Berlin Generation Buzz Title ‘The Fam’ Secured by Latido Films (EXCLUSIVE)

International buyers have jumped on Maria Schrader's I'm Your Man, and the Daniel Brühl-directed Next Door, both of which premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival last week.

It’s 1943. A particularly cruel winter has swept through the occupied Soviet Union.

EXCLUSIVE: Indie stalwart Cassian Elwes is making a move into management via his Elevated banner, kicking off with signing Best Sellers director Lina Roessler, whose debut feature starring Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza screened in the Berlin Film Festival’s Special Gala section this week. It’s the first time the film producer and former co-head of William Morris Independent has moved into the management space.

Laetitia Eido, the French actress known to fans of Netflix's Israeli drama Fauda as Dr. Shirin El Abed, has signed on to co-star in Nhiem, a new high-end television series set during the Vietnam War from New Zealand director Roger Donaldson (The World's Fastest Indian) and German production group Carte Blanche International.

La Mif (The Fam), a coming-of-age drama from Swiss director Fred Bailif, has won the top prize for best film in the Generation 14Plus sidebar of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. Bailif'sfictional look inside a residential care facility housing teenage girls "pulls you in, never lets you go, and hits straight to the heart," according to the Generation jury.

Manori Ravindran International EditorParis-based Totem Films has scored a raft of international sales on Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry, “Ballad of a White Cow.”“Ballad of a White Cow,” as sales agent Totem notes, is the story of a woman’s struggle for justice, recognition and independence in today’s Tehran.

The first thing to understand about the social dynamics in Mexico around police is that they differ greatly from how the public in the United States relates to law enforcement officers. Stateside, both the uncritical reverence some feel toward them—namely the Blue Lives Matter crowd—and the terror they incite among BIPOC communities emanate from their violent efficaciousness and status as inflexible figures reveling in a lack of accountability.

As industry guests enjoy the Berlinale from home this year, eagle-eyed viewers will take pleasure in spotting a familiar location in the latest film from South Korean auteur and festival-regular Hong Sang-soo. If we can’t stroll around Potsdamer Platz this year, at least the characters in “Introduction“ can share a moment there.

The Berlin International Film Festival has crowned winners from its youth-focused Generation and Shorts programs. In Generation Kplus, the Grand Prix for Best Film went to Han Shuai’s Summer Blur, with a special mention for Betania Cappato’s A School in Cerro Hueso.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent“The Fam” (“La Mif”), Swiss filmmaker Fred Baillif’s bruising, raw portrait of the residents and staff of a Geneva, Switzerland, teen girl care home, has won the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus Grand Prix “Like a rushing, energetic, pulsing heartbeat, this film pushes its characters and viewers in brutal honesty through different stories and incidents.

There is an unavoidable distance in life between ourselves and those who came before. Parents, grandparents; no matter how open and honest they are with their children or younger relatives, there is a sense that their pasts remain partial enigmas.

With much of the world having experienced the longest year in living memory since last February, only hardened film history buffs may recall the 2020 Berlinale, the last major festival and market to take place physically before the COVID-19 pandemic led to global cinemas began shutting their doors and considering some unfortunate existential questions.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Natural Light,” a portrait of the attrition and atrocity of war set at a benighted village in occupied Western Soviet Union in 1943, has clinched its first sales as Paris-based Luxbox rolls out the Berlin Competition player at the European Film Market.Nour Films, whose past pickups include Berlin Golden Bear winner “Touch Me Not,” has closed rights to France.Nour will open “Natural Light” “with great conviction and pleasure” on at least 60 prints

True Blood's Stephen Moyer and Golden Globe nominee Colm Meaney (Con Air, Gangs of London) exchange bloody vows in this exclusive first-look image from upcoming thriller Confession, which Signature Entertainment are shopping worldwide at the European Film Market.

The Berlin International Film Festival is standing by its 2021 premiere Black Bach Artsakh, which debuts in the Forum Expanded program during this month’s virtual event, after the film’s synopsis provoked an online backlash.

Jamie Lang A year after featuring as the European Film Market’s focus country, Chile returns with a delegate of more than 20 producers who will participate in a virtual stand, backed by ProChile and the Ministry of Culture.Bastard.

Mel Gibson features in this first-look still from Panama, the upcoming thriller from action specialist Mark Neveldine that also stars Cole Hauser. Gibson plays Stark, a former commander who sends James Becker, a rugged and decorated ex-marine (Hauser), undercover to execute a high-value deal with untrustworthy adversaries.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBy any terms, Berlin’s 2021 European Film Market will deliver its smallest pre-sales market in years.

Christopher Vourlias Silver Bear winner Radu Jude (“Aferim!”) returns to the Berlin Film Festival this year with the competition feature “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” the story of a schoolteacher whose life is turned upside-down after a sex video shot with her husband is leaked on the internet.

EXCLUSIVE: AGC Studios is fully financing Panopticon, an Andres Baiz-directed thriller that will star Shailene Woodley, Anthony Mackie and Jacob Latimore. Scott Free and AGC are producing, and the script will be sent to buyers overnight for virtual Berlin, with AGC International and CAA Media Finance launching worldwide sales. Pic will shoot in New Mexico this summer.