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Austrian filmmaker Daniel Hoesl and German partner Julia Niemann have made a name for themselves by focusing their black comedy and documentary movies on money and capitalism and how the resulting power imbalances cause social inequality. Hoesl’s 2016 film Winwin, for example, is a comedy about a U.S. investment fund that buys Austrian companies but also takes over politics in its capital Vienna. And the 2020 documentary Davos, co-directed by the two and written by Niemann, puts a spotlight on the contrast between the lives of those who live in the Swiss town of Davos year-round and the business and political elite that gathers there for the annual World Economic Forum.

Their latest film, Veni Vidi Vici, which debuted at Sundance 2024 and is getting its U.K. premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival on Saturday, with another screening on Sunday, looks to slay the excesses of capitalism with dark humor.

Austrian-German production company Schubert is moving forward with a slate of films by distinctive auteur filmmakers, among them the historical drama “Rose,” by Austrian writer-director Markus Schleinzer and starring Sandra Hüller (“The Zone of Interest”).

Founded by Johannes Schubert in 2020, the Vienna and Berlin-based company partnered with Row Pictures in Leipzig and Munich’s Walker + Worm Film on “Rose,” Schleinzer’s third feature, which follows a 17th-century woman who, disguised as a man, begins a new life in a protestant village at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Repped internationally by The Match Factory and currently in advanced post-production, the Austrian-German co-production is set for release this year.

Also in the works is the upcoming feature debut “Keep Quiet” by Franz Böhm, who just picked up a BAFTA for his short “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Marking their second collaboration after the Hot Docs breakthrough “Dear Future Children,” the English-language political thriller,...

Writer-director Tim Ellrich took on a particularly challenging and very personal subject for his narrative feature debut Im Haus Meiner Eltern (In My Parents’ House), which recently world premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR): schizophrenia.

Inspired by Ellrich’s own family experiences and shot on location at his childhood home, the film explores the toll that caregiving takes on families. Presented in black and white, it also captures the sense of claustrophobia that comes with it. The film convinced the Rotterdam experts, leading it to receive a Tiger Special Jury Award at IFFR, which wrapped up this weekend.

“Holle works as a spiritual healer, tending to clients with serious illnesses and chronic conditions. One of four siblings, she devotes much of her time to caring for her aging parents, a commitment that strains her relationship with her partner,” a synopsis on the Rotterdam website reads. “When her...

Exclusive: Alejandro G. Iñàrritu’s movie with Tom Cruise has assembled a murderers’ row cast. The four-time Oscar-winning filmmaker’s untitled movie for Warner Bros and Legendary Entertainment counts Oscar-nominated Anatomy of a Fall actress Sandra Hüller, Emmy winner John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons and Talk to Me actress Sophie Wilde. Oscar winner Riz Ahmed is in final negotiations to join the cast.

Deadline first told you back in February that Cruise was starring and he’s also producing the latest feature project from The Revenant and Birdman filmmaker. The Mission: Impossible franchise star, you’ll remember, has a strategic movie partnership at the Burbank lot.

Iñàrritu co-wrote the 2023 screenplay with Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolas Giacobone. The logline as we know it centers on the most powerful man in the world, who embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before...

Empress Elisabeth's life explored in Sisi & I, focusing on her relationship with Countess Irma. Sandra Hller and Susanne Wolff deliver natural interactions, portraying complex characters. The movie takes an unconventional approach to Sisi's assassination, highlighting women's relationships and societal demands.

The fascinating if meandering drama Sisi & I (2023) (Sisi & Ich) showcases the strange and tragic life of Empress Elisabeth Sisi of Austria (Susanne Wolff), focusing on her relationship with her lady-in-waiting Countess Irma Stzray (Sandra Hller). Irma travels to a remote commune in Greece to be the empress companion, escaping her only other options of marriage or a convent. There, Irma is entranced by the carefree environment where Sisi dictates everything. However, the increasing demands of Sisis husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Markus Schleinzer), soon pulls Sisi and Irma out of their haven and tests their bond.

Sisi & I (2023)

Director Frauke FinsterwalderRelease Date March 30, 2023Studio(s) Dor Film Produktionsgesellschaft, C-Films Ag,...

Quick Links Susanne Wolff and Sandra Hller Give One of a Kind Performances A Complicated and Curious Friendship Sisi & I Is Unashamedly Punk Redefining a European Icon

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (commonly known as Sisi) is one of the most popular figures in European historical dramas. The Empress has been the focus of 10 feature films to date (with the first made as early as 1922), countless TV shows, books, plays, poems, ballets, and even architecture. Yet, director Frauke Finsterwalder completely reinvents her, transforming the commonly perceived shut-in into a whirlwind force of freedom and empowerment. Telling the complicated story of the friendship between Sisi (Susanne Wolff) and Irma (Sandra Hller), Sisi & I is a thought-provoking, rebellious, and exciting adventure, exploring the later years of Sisi's life.

Told through the lens of Irma as she applies for a job as Sisi's Lady in Waiting, Sisi & I explores the complicated friendship between the pair.

Anatomy Of A Fall star Sandra Huller will appear opposite Ryan Gosling, in the soon to shoot Project Hail Mary.

It was revealed earlier this month that Ryan Gosling’s next film would be Project Hail Mary, an Amazon MGM-backed project that is set to begin shooting in London next month.

The talent behind this makes it a rather appealing project to follow, not least because it boasts a Drew Goddard script and the directing duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The film is also based on the novel by Andy Weir, whose novel The Martian was also adapted for the screen by Goddard. Then there’s the Gosling factor too, given that the actor’s popularity seems to be riding rather high at the moment.

If that wasn’t enough, it’s now been revealed that Sandra Hüller has joined the cast too.

Hüller’s last film,...

After the 96th Academy Awards honors were handed out on Sunday night, here’s a look at the next projects the Oscar nominees in the acting categories (supporting and lead) are planning to tackle:

Annette Bening

Nyad

The five-time Oscar nominee stars with Alison Brie and Sam Neill on Peacock series Apples Never Fall (March 14), an adaptation of a Liane Moriarty novel. Also this year, Bening stars in Poolman opposite Chris Pine in his feature directorial debut.

Emily Blunt

Oppenheimer

She stars opposite fellow Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling in David Leitch’s movie The Fall Guy, premiering at SXSW before Universal releases it May 3. Two weeks after that, Blunt can be heard voicing a unicorn in husband John Krasinski’s Paramount feature If.

Danielle Brooks

The Color Purple

The actress has been filming Jared Hess’ video game adaptation Minecraft with Jack Black, set for release from Warner Bros. in 2025. She...

Few actors have embodied the full range of modern German history on screen as has Christian Friedel.

In Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest — a dark horse candidate for the best picture Oscar this Sunday (where it is also nominated in four other categories, including best international feature), Friedel plays Rudolf Höss, the notorious commandant of Auschwitz who, together with his wife Hedwig (played by Sandra Hüller), built an idyllic villa with a pretty garden for their five children right next to the death camp.

But before Zone, the 45-year-old German actor was best known for playing famed anti-Nazi resistance fighter Georg Elser in 13 Minutes, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2015 drama about Elsner’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939, before World War II and before the Holocaust. In 2012’s Closed Season, Friedel plays a young Jewish refugee hiding from the Nazis. And in his film debut, in...

Munich-based The Playmaker has boarded Sandra Hüller starring comedy Two To One.

Directed by Natja Brunckhorst, Two To One is about a rebellious household who find millions of East German Marks in the turmoil of the currency union in 1990 - and take what they can carry. Hüller, who is Oscar-nominated for her role in Anatomy Of A Fall, stars alongside Max Riemelt (Sense8) and Ronald Zehrfeld (Phoenix).

Two To One is billed as a comedy with a strong social undercurrent about money, work and collective activism. It is the second film by writer-director Brunckhorst, who is also known as the...

There’s a striking dissonance between the serene and realistic surface of Daniel Hoesel and Julia Niemann’s Veni Vidi Vici and the way it bludgeons its points home using the exaggerated methods of social critiques common to such genre pieces as Snowpiercer or Infinity Pool. How effective this will be depends in part on the viewer. Some will appreciate this class satire’s grim portrait of a venal polo-playing billionaire class who explain away their amoral behavior with self-aggrandizing business-speak. Others may thrill to the dark comedy of a serial killer operating so in the open that he’s practically begging to be caught. Either way, the message of Hoesel’s screenplay is blunt: Everyone not at society’s pinnacle is only prey.

The film’s serial killer is Amon (Laurence Rupp), a chipper Austrian billionaire with a thing for picking off strangers with a sniper rifle. He pursues his targets carefully,...

One of my favorite categories of Reddit posts (don’t judge) are those where people who have worked for or near the super-rich share stories that people “wouldn’t believe.” From ordering private jets like they were pizza to hosting children’s parties where A-list performers sing to indifferent toddlers, these stories make it quite clear that the 1% lives on a planet most of us will never visit. “Pharaoh-level shit,” as one of my favorite Reddit reactions of all time said.

The craziest thing about Veni Vidi Vici, Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann’s pitch-black satire about a wealthy family with a predilection for human-hunting, is that it doesn’t seem that crazy.

The Ulrich Seidl-produced film opens with a quote from The Fountainhead, which can never mean a good thing unless we’re in store for a comedy. “The point is who will stop me”––a quote part...

Hailing from the country that gave us such grim social critics as Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, Vantablack Austrian satire “Veni Vidi Vici” opens with a senseless homicide. It’s a startling scene, no less upsetting than the Scorpio killing that kick-starts “Dirty Harry” — except that in this case, the incident is calibrated as the darkest sort of comedy. Rather than picking off an unsuspecting rooftop swimmer, the serial killer does his hunting out in the open, without shame or any pretense of covering his tracks.

The movie makes no mystery of the sniper’s identity, revealing it right from the jump, the way a “Columbo” episode might. And yet the authorities show zero interest in arresting the guilty party, even going so far as to toss an eyewitness out of the police station (that man winds up offing himself in exasperation). That’s because the person responsible, Amon Maynard (Laurence Rupp), is a millionaire,...

For those missing the billionaire voyeurism of “Succession,” Sundance film “Veni Vidi Vici” is poised to be a more sinister remedy.

Directed by Julia Niemann and Daniel Hoesl (and written by Hoesl), the film centers on the Maynard family, who live an “almost perfect” billionaire lifestyle, per the official synopsis. Patriarch Amon is a passionate hunter, but doesn’t shoot animals, as the family’s wealth allows them to live totally free from consequences, as the logline for the social satire dark comedy teases.

“Destructive strength is creative strength,” a character says in the trailer. “But don’t predatory cats belong in the wild?”

The hunt for whomever the dangerous hunter with no regard for human life is takes over a community, as all fingers seem to point to the elite family at the center of the drama. Yet the whodunit takes on another social issue: When the presumed wealthy “madman” killer is revealed,...

Three titles received €500,000.

Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is among 29 projects to receive a share of €8.1m in Eurimages’ latest round of co-production funding.

The new feature from Hungarian filmmaker Enyedi, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear for On Body And Soul in 2017, is a co-production between Germany, France and Hungary, and received €500,000 – the largest amount awarded in this round of funding. The film focuses on an ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens of the university town of Marburg to explore the relationship between man and nature.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Two more titles received €500,000: The Captive...

Recipients also include ‘Made In EU’ the new film by Bulgaria’s Stephan Komanderev.

Made In EU, the new film by award-winning Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komanderev, has received €220,000 from the Leipzig-based regional German fund Mdm in its latest round of awards.

Produced by Halle-based 42Film, which also produced Karlovy Vary winner Blaga’s Lessons, the film is based on real events that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria. A seamstress working in a clothing factory in a small town is at the centre of an online drama when she is labelled “patient zero” and accused of infecting her...

Doc is produced by German directing and producing duo behind ‘Intelligent Trees’

Documentary feature Intelligent Animals has been picked up for theatrical distribution in France and Germany.

Jupiter Films and Mindjazz Pictures have acquired the film for distribution in French and German-speaking territories respectively.

The film is produced and directed by Julia Dordel and Guido Tölke, whose credits include 2016 feature doc Intelligent Trees which had wide distribution in France through Jupiter Films.

Intelligent Animals highlights the cognitive abilities of non-human animals and scientific findings which show that they know friendship, have emotions, are much smarter than we give them credit for,...

Group is home to ’Empire Of Light’ producer Neal Street Productions and ’The Tourist’ producer Two Brothers.

All3Media, the UK’s largest production group, could be going up for sale for an estimated £1bn, nearly double the price paid by Liberty Media and Warner Bros Discovery seven years ago.

According to The Telegraph, the joint owners are seeking a buyer for All3, which owns top drama and film labels such as Empire Of Light and 1917 producer Neal Street Productions and The Tourist producer Two Brothers.

The paper reports that plans are at an “early stage”, but says Jp Morgan bankers...

Austrian filmmaker (and a supporting player on a slew of recent films) Markus Schleinzer is finally getting back into the director’s chair and he has managed to lasso the actress of the hour in 2023 Cannes Film Festival darling (for Palme d’Or and Grand Prix winning films) Sandra Hüller. Schleinzer and Hüller were recently seen in Frauke Finsterwalder’s Sisi & I. Screen Daily reports that The Match Factory is getting on board the new set during the 17th century project for what will be a 2024 summer shoot and the period piece will likely be gunning for a return trip to the Cannes competition where Schleinzer’s debut film Michael premiered in 2011.…...

Hüller’s character is inspired by numerous accounts of women disguised as men in European history.

The Match Factory has acquired international rights to Austrian writer and director Markus Schleinzer’s new film Rose, with Sandra Hüller cast in the lead role.

A 17th-century drama set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, the film sees Hüller play the titular Rose, an enigmatic soldier who surfaces in an isolated Protestant village, purporting to be the heir to a long-deserted estate. While attempting to integrate into the village society and pondering an arranged marriage with a local farmer’s daughter,...

Nearly 125 years after her assassination, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria — or Sisi to her enduring cultists — continues to inspire a veritable industry of portraiture in Europe: In the last year alone, a novel, two TV series (one of them a glossy Netflix affair) and two feature films have been dedicated to the tightly corseted royal icon. Viewers outside the Continental sphere of Sisi-mania may only have registered one of those films, Marie Kreutzer’s chic, subversive anti-biopic “Corsage,” which might make the second, German director Frauke Finsterwalder’s lush, irreverent “Sisi & I,” seem to them a too-soon spare — coincidentally repeating several tricks from Kreutzer’s anachronistic playbook with its modern feminist inflections, contemporary soundtrack cues and sensational fashions, albeit with plenty of its own panache.

That unfortunate timing, combined with the absence of a Vicky Krieps-style crossover arthouse star, may cost “Sisi & I” some distributor interest outside...

Row Pictures is the producer of Emily Atef’s Berlin competition title Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything.

Karsten Stöter’s Germany-based Row Pictures, the producer of Emily Atef’s Berlin competition title Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything, has unveiled a slate of features from Natja Brunckhorst, Markus Schleinzer and Eliza Petkova.

Brunckhorst’s second feature, Zwei zu Eins, is set to go into production this summer at locations in Central Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia. It will be co-produced by the Lübeck-based arm of zischlermann filmproduktion with backing from broadcasters Zdf and Arte as well as Mdm, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw and Bkm.

Markus Schleinzer’s second feature Angelo (review) has had a long life on the festival circuit, premiering in Toronto (Platform section 2018) and giving wide exposure to the real-life story of Angelo Soliman, who was transplanted as a child slave into the European courts of the 18th century, groomed and educated to serve as a status symbol for the wealthy Viennese of the era. Schleinzer, previously a casting director for Michael Haneke, turned to directing in 2011 with Michael, an icy look into the daily life of a pedophile kidnapper, which was well received in Cannes and one of the rare times a first film plays in competition.…...

Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Steven Spielberg, Kelly Reichardt, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Mia Hansen-Løve, Terence Davies, Jia Zhangke, Pedro Almodóvar, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Guillermo del Toro, Lee Chang-dong, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Christopher Nolan. Those are just a few of the filmmakers who brought their early work to New Directors/New Films. Now in its 48th edition, the New York City-based film festival continues to spotlight emerging directors representing the future of filmmaking and this year’s edition is particularly eclectic.

We’ve covered all twenty-four of the features playing at the festival, taking place March 27 through April 7 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Along with gems hailing from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Rotterdam, Tiff, Sundance, and beyond, the festival also features one world premiere (End of the Century) as well as two shorts programs.

Check out our comprehensive coverage below along with links to full reviews.

There is no question that white people are and have historically been capable of racism. The value of Angelo resides in its ability to convey those prejudices that are generally ignored or made invisible within the film medium and the art industry as a whole. Director Markus Schleinzer depicts the true story of Angelo Soliman, a kidnapped African child—sold into the 18th century Austrian upper-class as the surrogate son/ pet of a grieving Countess—who futilely becomes a part of upper-class society but not quite an equal member as a “royal moor,” performing for the enjoyment of his court. With a dry sense of humor Schleinzer—who notably worked as Michael Haneke’s casting director—expands on the direct sort of racism generally understood by arthouse audiences by further identifying the unethical ways which art has flourished under that colonial moralist framework which congratulated white aristocrats for their perceived...

An acting coach, casting director and performer himself, Markus Schleinzer has been a fixture of the Austrian film industry for over two decades. In 2011, he became an internationally renowned director in his own right once his feature debut “Michael,” about a pedophile who holds a child captive, premiered in Competition in Cannes.

Now he’s back on the festival circuit with his long-awaited follow-up, “Angelo,” which played in competition at San Sebastian and at Toronto. Loosely inspired by an enigmatic historical figure, the incendiary film follows an African boy sold to a 17th-century countess and raised as a curio in the Viennese court.

On hand this week to present the film at the Marrakech Film Festival, the well-connected director spoke to Variety about his work and career, including his next project, and about some of the idiosyncrasies of the Austrian film scene.

Could you tell us about the project you’re developing?...

As part of the Marrakech Intl. Film Festival’s reinvention for its 17th edition, artistic director Christoph Terhechte and his programming team created a section to challenge the cinematic representations of countries usually seen only through the lens of stereotypes. Looking for yet another dose of Latin American poverty porn? On the hunt for the umpteenth story about an Arab suicide bomber, or the latest titillating white slavery drama? Then the 11th Continent is not your destination, as the films in this section counter the kind of superficial socially aware programming that reinforce one-dimensional Western notions of first- and third-world nationhood.

The section opens at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent with a presentation of archival films from the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, collectively titled “Views from Morocco and the Ottoman Empire.” Dating between 1902 and 1927, this compilation (curated by this writer) is part of a continuing project designed to discover the...

In an unexpected trajectory (along the lines of a Lance Hammer or Markus Schleinzer), with close to two decades of production and locations department gigs that include Jean-Marc Vallee’s Demolition, Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls and Julie Delpy’s Two Days in New York, Jeff Brown should be debuting his feature film debut sometime in 2019. His passion sci-fi/horror project The Beach House is an off the radar offering that found a great trio of indie producers in Sophia Lin, Andrew D. Corkin and Tyler Davidson and recently surfaced at the Ifp’s No Borders program. No details on the players.…...

Markus Schleinzer is a filmmaker who knows how to wait for a payoff: Take the dry in-joke, for example, of waiting seven years to follow his 2011 debut “Michael” with a film called “Angelo.” His tartly brilliant second feature is awash with slow-building irony, though as with his first, there’s precious little mirth in its devastating kicker. An interpretive biopic of Angelo Soliman — an African man kidnapped into slavery as a child, who subsequently rose and fell through the ranks of 18th-century Viennese high society — Schleinzer’s film takes a chillingly but aptly clinical view of a life treated as an amusing human experiment by all but the man living it. Behavior is painstakingly observed and notes are extensively taken, before “Angelo” tersely delivers its own findings on the toxicity of the culture that colonized its title character.

Lest the “Michael”/”Angelo” segue lead viewers to expect a clear partner piece to Schleinzer’s debut,...

With its 66th edition running Sept. 21-29, San Sebastian is the highest-profile festival in the Spanish-speaking world. Here are 10 things to watch for at this year’s installment.

Pursuing Parity

Could the tide be turning? Following Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo and Venice, of European events, San Sebastian will sign a gender-parity charter at this year’s event. More eye-catching, San Sebastian joins a growing bevy of events — Venice Days and Mexico’s Morelia, for example — in having at least one major section with more titles directed by women than men. In San Sebastian’s case, it is the 2018 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum. That makes sense: Screening finished films, festivals depend on women’s movies getting made, and highlighting projects can further that goal. “We support ways for more women’s films to get made,” says San Sebastian director José Luis Rebordinos.

Stars

Danny DeVito, Judi Dench and Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose “Shoplifters...

The market at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival wasn’t sleepy, as some of the hottest sales titles found eager buyers over the course of the 10-day gathering: from Focus Features buying the campy Neil Jordan-Isabelle Huppert team-up “Greta” to Neon picking up Brady Corbet’s wild Natalie Portman pop star saga “Vox Lux” and A24 nabbing Clarie Denis’ space opera “High Life,” plenty of Tiff breakouts found homes. Nevertheless, Tiff features a massive lineup and many strong movies failed to close deals before the festival concluded. Here are some of the highlights that still need homes.

“Angelo”

Markus Schleinzer follows up his daring character study “Michael,” which focused on the experiences of a young child kidnapped by a pedophile, with another disturbing look at a boy kidnapped and forced to participate in a lifestyle beyond his control. This time, the setting is 18th century Vienna,...

AngeloLuis Ortega’s El Angel (2018), an Argentinian biopic of 70s pretty-boy serial killer Carlos Puch, establishes its baseline tone in its first scene, in which Puch (Lorenzo Ferro) plays an LP in a house he has broken into, and Ortega amplifies the song Reservoir Dogs-style as Puch dances under the credits. The film sticks with this energetic, amoral agenda, and manages it pretty well from a craft perspective; along the way it shows a fair amount of intelligence and psychological insight that sometimes coexists awkwardly with its wish to entertain. Puch hooks up with a family of thieves that includes his classmate Ramon and enjoys his introduction to firearms so much that the family is unwittingly dragged along with him into the world of homicide. Puch tends to shoot when surprised or irritated, and afterwards isn’t overly sensitive to consequences: the character retains an odd innocence for a psychopath.

Paris-based outfit keen to board projects at earlier stage.

Playtime has partnered with Canada’s Elevation Pictures, Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm on Atom Egoyan’s Guest Of Honour, the second English-language project involving the Paris company to be announced out of Tiff.

Days after Playtime revealed it was remaking with Animal Kingdom the Austrian genre hit Goodnight Mommy, co-founder Nicolas Brigaud-Robert said Egoyan was preparing for a November production start in Ontario on his new “twisted morality tale”.

The Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Sweet Hereafter wrote the script about the relationship between a man and his imprisoned twentysomething daughter,...

Atom Egoyan, the Oscar-nominated Canadian director, is set to direct “Guest of Honour,” a twisted psychological drama which will be produced by Playtime, Elevation Pictures, Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm.

Based on an original script by Egoyan, “Guest of Honour” explores the relationship between a father and his 20-something year old daughter who wants to remain in jail for a sexual assault she knows she’s been wrongfully indicted for. Father and daughter find themselves acting out of the bounds of good behavior as the past haunts them.

“I’m particularly excited and passionate about this script,” said Egoyan, adding that he was thrilled to be working with partners Playtime and Elevation Pictures, who have clarity and understand my vision for the film and are very well positioned to help me share this film with audiences around the world.”

The movie marks Egoyan’s follow up to “Remember,...

Seven of 12 titles have taken their spot on the grid.

Three new films have achieved mid-range scores on Screen’s Toronto Platform jury grid, with Emir Baigazin’s The River, the first title to land, still leading the way.

With one score to come, Tim Sutton’s Donnybrook reached a 2.4 score, with three twos (‘average’) added to two threes (‘good’) from Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York and Screen’s own critic.

Sutton’s film stars Jamie Bell and Frank Grillo as an ex-marine and drug dealer respectively, who compete in legendary bare-knuckle boxing competition Donnybrook for a cash prize they both desperately need.

The Moor the Merrier: Schleinzer Returns with Incendiary Portrait of Indentured Servitude

Austrian director Markus Schleinzer returns with his long-awaited sophomore film Angelo, a follow-up to his controversial 2011 debut Michael, which documented five months in the life of a pedophile who kept a ten-year-old boy captive (which plays exactly like the sadistic Euro version of Room its description sounds like). Still most revered as a casting director on several prominent Michael Haneke features (The Piano Teacher; Time of the Wolf; The White Ribbon), his latest plays like the second chapter of what could potentially be a troubling trilogy on child enslavement, the prominent theme at the center of his latest effort.…...

Production start anticipated in third quarter 2019.

Paris-based Playtime and Animal Kingdom from New York have begun to package the English-language remake of Goodnight Mommy, the art house horror that was selected as Austria’s Oscar submission in 2015.

Filming is anticipated to begin in the third quarter of 2019 and Matt Sobel (Take Me To The River) is attached to direct the story of twins who arrive at their mother’s house to find her face covered in bandages.

When she tells them her appearance is due to cosmetic surgery, Lukas delights in their mother’s uncharacteristically lax house rules. However Elias...

Playtime and Animal Kingdom have joined forces to package the English-language remake of “Goodnight Mommy,” the critically acclaimed Austrian psychological thriller.

Matt Sobel, who made his feature debut with the Sundance playing drama “Take Me To The River,” has been attached to direct “Goodnight Mommy” and is overseeing a draft written by Kyle Warren, based on their shared take on the original film.

David Kaplan, whose credits include “It Follows” and “It Comes at Night,” is on board to produce “Goodnight Mommy” on behalf of Animal Kingdom, alongside Nicolas Brigaud-Robert and Valery Guibal from Playtime, the Paris-based co-production/sales banner behind the Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” and “Bpm.”

Expected to start shooting in the third quarter of 2019, “Goodnight Mommy” centers on Elias and his twin brother Lukas who arrive at their mother’s house to find her face covered in bandages. The result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery. Lukas...

Brillante Mendoza’s “Alpha, the Right to Kill,” Felix Van Groeningen’s Brad Pitt-produced “Beautiful Boy,” Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man” and Peter Strickland’s “In Fabric” will compete for San Sebastian’s Golden Seashell, the Basque festival announced Friday.

Further new main competition titles unveiled take in Liu Jie’s “Baby” and Tuva Novotny’s debut “Blind Spot.”

The six titles join 12 already-announced competition contenders. San Sebastian has yet to unveil its closing film.

Festival’s official selection – which takes in competition and out-of-competition titles – opens Sept. 21 with Ricardo Darín and Mercedes Morán-starrer “An Unexpected Love.” Playing in competition, the film represents the directorial debut by Juan Vera, Argentine producer of titles by Pablo Trapero and Lucrecia Martel.

Felix Van Groeningen won the Panorama audience award at the 2013 Berlinale with “Alabama Monroe,” Oscar-nominated for best foreign language film. In “Beautiful Boy,” his English language debut, toplining Steve Carell and Timothée Chamalet,...

The San Sebastian Film Festival on Friday added six titles, including Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy and Tuva Novotny’s debut Blind Spot, to the list of candidates for the top prize in its competition lineup.

Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man, Liu Jie’s Baby, Brillante Mendoza’s Alpha, the Right to Kill, and Peter Strickland’s In Fabric also join the competition.

Previously announced films in the program include the latest works from Iciar Bollain, Claire Denis, Simon Jaquemet, Kim Jee-woon, Naomi Kawase, Isaki Lacuesta, Benjamin Naishtat, Valeria Sarmiento, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Markus Schleinzer, Juan Vera and Carlos Vermut ...

The San Sebastian Film Festival on Friday added six titles, including Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy and Tuva Novotny’s debut Blind Spot, to the list of candidates for the top prize in its competition lineup.

Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man, Liu Jie’s Baby, Brillante Mendoza’s Alpha, the Right to Kill, and Peter Strickland’s In Fabric also join the competition.

Previously announced films in the program include the latest works from Iciar Bollain, Claire Denis, Simon Jaquemet, Kim Jee-woon, Naomi Kawase, Isaki Lacuesta, Benjamin Naishtat, Valeria Sarmiento, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Markus Schleinzer, Juan Vera and Carlos Vermut ...

Nicole Kidman’s police thriller “Destroyer” and Elisabeth Moss’ rock and roll drama “Her Smell” have been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival’s platform section.

A dozen titles were unveiled on Wednesday for the festival’s only juried competition, with its focus on movies championing “risk-taking.” The platform section, now in its fourth year, was the launching pad for best picture Oscar winner “Moonlight,” “Jackie,” and “The Death of Stalin.”

“This year’s Platform selection stands out for the assured and precise directing on display,” said Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling. “We are thrilled to present a slate that perfectly embodies the essence of the program with so many risk-taking, challenging, and, at times, formally inventive titles that are the result of audacious directors making bold choices.”

“Destroyer” is directed by Karyn Kusama. Annapurna will handle the U.S. release, but has not yet dated the launch.

The Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform program has announced the fourth edition of Platform, a director-driven section that aims to showcase original names in international cinema. This year, Platform will play home to a dozen feature films, including new features from Karyn Kusama (her star-studded cult drama “Destroyer” is her first film since “The Invitation”), Alex Ross Perry (again teaming with his “Queen of Earth” star Elisabeth Moss for the rock drama “Her Smell”), and Tim Sutton’s “Dark Night” followup.

This year’s Platform lineup also includes four features (30%) directed or co-directed by women, and seven titles that feature strong women in leading roles. The wide-ranging slate features films from the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and all but two of the titles will be making their World Premiere at the festival.

“This year’s Platform selection stands out for the assured and precise directing on display,” said Tiff...

The Platform section of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival will include adventurous films starring Nicole Kidman, Elisabeth Moss, Frank Grillo and Patricia Clarkson, Tiff organizers announced on Wednesday.

Films in the section will include Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell,” with Moss and Amber Heard; Carol Morley’s Martin Amis adaptation “Out of Blue,” with Patricia Clarkson and Toby Jones; and Emmanuel Mouret’s period piece “Mademoiselle de Joncquières,” starring Cecile de France.

Tim Sutton’s “Donnybrook,” which stars Frank Grillo and James Badge Dale in the story of a down-on-his-luck veteran who gets involved in brutal bare-knuckle boxing, will serve as the opening-night film for Platform, while Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s “Jessica Forever,” a directorial debut, will close it.

Also Read: 'Beautiful Boy,' 'A Star Is Born' Highlight Toronto Film Festival Lineup

All of the films except Emir Baigazin’s “The River” and Karyn Kusama’s “Destroyer,...

Jessica Forever from debut filmmakers Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel will close the section.

The bare-knuckle fighting drama Donnybrook starring Jamie Bell and Frank Grillo will open 2018 Toronto International Film Festival’s (Tiff) Platform, while Jessica Forever from debutants Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel will close the section.

The 12 films in the festival’s fourth annual juried programme include new work from Karyn Kusama, Alex Ross Perry, Ho Wi Ding, Alejandra Márquez Abella and Carol Morley.

The line-up includes four features directed or co-directed by women, while seven feature strong female lead roles. The roster includes what Tiff director and...

Films from Valeria Sarmiento, Benjamín Naishtat, Markus Schleinzer and Simon Jaquemet also selected.

The first films to compete for the Golden Shell at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) have been announced.

They include Claire Denis’ English-language sci-fi title High Life, which stars Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin and Robert Pattinson, Naomi Kawase’s Vision, which also stars Binoche alongside Masatoshi Nagase, and South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s Illang: The Wolf Brigade , a remake of anime Jin-Roh from Ghost In The Shell writer Mamoru Oshii. Kim’s I Saw The Devil competed at the festival in 2010.

Chilean director Valeria...

Robert Pattinson in Claire Denis' High Life Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival San Sebastian Film Festival has announced the first seven of its Competition titles for this year's festival - including Claire Denis' High Life, Kim Jee-Woon's Illang: The Wolf Brigade and Naomi Kawase's Vision.

Veteran Valeria Sarmiento will also compete for the Golden Shell with The Black Book, alongside Benjamin Naishtat's third feature Rojo, Markus Schleinzer's second film Angelo and The Innocent by Simon Jaquemet.

Sci-fi tale High Life marks Denis' English language debut, and stars Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche. Kim's film is also science-fiction - a live-action remake of anime Jin-Roh, set in a future Korea. Sarmiento's drama, meanwhile, steps back in time for the turbulence of the late 18th century to tell the story of an orphan and his Italian nurse. Binoche doubles her chances of Silver Shell winning with a role in Kawase's Vision,...

Madrid — Claire Denis’ “High Life,” Kim Jee-woon’s “Illang: the Wolf Brigade” and Naomi Kawase’s “Vision” feature among the first seven titles competing for the San Sebastian Festival’s top Golden Shell.

Also making the main competition cut, confirmed on Friday by San Sebastian, are Valeria Sarmiento’s “The Black Book” and three directors on many critics’ to-track lists: Austria’s Markus Schleinzer, Argentina’s Benjamín Naishtat and Switzerland’s Simon Jaquemet.

Around 10 competition contenders remain to be announced, including the big Spanish titles which often take major prizes. For the moment, however, many of the first titles paint the picture, sometimes via genre, of a world shook to its foundations by highly convulsive or dramatic times. Whether the tremors of the French Revolution (“The Black Book”), a rioting future Korea facing reunification, relationships, highly human characters or even humanity is threatened, by the build of covert police violence...

The film is a remake of Italian hit Perfect Strangers, and stars Bérénice Béjo, Suzanne Clément and Roschdy Zem.

French sales company Playtime has acquired international rights to Fred Cavayé’s dinner party-set comedy Nothing To Hide, on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival and Marché du Film next week.

A remake of Paolo Genovese’s Italian hit Perfect Strangers (Perfetti Sconosciuti) which grossed more than $22m at the box office and became a major talking point in Italy, its starry French cast features Bérénice Béjo, Suzanne Clément, Roschdy Zem and Vincent Elbaz.

The picture, entitled Le Jeu in French,...

Angelo

Austrian director Markus Schleinzer broke into the main competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival with his provocative 2011 debut, Michael (which plays like the hopelessly austere version of Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, 2015) and understandably took a bit of time to mount his next project.

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