlands-based producer of festival titles including Sweet Dreams and Milk, has appointed Charlotte van Weede as managing director.

Van Weede was previously sales director for ITV Studios’s global entertainment division whose catalogue includes formats such as The Voice and Love Island.

Before that, she worked at Anton Capital as head of distribution and Global Road as president of international sales. Van Weede has also worked as a feature film consultant at the Dutch Film Fund and spent four years as SVP of eOne Features in London...

BBC drama “Informer,” which originally starred Paddy Considine, Bel Powley and Nabhaan Rizwan, is getting a German adaptation.

Production has begun in Hamburg, Germany, on “Informant,” an adaptation of the All3Media International scripted format, which was BAFTA-nominated. The BBC One show was executive produced by Sam Mendes, who produced via his production outfit Neal Street Productions.

The six-part German thriller is being produced by filmpool fiction (part of All3Media Deutschland) for Ndr, Ard Degeto, Arte and Nrk (Norway). The show is expected to debut in fall 2024.

Starring Jürgen Vogel (“Trust Me”), Elisa Schlott (“Das Boot”) and Ivar Wafaei (“Rheingold”), “Informant” tells the story of how the ‘war on terror’ and indications of an attack on the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg plunges people into a maelstrom of fear, prejudice and hysteria.

The cast also includes Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Bayan Layla, Claudia Michelsen, Sabrina Ceesay, Nico Holonics, Ali Reza Ahmadi and Majid Bakhtiari.

They will screen as part of the New German Films line-up at the 40th edition of the German festival later this month.

New feature films by Asli Özge, Maximilian Erlenwein and Henrika Kull are among 15 titles premiering in the New German Cinema sidebar at the Filmfest München’s 40th anniversary edition (June 23 - July 1).

Turkish-born director Özge’s thriller Black Box, whose cast includes Luise Heyer, Felix Kramer, and Christian Berkel, will open the section on June 24 and be released theatrically in Germany by Port au Prince Pictures on August 10 .

The Zeitsprung Pictures production was co-produced with the Dardennes brothers...

They received the most automatic funding from the Ffa for German films at the German box office.

Constantin Film and Warner Bros Germany were the most successful local production companies and distributors for German films at the German box office in 2022, according to the German Federal Film Board (Ffa).

They have been dubbed ‘Industry Tigers’ by the Ffa and means both companies receive the most in the Ffa’s automatic ‘reference funding’ from the organisation, in line with the amount their German films grossed locally and were exposed at international film festivals in 2022.

Munich-based Constantin Film received €1.2m in production...

‘All Quiet’ leads the way with 12 nominations, followed by Ilker Catak’s The Teachers’ Lounge with seven.

Edward Berger’s Bafta and Oscar award-winner All Quiet On The Western Front has garnered 12 nominations for this year’s German Film Awards (aka Lolas), including for best feature film, best direction, best lead actor (Felix Kammerer), and best cinematography.

Ilker Catak’s The Teachers’ Lounge, which premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama section last month, received seven nominations, including best feature film, best direction, best screenplay and best lead actress (Leonie Benesch), while Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider has received four nominations for best feature film,...

To no one’s surprise, Edward Berger’s epic WWI drama All Quiet on the Western Front is the front runner for this year’s German film awards. The Netflix feature, which picked up nine Oscar nominations and won four — both records for a German movie — received 12 nominations on Friday for Germany’s top cinema honor, known as the Lola.

The film, the first German-language adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque classic 1929 anti-war novel, is the clear favorite going into this year’s Lolas. In addition to the Oscar sweep — the film won best international feature, best cinematography, best production design, and best score at this year’s Academy Awards — All Quiet on the Western Front dominated the 2023 Baftas, taking seven trophies, including for best film and best director.

All Quiet was nominated in every Lola category it qualified for, including best film, best director for Berger, and best actor...

German films achieved their second biggest market share in five years.

Cinema-going in Germany in 2022 was down 33.1 to 73.5m compared to pre-pandemic attendance figures of 110m in 2019 - and 23.5 below 2018’s total of 96.1m.

The German box office grossed €694m in 2022, down 28.1 on pre-pandemic levels of €964m in 2019. This was up 92.5 on 2021.

The year’s top film - Disney’s Avatar: The Way Of Water - opened in Germany on December 14 and had been seen by over 5.3m cinema-goers by the end of the year, generating more than € 72m in box-office takings.

The first month of 2023 saw the film continue...

Shekhar Kapur’s rom com “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” will open the second edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival, where director Oliver Stone will preside over the main jury.

The fest, which is Saudi’s first full-fledged film festival and market with international ambitions after the country in late 2017 removed its religion-related ban on cinemas, will run Dec. 1-10 in Jeddah, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea.

The closer is the world premiere of Saudi feature “Valley Road,” written and directed by Khaled Fahd, an uplifting drama about a man named Ali who lives in a mountain village and is perceived as having a disability.

Sandwiched in between is a mix of the cream of the festival circuit crop, such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winning “Triangle of Sadness,” Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and Park Chan-Wook’s “Decision to Leave,...

New German titles, festival favourites and a Ukrainian competition,

Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle Of Sadness heads the festival favourites that will screen at the 30th anniversary edition of Filmfest Hamburg later this month.

It will be joined by Cannes title Cristian Mungiu’s R.M.N., as well as local Hamburg filmmaker Helena Wittmann’s Human Flowers Of Flesh , Kilian Riedhof’s You Will Not Have My Hate and Ann Oren’s Piaffe, which all premiered at Locarno, and Venice titles Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin, Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, Houman Seyedi’s World War III,...

Hans-Christian Schmid’s ’We Are Next of Kin’ to open German festival.

Filmfest Hamburg has lined up world premieres of films by Fatih Akin, Hans-Christian Schmid and Alrun Goette for its 30th anniversary edition, which runs from September 29 to October 8.

Golden Bear-winner Akin’s biopic of the German rapper and label boss Xatar, Rheingold, starring this year’s European Shooting Star Emilio Sakraya, will have its first screening on the director’s home turf in Hamburg.

Schmid’s adaptation of Johann Scheerer’s autobiographical novel We Are Next Of Kin, which chronicles the kidnapping of Scheerer’s literary scholar and...