06/02/2025 - The Italian international sales agent’s line-up includes Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s second feature film and Brwa Vahabpour’s debut My Uncle Jens, selected in Austin’s SXSW

The upcoming European Film Market, hosted by the Berlinale, which is set to unspool between 13 and 19 February, will see Intramovies pinning its hopes on Yunan [+see also:
film review
film profile]. This hotly anticipated second feature film by Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin is the only Arab title screening in competition and world premiering at the Berlinale this year. Written, directed and edited by Eldin himself, Yunan is part of the Homeland trilogy which explores themes of displacement, identity and human connection, and which first began with The Stranger [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ameer Fakher Eldin
film profile] (presented in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori gathering in 2021).

The film follows a displaced Arab writer called Munir, played by Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz, who withdraws to a remote German island with the aim of ending his life. But, once arrived, he ends up meeting an elderly woman called Valeska (German legend Hanna Schygulla) who reignites his will to live. The cast also includes Palestinian actor Ali Suleiman, Lebanese actress Nidal El Ashkar, and Germans Sibel Kekilli, Thomas Wlaschiha and Laura Sophia Landauer. A consortium of companies from a variety of countries (Germany, Canada, Italy, Palestine, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) came together to produce the movie: Red Balloon Film, Microclimat Films and Intramovies itself, in co-production with Fresco Films, Metafora Production, Tabi360 and Red Sea Fund.

The line-up of the Italian sales agency steered by Paola Corvino also boasts the feature film debut of Norwegian-Kurdish director Brwa Vahabpour, My Uncle Jens [+see also:
film review
interview: Brwa Vahabpour, Peiman Aziz…
film profile], which is due to be presented in SXSW in Austin, Texas, in March, and whose release in Norway is scheduled for 4 April. My Uncle Jens is a dramedy written by the director himself, in league with Denmark’s Molly Steensgard and Romania’s Răzvan Radulescu. It tells the story of Akam (Peiman Azizpour), a young literature teacher who lives a quiet life in Oslo until an uncle (Hamza Agoshi), hailing from the Iranian area of Kurdistan, pays him an unexpected visit. Despite a lack of space, his uncle shows no sign of leaving any time soon. Akam begins to suspect that this isn’t just a casual visit. Sarah Francesca Brænne also stars in the movie, co-produced by Norway’s True Content Production and Romania’s Tangaj Production.

Presented in the most recent Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti Extra section, where it scooped the Arca CinemaGiovani and FEDIC awards before going on to enjoy success in a dozen or so international festivals, Vittoria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alessandro Cassigoli and Ca…
film profile] by Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman is based on real events and drills down into the complexities of family dynamics and seemingly irrational desires, involving actual people who have experienced the complicated journey of adopting abroad. The Locarno Film Festival’s Cineasti del Presente section, meanwhile, first played host to Adele Tulli’s second documentary, Real [+see also:
film review
interview: Adele Tulli
film profile], which also enjoyed significant exposure throughout the festival season. Real is a kaleidoscopic and immersive journey into how it feels to be a human being in the digital era, in an “augmented world” which is experiencing exponential growth. Marco Tullio Giordana’s drama The Life Apart [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marco Tullio Giordana
film profile] was also presented in Locarno, out of competition on this occasion.

Last but not least, Intramovies’ line-up will be rounded off by two “incoming” titles: Ably Disabled (working title) - a first film and dramedy by young Romanian director Ioana Mischie, produced by Studioset, Mammut and Storyscapes - and Cuerpo celeste, a coming-of-age drama by Chile’s Nayra Ilic - which is currently in post-production and is produced by Planta, Horamágica, Disparte and Oro Films – which revolves around a fifteen-year-old girl who has to contend with a painful loss and a family in crisis (read our news).

(Translated from Italian)