News

UFA Hires ‘September 5’ Exec Producer Christoph Müller

Fremantle’s German production house UFA has hired Constantin Film’s Christoph Müller for its cinema division. The producer, who is an exec producer on the Golden Globe-nominated September 5, joins from Constantin Film and will begin at UFA Fiction on February 1, 2025. He also is known for productions including the Oscar-nomnated Sophie Scholl, box office hit Er Ist Wieder Da and Elyas M’Barek and Sönke Wortmann’s films Contra and Der Nachname. “We want to open up new business areas and continue to expand on already successful ones,” said Sascha Schwingel, CEO of UFA. “I am therefore very pleased that we are now strengthening our team with Christoph Müller, who is a renowned producer of cinema productions that delight audiences and critics alike. With him on the team, we will significantly increase the rate of our successful cinema productions.” Sebastian Werninger, Managing Director of UFA Fiction,...

Picture Tree Intl. has boarded international sales for Constantin Film’s comedy fantasy blockbuster “Chantal and the Magic Kingdom,” which will receive its market premiere in Cannes.

The film has been No. 1 on Germany’s box office charts for four consecutive weeks since its release on March 28, and reached more than 2 million admissions, with a gross of $22.5 million.

“Chantal” is the latest German-language hit from writer-director Bora Dagtekin and producer Lena Schömann. The duo previously delivered “Turkish for Beginners,” the “Fuck You Goehte” franchise and the German remake of “Perfect Strangers,” which have collectively grossed more than $300 million worldwide.

In “Chantal,” the beloved “Fuck You Goehte” character Chantal and her best friend Zeynep are sent on a fantasy adventure into the world of fairytales with a comedic and contemporary twist.

Chantal, an influencer without followers, and Zeynep stumble into the fairytale world through an ancient magic mirror, which they mistake for a social media gimmick.

Exclusive: Chantal in Fairyland (Chantal im Märchenland) is off to a fantastic start at the German box office. A spinoff of the hugely successful Fack Ju Göhte comedies, the Constantin Film title banked the best Easter holiday launch day ever for a local movie and the best opening day of the year for all films, teeing it up for a strong debut session.

Thursday amassed 160K admissions ($1.73M) and took a 43% share of the market. The result is 40% higher than the launch day of Barbie. Including Wednesday previews, Chantal has grossed $2.8M through Thursday. Factoring in yesterday’s previews in Austria, the running cume from both markets is $3.12M.

Written and directed by the Göhte movies’ Bora Dağtekin, Chantal in Fairyland centers on one of the two principal female characters from the franchise, now an eternal influencer without followers. A time travel story that plays around with movie princess tropes,...

In one of Germany’s most closely-watched media cases, a Berlin court on Wednesday ruled in favor of German screenwriter Anika Decker in her residuals suit against Warner Bros. and Barefoot Films, the production company of German star Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds).

Decker co-wrote the screenplays to Schweiger’s 2007 comedy hit Rabbit Without Ears and its successful 2009 sequel Rabbit Without Ears 2, both of which were distributed in Germany by Warner Bros. The first Rabbit Without Ears film, which Schweiger directed and co-starred in alongside Nora Tschirner, earned around $74 million at the German box office, blockbuster numbers for the territory. Rabbit Without Ears 2 was also a major success, grossing around $40 million at the German box office.

Decker claimed, given the outsized success of the films, she was not adequately compensated for her work. She sued under the so-called “fairness clause” of the German copyright act, which was first added...

Love Again is a romantic comedy film written and directed by James C. Strouse. The rom-com movie is based on a German film titled SMS für Dich, which was based on a 2009 of the same name Sofie Cramer. Love Again follows the story of Mira, a young woman who is still grieving over the loss of her fiance, in order to deal with her grief she still sends romantic texts to her fiance’s number not knowing that the phone number has been reassigned to another man, who becomes more and more interested in her. Love Again stars Priyanka Chopra, Sam Heughan, and Celine Dion in the lead roles. So, if you loved the rom-com film here are some similar movies you could watch next.

P.S. I Love You (Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Warner Bros.

Synopsis: Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank stars with Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow,...

The festival runs June 23 - July 1.

Films by Jessica Hausner, Elegance Bratton and Sebastian Silva are among 36 titles selected for the Filmfest München’s three international competition strands, CineMasters, CineVision and CineRebels. The festival runs June 23-July 1.

CineMasters

Hausner’s Club Zero will be joined by another four Cannes competition titles - Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster - to screen in Munich’s CineMasters competition for the €50,000 Arri Award which is presented to the producers of the best international film.

The 12-title line-up also includes...

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Stateside, German actor Til Schweiger has become a “that guy” of action thrillers, a supporting player who turns up —in Atomic Blond, King Arthur or Inglourious Basterds — for a memorable line (“Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls!”) or some high-energy action scene.

The parts Schweiger gets offered — Medieval, Highland Film Group’s new period actioner screening at AFM, in which he co-stars alongside Ben Foster and Sophie Lowe is a case in point — tend to be hunky heavies and tough guys. In the parts he writes for himself — in the string of German box office hits which he also directed, including Barefoot (2005), Rabbit Without Ears (2007) and Kokowääh (2011) — Schweiger favors the cocky, cynical outsider whose heart eventually gets melted by the charms

of a smart-alecky kid or the love of a wary woman.

Occasionally, Schweiger also dips into darker territory. His 2014 dramedy success...

Meet Leo (Alexander Fehling). He's going through a messy break-up with girlfriend Marlene (Claudia Eisinger), who, to make matters worse, keeps drifting back into his life when he thinks he's found his feet, laving him continually unsettled. His sister's attempts to snap him out of it get nowhere. Sitting alone in his loft apartment listening to miserable songs doesn't really seem to help. Then one day he gets a message from an angry woman who has used his email address by mistake when trying to complain about a magazine subscription, and the two begin an impulsive correspondence that will change everything.

The woman is Emma (Nora Tschirner), who is - to the extent that she's thought about it - really quite contented with her life, married to conductor Bernhard (an excellent Ulrich Thomsen) and getting along well with his kids, whose mother died when they were young. To the surprise of.

Ufa Fiction is partnering with actor-producer Tyron Ricketts and his Berlin-based Panthertainment to produce films and series for the global market focusing on stories from people of color.

Ufa Fiction producer Nataly Kudiabor will work with the Austrian-born Ricketts (right), one of Germany’s most successful black actors, on developing and overseeing projects Panthertainment acquires from directors and writers.

“Tyron and I have known each other for 20 years,” Kudiabor said. “As people of color, we have always dealt with the problem of on-screen representation. We want to give creative people – regardless of their origin or skin color – the opportunity to tell their own stories from their perspectives and we are convinced that we can reach a broad audience with them.”

She noted that “game changers” such as the films “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” show how great the public’s need is for new narratives, which is likewise reflected...

A loving tribute to Studio Babelsberg, the story of a family’s escape from Nazi Germany, a moving drama about young Palestinians and Israelis working together, and an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s children’s novel “The Amazing Maurice” are among a wide-ranging selection of German films on offer at Afm this year.

Leading sales companies are presenting the gamut of romantic dramas, arthouse works, high-profile literary adaptations, family films and animated pics.

Picture Tree Intl. presents Martin Schreier’s “Traumfabrik,” a period-piece love letter to East Germany’s famed Defa film studios, now known as Studio Babelsberg. Produced by the late Tom Zickler, the romantic drama follows a young studio extra’s ambitious efforts to reunite with the French girl he loves after being separated by the construction of the Berlin Wall. The film, which opens the 50th Goa Film Festival on Nov. 20, has already sold in major territories around the world,...

“When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,” directed by Caroline Link, an Oscar-winner with “Nowhere in Africa,” has attracted several presales ahead of its market premiere at Afm. The film’s sales agent, Beta Cinema, has also revealed a host of deals on other titles.

“Pink Rabbit,” an adaptation of the memoir of author and illustrator Judith Kerr — best-known for “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” — about her family’s flight from Germany as the Nazis rose to power, will have a wide release in Germany via Warner Bros. Sales agent Beta Cinema has pre-sold the film to Rai Cinema/01 (Italy), A Contracorriente (Spain), Huanxi Media Group (China), Moviecloud (Taiwan) and Blitz (former Yugoslavia).

Also on Beta’s slate is “Lara,” by Jan-Ole Gerster (“A Coffee in Berlin”), which piqued distributors’ interest following its premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won the Special Prize of the Jury and best actress for Corinna Harfouch.

TBS has snagged German comedy-drama “Arthur’s Law” from its Turner stablemate TNT in Germany. The U.S. channel has taken the finished show subtitled in English, as well as the option to remake it locally.

TNT has been moving into originals in Germany with the acclaimed drug-trafficking drama “4 Blocks” on TNT Serie and “Arthur’s Law” on the TNT Comedy channel. “Arthur’s Law” follows unemployed Arthur Ahnepol (Jan Josef Liefers), who wants his obnoxious wife to die to claim the life insurance and start a new life with his mistress, which sets off a series of disastrous events.

The series, which is directed by Christian Zübert (“Lommbock”), has been nominated for several TV awards in Germany. Martina Gedeck (“The Lives of Others”) and Nora Tschirner (“Rabbit Without Ears”) star alongside Liefers in the German series.

“The tale of our anti-hero Arthur can be applied universally, and we are...

TBS is set to remake German comedy Arthur’s Law – the first original comedy from Turner’s German network TNT Comedy.

The U.S. cable network has secured the rights to the project, which is known locally as Arthurs Gesetz, from its parent company. It has picked up the format rights to the series as well as the rights to run the German version with subtitles.

The comedy follows unemployed Arthur Ahnepol, played by Jan Josef Liefers, who ekes out a bleak existence. Drawn from the strains of his unhappy marriage and bored to death, he makes a morbid plan: he wants his obnoxious wife to die. With the money from the life insurance there’s no obstacle for a restart with his beloved mistress. But an unwritten law dominates the life of the unlucky fellow: every problem solved by Arthur has a far worse effect. And so, he sets...

Lille, France — Beta Film subsidiary Good Friends Filmproduktion, whose groundbreaking TNT Comedy original “Arthur’s Law” plays Saturday at Series Mania, has acquired the German remake rights to hit Swedish format “Bonus Family.”

Good Friends is in final negotiations for a German broadcaster to take the reversion.

“Bonus Family” was produced by Flx, whose credits include “The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window And Disappeared” and its sequel, “The 101-Year Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared.”

It was created by these movies’ director, Felix Herngren, and his second wife, Clara Herngren – appropriately enough, given “Bonus Family” turns on people initiating relationships with new partners who already have children.

Netflix acquired the series’ first two seasons, presented outside Sweden, where the series played very well on pubcaster Svt, as a Netflix original outside Sweden, its first totally Swedish show.

“The producers themselves are in a patchwork family,...

Komplizen Film will work on Vanessa Jopp’s adaptation of Daniel Glattauer novel.

Komplizen Film, the producer of Maren Ade’s offbeat comedy Toni Erdmann, is to partner with Sony Pictures on Vanessa Jopp’s forthcoming adaptation of Austrian writer Daniel Glattauer’s international bestseller Love Virtually.

Sony’s German production arm will serve as Komplizen Film’s co-producer alongside Erfttal Film, with Sony Pictures releasing the film theatrically in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Former European Shooting Star Alexander Fehling (Three Peaks) and Nora Tschirner (Rabbit Without Ears) are to headline the cast which will also include Swiss actress Ella Rumpf who appeared in last year’s Panorama title Tiger Girl.

UK-born, Hamburg-based screenwriter Jane Ainscough has adapted Glattauer’s epistolary novel about a love affair conducted entirely by email for Jopp, whose previous films include drama Happy As One.

“I would like to make a wonderful, warm and profound romantic film which will have poetic, magic moments...

An undercooked script spoils this story of a young woman in a coastal town who forms a friendship with a man returning for his brother’s funeral

In an English coastal town, German slacker Melanie (Nora Tschirner) is spinning her wheels, neglected by her fiance, a never-seen voice on the phone.

In a cafe, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Ray (Rob Knighton), a mysterious, taciturn older man with cut-glass cheek bones who’s back in his hometown for more than just the death of his younger brother. The two pal up, play at shoplifting and pay a visit to Ray’s brother’s kooky Wiccan family, and before you can say Lost in Translation, stifled feelings of romantic yearning begin to stir between these two people at very different points in their lives.

Continue reading...

Welcome to the winner of 2015's most misleading movie title competition....

We've been asked once or twice why there was no review of the film Entourage on this site. Bluntly, the answer was this: I had the chance to see it, or Jones' Everyone's Going To Die instead. I plumped for the smaller British film, and am mightily glad I did.

Made back in 2013 but only now getting a UK release, Everyone's Going To Die pretty much had me on side from its opening credits. That 'A Film By' screen you sometimes get? It was filled with the name of everyone who worked on the film. A really lovely touch, and a welcome precursor for what turns out to be a far, far sweeter film than the title might lead you to believe.

It's a kind of Before Sunrise with harsher edges, at times showing the confines of its miniscule budget,...

Max Barron: "It's totally about people being lonely. People being lonely is a very real thing - now more than ever"

In 2013, directorial duo Jones - better known to their mums as Max Barron and Michael Woodward - brought their debut feature film Everyone's Going To Die up to the Edinburgh Film Festival, fast-forward two years and, as this year's festival reaches its final weekend, their blackly comic indie drama is finally reaching cinemas, courtesy of a Kickstarter project (it will be released on VoD on July 6). The title might suggest that it's the latest grim shoot-em up from London but, in fact, it's a quirky off-beat drama between world-weary hitman Ray (Rob Knighton) and a young German emigre (Nora Tschirner).

When I caught up with Barron a couple of weeks ago, I asked him why they picked such an unusual title, given that that might well add to...

Strange and wonderful and unclassifiable in the best way, this is an unexpectedly touching and oddly funny platonic romance. Sort of. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

I love a movie that I cannot classify. That so few of them exist is a sad testament to how hidebound cinematic storytelling has gotten (maybe always was). This strange and wonderful Everyone’s Going to Die: Is is a romance? No, except maybe in a platonic way. Is it a crime flick? Kinda almost but not really. Is it a black comedy? I suppose that genre description comes closest, but what to make of how unexpectedly touching it is between all the oddly funny bits? On an ordinary day in an English seaside town, immigrant Melanie (German star Nora Tschirner, who is a bit Felicity Jones-ish...

★★☆☆☆ "I feel like I should say something important," says Ray, the melancholic career criminal in the midst of a midlife crisis. This essential emptiness plagues, Everyone's Going to Die, the visually shiny debut film from British collective 'Jones', which first premiered at Edinburgh in 2013 and is now in cinemas. Despite the dramatically apocalyptic promise of the title, not much happens in the kind of oddball day-in-the-life movie Hal Hartley made in the early nineties. The Unbelievable Truth in particular seems to have been an inspiration with its leftfield romance and monosyllabic hero. Melanie (Nora Tschirner) is a German girl who we first meet waking up on a floating mattress in a swimming pool with a Hitler moustache.

Offbeat and beguiling Brit comedy Everyone’s Going To Die, the feature debut of directing collective Jones, is hard to describe and so probably needs to be watched. And, fortunately, we have a clip...It’s the story of Ray (Rob Knighton), who arrives in Folkestone to do a dubious job, dressed like a “fancy dress gangster” from Reservoir Dogs, and forms an unlikely – but convincing – connection with young German ex-pat Melanie (Nora Tschirner).“The film gets quite a lot of different descriptions from the different festivals it’s been in or every reviewer,” says Michael Woodward, one half of Jones. “We had ‘existentialist crime rom-com',” chips in Max Barron, the other part of the puzzle. “It’s about a guy and a girl both having a bit of a difficult time and they meet up and they’re able to help each other out. It’s kind of a platonic romance.

The debut film by writing-directing collective Jones, Everyone's Going to Die matches a bored hitman with a woman coming out of a relationship defined by its rom-com perfection. In this clip Ray (Rob Knighton) visits the reincarnation of his dead brother. Everyone's Going to Die, which also stars Nora Tschirner, is released in the UK on Friday 26 June Continue reading...

Canadian, UK and Brazilian films win at online film festival.

Canadian documentary Davids and Goliath, about the trade of organ harvesting in China, has scooped the $50,000 first prize of the Viewster Online Film Fest charity edition, #VOFF4: Share It Forward.

Second place and $20,000 was awarded to Chris Godwin for Deafening Silence, a Icva Award-winning drama short showing the trauma of still birth from a mother’s perspective.

Cacau Rhoden of Brazil won third place and $10,000 for Drops of Joy, a documentary that focuses on the importance of maintaining one’s playful spirit from childhood into one’s adult years, and Us documentary Baja’s Secret Miracle won the festival’s Audience Award, which resulted in a $20,000 donation to The Climate Reality Project.

The charity edition of the festival, which received 230 submissions from 47 countries, was launched to build awareness around human rights, social, economic and environmental issues.

Kai Henniges, CEO, Viewster, said:...

The winners of the third annual Viewster Online FIlm Fest were announced during the closing gala of the Raindance Film Festival in London last night. This year's theme was 'Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid' and submissions of the horror/sci-fi/fantasy genre came in from around the World. 500 films from 60 countries were accepted to participate in this year's festival. A final shortlist was decided by online viewers then the jury, comprising of cult film icon Udo Kier, directors Ted Hope and Timo Vuorensola, and actress Nora Tschirner, took over and picked the winner. You will find links for all five winning submission below!  First place and the top prize of $70,000 was awarded to Claudio Ellovitch of Brazil for the 2014 film Pray, his vision of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Viewster Online Film Festival will offer total prize money of $100,000.

German actor Udo Kier is to head the jury of the third Viewster Online Film Fest (#Voff) (Sept 11-25), which will showcase genre shorts, features, web series and teasers

European video-on-demand service Viewster is offering total prize money of $100,000 to the winning producers, announced at the closing night gala of the Raindance Film Festival on Oct 5.

A total of 500 films have been accepted from 60 countries worldwide, including the Us, UK, France, Brazil, Australia, India and Canada.

Viewster’s online audience will vote on the films, generating a shortlist that will be considered by a jury headed by Kier. The German actor is known for roles in films such as Blade, Iron Sky, Melancholia and more recently Nymphomaniac.

Other jurors include Us independent film producer Ted Hope (Martha Marcy May Marlene), Finnish director Timo Vuorensola (Iron Sky) and German actress Nora Tschirner (Keinorhansen).

Kier said: “I’m sure...

Second edition of the online film festival received nearly 1,000 submissions from film-makers representing 70 countries.

Viewster has announced the winners of its second Viewster Online Film Festival, with $100,000 in prizes.

Iran’s Ali Zare Ghanatnowi won the top prize worth $70,000 for his animated short Dad’s Fragile Doll. South Korea’s Taegue Lim wins second prize, worth $20,000, for Wrong, and Germany’s Sylvia Borges won the $7,500 third prize with Your Place.

The online festival, which had a theme of Relationship Status: It’s Complicated, had 1,000 films submitted from 70 countries. More than 500 films competed for the awards and more than 500,000 online visitors viewed the films.

Judges included producer Ted Hope, director Timo Vuorensola and actress Nora Tschirner.

“When we started this festival competition, we just wanted to create a place for filmmakers to showcase their work and for film fans to discover creative international content,” said Kai Henniges CEO of Viewster.

“The second festival edition surpassed our expectations and we...

Second edition of the online festival runs until June 26.

Viewster has launched the second edition of its Viewster Online Film Festival (#Voff).

Running until June 26, the festival has accepted over 500 candidates and brings together television and film producers, visionaires and enthusiasts for two weeks of short films, features, web series and teasers.

This year’s theme is Relationship Status: It’s Complicated, which will see participants compete for a $100,000 prize. The public vote will identify the finalists for the jury session, with experts including Ted Hope, Nora Tschirner and Timo Vuorensola, and the winner will be announced on July 7.

Kai Henniges, CEO of Viewster, commented: “At Viewster, it’s all about discovering creative talent and sharing originality with people who value professional-quality videos. That’s why we created a forum where film lovers can access amazing movies and tv shows not typically found anywhere else.”

For more information, visit Viewster’s website.

Australian director Jeremy Brull.s The Justice Lease has won the top prize of $US70,000 in an online festival.

Shot for just $7,000, the web series features real-life versions of Superman, Batman, Aquaman and The Hulk as they struggle to live together in an Australian share-house.

The prize was awarded by the advertiser-supported Video-on-Demand service Viewster in the inaugural Viewster Online Film Fest (#Voff). The theme was When Life Gives You Lemons...

The judges were Us producer Ted Hope, who is CEO of Fandor, Finnish director/creator of Iron Sky Timo Vuorensola and German actress Nora Tschirner.

The judges said: .The episode Man of Steel was very well constructed and extremely funny.. They indicated they really want to see what.s going on in the director.s head.

Brull, who shot The Justice Lease with co-producer Paul Michael Ayre, said: .After a year of struggling to get this series out to the masses,...

Girl on a Bicycle is like Micki + Maude minus the outrage, complexity, or crack timing. In that 1984 Blake Edwards farce, a frazzled Dudley Moore impregnates both his chilly wife and earthy mistress.

The Paris-set Bicycle's convoluted plot promises a similar degree of chaos, not least because of language barriers among the characters. Mopey Italian tour bus driver Paolo (Vincenzo Amato) proposes to pert, no-nonsense German flight attendant Greta (Nora Tschirner), then becomes smitten with Cécile (Louise Monot), a ravishing bicyclist and model who's raising two kids long-abandoned by their Australian baby daddy.

After Paolo accidentally runs Cécile over, he becomes her caretaker, pretends to be her children's estranged father, and empl...

Ahead of its bow in select theaters on Valentine's Day 2014, Indiewire is pleased to exclusively premiere the trailer for the romantic comedy "Girl on a Bicycle," the new film written and directed by "The Notebook" screenwriter Jeremy Leven. The film follows Paolo, an Italian bus driver living in Paris who is about to propose to his girlfriend when he comes across and becomes immediately infatuated with a mysterious girl on a bicycle. The comedy stars Italian actor Vincenzo Amato and features German actress Nora Tschirner and French actress Louise Monot, with British actor Paddy Considine rounding out the impressive international cast. Watch the trailer below:...

Audience award of Dinard British Film Festival goes to Charlie Cattrall’s Titus.

Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant has won the Golden Hitchcock Award at the 24th edition of the Dinard British Film Festival in Brittany, France.

The prize comes with distribution support. The film also won the Cine+ Award, to promote the film during its theatrical release in France, as well as the Heartbeat Award “Le Prix Coup de Coeur” for a film with French distribution to get a special boost in Western France.

In addition, the film won the Technicolor Award for Best Cinematography.

Chris Coghill won Best Screenplay for Mat Whitecross’ Spike Island.

A special mention was given to a trio of actors — Nora Tschirner, Rob Knighton and Madeline Duggan — for Everyone Is Going To Die.

The jury included Alice Eve, Toby Jones, Michael Smiley, David Parfitt, Eric Cantona, Natalie Carter, Fred Cavayé, Hippolyte Girardot and Amanda Sthers.

Dinard opened...

Stars: Nora Tschirner, Rob Knighton, Kellie Shirley, Stirling Gallacher, Liberty Selby, Madeline Duggan, Eliza Harrison-Dine, Ellie Chidzey | Written and Directed by Jones

Review by Scott Clark of Cinehouse

Melanie (Nora Tschirner) is a young woman living out a dull existence in an English seaside town, her life crawls along until she meets Ray (Rob Knighton in his second feature performance), a recently divorced gangster-type back in town for one last job. Without a doubt the most charming and impressive feature to debut at Eiff this year, one of those films that comes along once in a blue moon and manages to hold its own amongst the vast array of features fighting for the spotlight. It sounds like a screwball gangster flick with a hint of Lost in Translation, which it could be billed as, but you’d be missing the point. Even though it flaunts moments of comedy and does...

I stumble into this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival like a startled deer, this being the first year in living memory in which I’ve missed a substantial part of the Festival. Having only returned to bonnie Scotland on Sunday, I have missed the first week and many of the headlining films. These include this year’s opening film, Breathe In, as well as Sofia Coppola’s much-talked-about The Bling Ring and Monsters University, the new Pixar (last year’s Festival closed with Brave, a movie at least as Scottish as Brigadoon).

So my blogs and reviews this year will necessarily give only a hint of what has been on offer, but so it always goes with a Film Festival; even the most astute attendee is likely to miss many gems, and endure both high-profile twaddle and films that will vanish, post-festival time, into the abyss of arthouse hooey.

After being released in Germany this past spring, "Girl on a Bicycle" has landed North American distribution with Monterey Media, the company announced today. The film follows Paolo, an Italian bus driver living in Paris who is about to propose to his girlfriend when he comes across and becomes immediately infatuated with a mysterious girl on a bicycle. Monterey Media are planning a Fall 2013 release for the romantic comedy. “We are so very thrilled to be distributing Jeremy’s new film, following the Warner Bros. release in Germany. This is a truly delightful and funny comedy, an actual ‘date’ movie for both young and not so young,” commented Scott Mansfield, monterey media President. The film was written and directed by Jeremy Leven, who has not helmed a feature since 1994's "Don Juan DeMarco" but has been a screenplay writer on a variety of films, from "The Notebook" to "Real Steal.

MGM announced recently that they have teamed up with Gk Films to bring us a reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise! It was previously revealed that the Tomb Raider reboot is going to be in line with the latest game. I've always been a fan of Tomb Raider, I grew up playing the games, and it's going to be great to see a new action-packed gritty take on the character Lara Croft. As of right now Iron Man screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are whipping up a script.

Crystal Dynamics and studio head Darrell Gallagher had this to say in previous interview,

They are working from this new take that we’ve given them. It’s a good partnership. We’re seeing the challenges through the same lens. It was important for both of us to have a cohesive version of the franchise. We didn’t want to see...

The British film Everyone’s Going to Die premiered yesterday at SXSW. It is directed by a directing collective called Jones.

Synopsis:

Two lost souls. One last chance.

Melanie’s life in a seaside town is going nowhere until she meets Ray, back in town with a shady job to do. A moment’s escape becomes a chance to save themselves, and each other.

“Everyone’s Going To Die” is a modern British story about coming home, getting by and the redemptive power of feeling you’re not alone. A story where porn hotlines rub shoulders with sexy beavers on rollerskates; where the past is laid to rest, two lives are changed and nobody, finally, is going to die.

The film stars: Nora Tschirner, Rob Knighton, Kellie Shirley, Madeline Duggan and Stirling Gallacher.

Poster for Everyone’s Going to Die. Thanks Imp Awards.

The man in the poster stirs up...

It’s tough to believe SXSW is almost upon us, but the festival starts March 8 and the line-up is looking good. The event has a history of premiering some great titles and this year is no different.

Fede Alvarez’s much-anticipated remake of Evil Dead will have its world premiere at the festival. Opening night features the Incredible Burt Wonderstone, starring Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi as Vegas magicians. Buscemi’s blond wig alone is reason enough to see this movie. Another highlight is the panel, Bates Motel: Story to Screen with Carlton Cuse, which will feature a first look at the pilot for Bates Motel.

Still waiting on the Midnighters line-up to see what else is in store genre-wise.

See the full list of events below and check the website for more info.

The 2013 SXSW Film Festival will feature:

Downloaded (World Premiere)

Director: Alex Winter

Downloaded is a documentary...

In just a few days’ time, festivalgoers will be heading out to Park City, Utah for Sundance 2013, the first big film festival of the year. Next up is the Berlinale in February. And then comes SXSW in March, out in Austin, Texas.

Sundance continues to boast a brilliant line-up, including the premieres of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, Don Jon’s Addiction; David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, with Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, and Ben Foster; Zal Batmanglij’s The East, with Alexander Skarsgård, Ellen Page, Brit Marling, and Toby Kebbell; Drake Doremus’ Breathe In, with Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce; and so much more.

And now SXSW has started to announce what films we can look forward to out in Austin this spring, with the initial line-up including the world premiere of Don Scardino’s The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, starring Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, which has...

(L-r) Alan Arkin as Rance Holloway, Jim Carrey as Steve Gray, Steve Carell as Burt Wonderstone, Michael Herbig as Lucius Belvedere and Jay Mohr as Rick the Implausible in New Line Cinema’s comedy “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Ben Glass.

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival has announced the world premiere of the comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, from Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, as the 2013 Opening Night Film on Friday, March 8, 2013.

The story follows superstar magicians Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi), who have ruled the Las Vegas strip for years, raking in millions with illusions as big as Burt’s growing ego. But lately the duo’s greatest deception is their public friendship, while secretly they’ve grown to loathe each other. Facing cutthroat competition from guerilla street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey...

We are just about to kick off our Sundance coverage, and we already have another film festival to focus on. SXSW has gone ahead and announced a few great titles from its upcoming lineup. The WB/New Line comedy Incredible Burt Wonderstone has been announced as the opening film. The film stars Steve Carrell, Jim Carrey, and Steve Buscemi as competing Las Vegas magicians. TV Veteran Don Scardino directs from the script by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley.

Other titles announced include some World Premieres of highly anticipated films such as Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead remake and Alex Winter’s documentary Downloaded, which follows the rise and fallout of Napster. Also scheduled is Joe Swanberg‘s Drinking Buddies, and Good Ol Freda, a film about The Beatles’ secretary Freda Kelly, and directed by Ryan White. Add on a conversational appearance by Matthew McConaughey, and the debut of the full...

SXSW is coming in March and they have some awesome premieres this year. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone hits opening night and the Evil Dead remake is getting it’s world premiere.

Here’s a list of the films hitting SXSW:

Downloaded (World Premiere)

Director: Alex Winter

Downloaded is a documentary that explores the rise and fall of Napster and the birth of the digital revolution. It’s about the teens that helped start this revolution, and the artists and industries who continue to be impacted by it.

Drinking Buddies (World Premiere)

Director/Screenwriter: Joe Swanberg

You know what makes the line between “Friends” and “More Than Friends” really blurry? Beer.

Cast: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Jason Sudeikis (uncredited), Joe Swanberg

Everyone’s Going to Die (World Premiere)

Director/Screenwriter: Jones

A guy whose life is falling apart, meets a girl whose life can’t get started.

Comedy is of course the most difficult of genres to sell internationally. Something that Germans find uproariously funny leaves English speakers stony-faced – and vice-versa. Yet Oscar-winning German producers Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg are currently shooting Girl On a Bicycle, their first venture into English language production, starring Vincenzo Amato (Did You Hear About the Morgans?), Nora Tschirner, Louise Monot, and Paddy Considine. The director is Don Juan De Marco's Jeremy Leven, writer of The Notebook and The Legend of Bagger Vance. “We always had it in mind to produce English-language movies. Our aim is to produce one English-language film every year or every 2 years and at least one feature for the German market a year,” co-founder Wiedemann tells me. This strategy follows the pair's worldwide success with their first movie The Lives of Others, which won the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2007. It was directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck...

Cologne, Germany -- "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier, celebrity philanthropist Sir Bob Geldof, German star Nora Tschirner ("Rabbit Without Ears") and Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind") will be among the VIPs attending this year's Zurich Film Festival, which runs Sept. 23 – Oct. 3.

Zurich received worldwide attention last year after director Roman Polanski, en route to accept the festival's lifetime achievement award, was arrested by Swiss police on a decades-old sex charge. For its 6th edition, Zurich is hoping cinema, not scandal, will be in the spotlight.

Other luminaries making the trip to Zurich are directors Milos Forman, who will receive a retrospective tribute at the fest, and Oliver Stone, whose "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" closes the event. Also set to attend is actor Frank Langella ("Frost/Nixon") and German actress Johanna Wokalek ("Pope Joan," "The Baader Meinhof Complex").

Actor/director Danny DeVito will travel to Zurich...

Cologne, Germany -- Paul W.S. Anderson's "Three Musketeers" reboot has picked up another €1 million ($1.3 million) in German subsidies, this time from the German Film Board.

The 3-D period epic stars Christoph Waltz, Orlando Bloom and Mads Mikkelsen alongside Musketeers Matthew Macfadyen, Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans and is set to begin shooting in Germany late August. The production has already secured €2 milion ($2.6 million) in production funding from regional sources. Millions more will come via Germany's tax fund, the Dfff. Constantin Film is producing.

In its other funding decisions announced Friday, the German Film Board is playing for laughs -- backing comedies "Russian Disco" from Oliver Schmitz ($712,000); Til Schweiger's "Kokowaa" ($388,000); rom-com "Offroad" starring Nora Tschirner ($453,000) and "Men in the City 2," Simon Verhoeven's sequel to his 2009 comedy hit, which Wiedemann & Berg are producing ($453,000).

Berlin -- Producer Thomas Wobke has resigned from the management board of Claussen + Wobke + Putz, the Munich-based film production company he co-founded in 1992.

Wobke will remain a shareholder in C+W+P, one of Germany's most acclaimed indie production houses, but will focus mainly on his own projects. These include the post-apocalyptic thriller "2016 -- The End of Night" from first-timer Tim Fehlbaum which Roland Emmerich is executive producing and which Paramount Pictures Germany has picked up to distribute locally.

A veteran producer, Wobke's credits include such German box office hits as "The Pharmacist" (1997), "Anatomy" (2000) and "Krabat" (2008).

C+W+P is currently in pre-production on "Braincopy," a sci-fi thriller from Oscar-winner Stefan Ruzowitzky ("The Counterfeiters") as well as the rom-com "Offroad," featuring German star Nora Tschirner.

Even though it's made $100 million in the rest of the world and is based on a global bestseller, it took months for Swedish murder mystery "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" to find a U.S. distributor. The film was finally picked up earlier this month by Music Box Films, known for previously saving the French crowdpleaser "Tell No One" after other distributors passed in fear of poor returns.

In America, with few exceptions, the fact that a film is subtitled means it's destined for the arthouse. Populist entertainment -- action, romantic comedies, thrillers -- has struggled to find a place and an audience. Like most blockbusters, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is guaranteed a sequel -- it's adapted from the first installment of the "Millenium" trilogy, written before author Stieg Larsson passed away in 2004. As Anne Thompson reported, the only reason an American remake hasn't been set into...

Cologne, Germany -- A not-so-happy holiday is the focus in the new project, "Home For Christmas" by award-winning Norwegian director Bent Hamer ("O'Horten").

Hamer has co-written the script, set in a tiny Norwegian town on Christmas Eve, with writer Levi Henriksen. Cologne-based Pandora Film, who produced "O'Horten," is on board, together with German European public broadcasters Zdf and Arte. The Nrw Film Board is backing the project with €400,000 ($560,000) in production subsidies. Hamer plans to shoot portions of the film in the Nrw region.

Also benefiting from Nrw's largesse is "Generation X" author Douglas Coupland, who has received backing to adapt his own novel "Eleanor Rigby" for the screen. The book tells the story of a lonely woman whose life is changed by an unexpected meeting with the son she gave up for adoption. Coupland is adapting his book for Cologne-based production house Tatfilm ("The Last King of Scotland").

Director Thomas Riedelsheimer,...

Cologne, Germany -- German boxoffice king Til Schweiger received a 1.5 million euros ($2.1 million) subsidy boost from the Berlin/Brandenburg Medienboard for his latest project, "Zweiohrkuken" (Two Ear Chick), the sequel to his mega-hit "Rabbit Without Ears."

The first film, a romantic comedy starring Schweiger and actress Nora Tschirner, had a boxoffice take of more than $56 million, making it the number one film in Germany this year. The main cast, including Matthias Schweighofer, will return for the sequel.

The Medienboard also gave Quentin Tarantino an early Christmas present in the form of a $840,000 production subsidy for his World War II film "Inglourious Basterds," currently shooting at Babelsberg Studios outside Berlin.

Berlin -- Til Schweiger's romantic comedy hit "Rabbit Without Ears" has won the best film prize while the Simon Pegg starrer "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" took home the trophy for best international comedy at the 2008 German Comedy Awards.

Rising star Nora Tschirner won the best actress title for her starring role in "Rabbit," as a stuck-up kindergarten teacher who falls for a sleazy gossip reporter (Schweiger).

The Comedy Awards honor both film and TV comedy, and it was established names who took home most of the evening's small screen prizes. Sitcom queen Mirja Boes won best comedienne, stand-up champ Michael Mittermeier took the best comedian award, and Michael Kessler, star of Pro7's sketch show "Switch Reloaded," took the actor nod.

For the fourth year in a row, Mario Barth took home the prize for best live act. Barth, whose stand-up focuses on the differences between men and women,...

MADRID -- Spanish production house Morena announced a string of new projects just ahead of its "Che" world premiere Wednesday, including David Pinillos' directorial debut "Bon Appetit" and Paco Cabezas' "Neon Flesh".

Two of Europe's hottest up-and-coming actors, Unax Ugalde ("Che" and "Love in Times of Cholera") and Nora Tschirner (German blockbuster "Rabbit Without Ears") are teamingbup in Pinillos' romantic comedy "Appetit".

"Bon Appetit" tells the story of three young cooks from different European countries who share their passion for cooking in a Swiss avant-garde restaurant.

Morena Films and Orio Produkzioak from Spain, Egoli Tossell from Germany and Zodiac Pictures from Switzerland co-produce the 3 million euros ($6 million) film that Beta Cinema is selling internationally and Eurimages is supporting. The film, which will film in all three countries, begins an eight-week shoot in October.

Mandarin Films has thrown its considerable French clout into Morena's next project, "Neon Flesh", a fast-paced comedy.

The 3.6 million euros ($7.2 million) "Flesh" follows Cabezas' cult horror flm "The Appeared", due to be released by IFC in the U.S.