Berlin Fresh Faces: ‘Last Swim’ Star Solly McLeod

EXCLUSIVE: Last month, when Brandt Andersen’s debut feature film The Strangers’ Case won the Amnesty International Film Award at Berlinale, it marked the recognition of a long and impassioned journey for the writer, director and long-time producer as he sought to marry film with his extensive activism background. 

Viggo Mortensen really puts the word multi-hyphenate to good use for his second directorial effort The Dead Don’t Hurt as he also wrote, co-stars in and composes the music for this distinctive Western film, which played at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this week after world premiering to critical acclaim at the Toronto Film Festival last year. 

Avatar: The Last Airbender strikes again.

Viggo Mortensen, the star of Lord Of The Rings, showed his support for Ukraine at the Glasgow Film Festival. He wore the Ukrainian trident symbol, their national emblem, on his shirt as he walked the red carpet.

A high-politicized edition of the Berlin Film Festival ended Saturday, but divisions surrounding political messaging during the festival appear to be ongoing. 

Alex Ritman “La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that recently bowed in competition at the Berlinale, has been acquired for most international territories. HanWay Films has closed sales for France (Originals Factory), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Spain (Avalon), Italy (Teodora Film), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Scandinavia (Mis.

Who

Last weekend, Pedro Pascal won the fan vote to take the Male TV Star of the Year trophy at the People’s Choice Awards for his role as Joel in HBO’s The Last Of Us. Six days later, he won the vote of his peers to land the SAG Award for Male Actor In a Drama Series, his first major industry recognition.

With his debut feature Last Swim, an ambitious and quietly radical portrait of young life in London, Sasha Nathwani has achieved one of the most difficult tasks for a new filmmaker: cutting through with a festival audience. 

Martin Scorsese was at the Berlinale this week for the first time in a decade. His presence to collect an honorary Golden Bear was a reminder of the festival’s glories of yesteryear.

Naman Ramachandran A key audience participation segment of the London West End adaptation of Henrik Ibsen‘s 1882 play “An Enemy of the People” left people in tears, star Matt Smith told the BBC. In “An Enemy of the People,” when Dr. Stockmann (Smith) makes an unbelievable discovery about the healing waters in his local baths, he holds the future of the town in his hands, but those with everything to lose refuse to accept his word.

The Money Heist prequel series Berlin has been renewed for a second season!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Berlin Film Festival hosted the 10 young European actors selected for the Shooting Stars program, run by European Film Promotion, at a gala event Monday. The presentation of the Shooting Stars took place prior to the screening of Claire Burger’s “Langue Étrangère,” which plays in competition.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, has debuted its trailer (below). The film, directed by Andreas Dresen, centers on a group of young anti-Nazi activists in Berlin during World War II. (Read Variety‘s review here.) The film, which is being sold by Beta Cinema and is produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel for Pandora Film, stars “Babylon Berlin” breakout Liv Lisa Fries and Johannes Hegemann.

Christopher Vourlias Following on the heels of his Oscar-shortlisted “Refugee,” veteran U.S. producer Brandt Andersen (“Everest,” “Lone Survivor”) makes his feature directorial debut with “The Strangers’ Case,” a kaleidoscopic and deeply felt portrait of the refugee crisis that world premieres Feb. 23 as a Berlinale Special Gala.

The first-ever edition of AfroBerlin put Africa in the spotlight at the Berlin Film Festival and in one key session asked how festivals, streamers, and the wider industry can — and should — support films and filmmakers from the continent.

Alex Ritman WestEnd Film has boarded “Mariana’s Room,” the adaptation of Aharon Appelfeld’s prize-winning 2006 novel “Blooms of Darkness,” for worldwide sales. The film — which is now in post-production — comes from writer-director Emmanuel Finkiel (“A Decent Man,” “Voyages”) who reunited with his Cesar-winning “Memoir of War” star Mélanie Thierry (“The Zero Theorem’).

Chris Brown is speaking out about his status in Hollywood after being kicked off a team in the NBA All-Star Game.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) star as lovers caught in an unusual bind in Italian director Piero Messina’s unconventional sci-fi film “Another End,” which is competing in Berlin. Set in a near-future when a new technology exists that can put the consciousness of a dead person back into a living body in an attempt to ease the grief of separation, the English-language film sees Bernal play Sal, a man who loses his wife. Reinsve plays Zoe, the woman who rents her body for the implantation of Bernal’s wife’s consciousness.

Labyrinthine corridors connect the sprawling worlds within The Grill, a traditional eatery by the hustle and bustle of Times Square in “La Cocina.” Open one door, and you are in the kitchen, a boiler room of rage and frustration tamed only by the often frail bonds of camaraderie; turn a corner, and you’re spat straight onto the busy restaurant floor, where waitresses in matching outfits move like a ballet between tables occupied with birthday boys and men as foreign to politeness as hawks are to the sea.