‘From Hilde, With Love’: Liv Lisa Fries Talks Powerful And Timely Berlinale Competition Entry About Nazi Resistance Heroine; Watch First Footage

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Following its world premiere in the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival, Beta Cinema has revealed first sales across Europe and to Australia and New Zealand for Andreas Dresen’s “From Hilde, With Love.” The drama about anti-Nazi activists in Berlin, which is led by “Babylon Berlin’s” Liv Lisa Fries and introduces Johannes Hegemann in his first big screen appearance, will be released in France by Haut et Court, in Italy by Teodora and throughout Scandinavia by Angel Films. Beta Cinema also closed deals for Benelux (September Film), Portugal (Outsider), former Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Cirko) and Czech Republic (Film Europe). Palace Film picked up the film for Australia and New Zealand.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner‘s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky‘s documentary “Architecton.” “Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. Variety‘s review describes the film as “a profoundly affecting exploration of life and loss.” The Match Factory closed deals for the film in France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media), Poland (Aurora), CIS (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (MCF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film) and South Korea (Pancinema).

Don’t get too hot and bothered over the title of the new Norwegian film Sex. The act itself in this first entry in a new trilogy from writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud is really only just talked about in this intriguing movie mostly dependent on leaning into its main characters’ words and descriptions, not a whole lot of visual information. Winner of the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European Film in the Panorama section of the current Berlin Film Festival, where it had its world premiere this week, Haugerud has announced this as this first of three films — Sex, Dreams, and then Love — featuring the same cast and dealing overall with themes of desire, identity and freedom, not to mention sexuality and the place of gender in our lives and society. This first stand-alone film also leans heavily into masculinity in ways it is not normally discussed by guys, but they do here in profound ways in this thought-provoking movie that also puts a spotlight on Norway’s signature city, Oslo.

Imagine a movie akin to a sad David Bowie song about an astronaut drifting alone into the dark abyss of space, contemplating his life, his lost love, his past, and an uncertain, perhaps soon-to-be-shortly doomed future. Sing the wistfully estranged and reflective “Space Odyssey” tune and the lamenting iconic line, “Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows!” That’s Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck’s “Spaceman” in a nutshell, which makes for possibly the weirdest, most existentially lonely movie Adam Sandler has ever starred in.

Carey Mulligan and Adam Sandler are hitting the red carpet at the 2024 Berlinale International Film Festival.

For a time, it seemed like an auteur war was about to break out over Adam Sandler, with some of America’s most revered directors vying to find the right role for the comedian. It was rumored, but never confirmed, that Quentin Tarantino imagined him a key role while writing Inglourious Basterds, although this might have been wishful thinking from critics who saw the talented Sandler heading in the same direction as John Travolta until Pulp Fiction saved him from a lifetime of Look Who’s Talking movies. In the end, Paul Thomas Anderson got there first, with Punch Drunk Love (2002), although the glow of a bona fide arthouse hit didn’t last long, and Jack and Jill still happened less than ten years later.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its world premiere today at the Berlin Film Festival, Cohen Media Group has secured all North American distribution rights to Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger.

Olivia Rodrigo is celebrating her 21st birthday! The singer and musician celebrated the milestone alongside her closest friends, including fellow musicians and actors like Tate McRae, Iris Apatow, Conan Gray, the Kid Laroi, and more. Jenna Ortega and Olivia Rodrigo Disney days: Remembering their featuring song ‘Legendary’Olivia Rodrigo and Louis Partridge confirm relationship with a passionate kissA post shared by Olivia Rodrigo (@oliviarodrigo)Rodrigo shared a post showing her celebrating the occasion in a black dress with a plunging neckline. She accesorized the look with some jewelry, red lipstick, and with her hair pinned up.

Naman Ramachandran Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £6.9 million ($8.7 million), according to numbers from Comscore. Universal’s animation “Migration” dropped a spot to second place with £2.7 million in its third weekend and now has a total of £13.5 million.

Russian Pussy Riot Dissident Nadya Tolokonnikova has welcomed a pledge by Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya to carry on his fight for democracy, following his death in an Arctic penal colony last week.

Mubi has snapped up rights across multiple territories on Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger, the Martin Scorsese-narrated doc set to debut this week at the Berlin Film Festival. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has had a busy EFM, where it’s locked a raft of major deals on “The Devil’s Bath,” a period psychological thriller in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. “The Devil’s Bath” is directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian filmmaking duo behind “Goodnight Mommy.” Set in rural Austria in 1750, “The Devil’s Bath” stars Anja Plaschg, the up-and-coming singer and composer known as Soap & Skin. Plaschg plays Agnes, a young married woman who feels oppressed in her husband’s world, which is devoid of emotions and limited to chores and expectations.

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.

Alex Ritman It’s been five years since “Chernobyl,” HBO’s phenomenally successful miniseries about the catastrophic 1986 disaster and a show that garnered both widespread acclaim and a whole host of Emmys, Golden Globes and BAFTA TV awards. Its creator Craig Mazin has since brought us zombies galore in the video game adaptation “The Last of Us,” but now “Chernobyl’s” BAFTA and Emmy-winning director Johan Renck is about to unleash his next project.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor When Laila Stieler’s script for “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, first came to director Andreas Dresen he was a little reluctant to take the project on. The issue was not the script but the subject-matter: set in Nazi-era Berlin, “From Hilde, With Love” is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi. More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis.

Catherine Bray Two years after their Berlinale prizewinner “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush,” veteran German director Andreas Dresen and his regular screenwriter Laila Stieler reteam for the moving drama “From Hilde, With Love.” Drawing on the compelling real-life case of the Hilde and Hans Coppi, a young married couple arrested and executed for treason by the Gestapo in wartime Berlin, the film cross-cuts between an idyllic summer romance and much darker later events.

Filmmaker Andreas Dresen and actress Liv Lisa Fries took part morning in the press conference for new drama From Hilde, With Love, which debuts this weekend in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Film Mode Entertainment has locked a series of deals on Blue Light, the latest feature from American filmmaker Andy Fickman (Race to Witch Mountain, Parental Guidance, The Game Plan, and She’s The Man). 

Jaka Bizilj, the founder of the Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation which organized the airlift from Russia of opposition activist Alexei Navalny after his poisoning in 2020, has responded to his sudden death in an Arctic Circle jail on Friday.

Berlinale, which looks to be one of the most politically charged editions in recent history. Several filmmakers have already canceled their participation to the festival in protest of Germany’s attitude towards Palestinian voices, while more than 50 Berlinale workers have signed an open letter this week demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and asking that the festival leadership take a “stronger institutional stance” on what the statement calls “the current assault on Palestinian life” and calling on the festival to take a stance that is “consistent with those taken in response to other events that have struck the international community in recent years.” The war in Gaza followed Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct.