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“Dead Language,” the feature adaptation of 2014’s Oscar-nominated short film “Aya,” is heading to Cannes, where WestEnd Films will launch world sales.

The film was recently announced as screening in Tribeca’s Viewpoint Section in June.

Shot under the radar, “Dead Language,” stars Sarah Adler, Ulrich Thomsen, Yehezkel Lazarov and Lars Eidinger. It was co-directed by husband-and-wife filmmakers Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun, based on their original short, which also starred Adler and Thomsen.

“Dead Language” tells the story of a chance encounter that propels Aya, a young woman waiting for her husband at an airport, to pick up a complete stranger instead. The intimacy that sparks between the two ends abruptly when the man disappears, leaving Aya with a key to his hotel room and a yearning that perhaps only a stranger can fulfill.

The film marks the director duo’s second feature following their award-winning debut “The Etruscan Smile,...

24 years ago, Isabelle Huppert starred in an erotic psychological drama called The Piano Teacher, which won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival, where Huppert also earned a Best Actress award (and her co-star Benoît Magimel won Best Actor). The Piano Teacher was based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek – and now, Huppert and Jelinek have reteamed for a vampire movie called The Blood Countess, where Huppert takes on the role of the title character, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer! Magnify sales recently acquired U.S. and global sales rights to the film, and today they have unveiled the first image of Huppert’s character. You can check it out at the bottom of this article.

German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger directed The Blood Countess and wrote the screenplay with Jelinek. Huppert plays Báthory as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld.

Isabelle Huppert stars as the infamous Countess Elizabeth Báthory in the twisted new vampire mystery film The Blood Countess, and a first look image arrives today giving us a closer look at Huppert in character as the titular vampire.

The Blood Countess is directed by Ulrike Ottinger, who co-wrote the screenplay with the Nobel Prize in Literature winner Elfriede Jelinek (The Piano Teacher).

The feature is inspired by Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries, the crimes so heinous that her serial killing ways evolved into folkloric tales of vampirism.

Tom Neuwirth (aka Eurovision Song Contest 2014 winner Conchita Wurst ), Birgit Minichmayr, Lars Eidinger, Thomas Schubert (Afire), and André Jung (The Forger) also star.

As for the plot, “After ‘The Blood Countess’ (Isabelle Huppert) awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld, she and...

Tom Neuwirth aka Conchita Wurst, the bold Austrian bearded diva who won the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, will make her acting debut in a twisted vampire mystery, “The Blood Countess,” starring opposite Isabelle Huppert.

Magnify handles global and U.S. sales rights on the hot title and has unveiled a striking first-look image (pictured) from the film ahead of the Cannes film market where Austin Kennedy, head of global sales, and Phoebe Liebling, manager of global sales, will be pursuing deals.

Directed by renowned German New Wave filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, “The Blood Countess” draws inspiration from the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman which is played by Huppert. The screenplay was penned by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner and acclaimed author of “The Piano Teacher.” The film is currently in post-production.

The cast is completed by Birgit Minichmayr (“Daughters”), Lars Eidinger,...

Crowds of filmmakers, producers and actors braved the frigid temperatures on Saturday to attend the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg’s annual outdoor soiree at the riverside Holzmark venue to celebrate Germany’s most successful regional funder and bid farewell to outgoing CEO Kirsten Niehuus, who is stepping down later this year after two decades at the helm.

Among the throngs of warmly dressed guests were Volker Schlöndorff, Martin Moszkowicz, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Sam Riley, Matthias Schweighöfer, Aaron Altaras, Leo Altaras, Florence Kasumba, Sunnyi Melles, Lars Eidinger, Nicolette Krebitz, Helena Zengel, Kida Khodr Ramadan, Karoline Herfurth, Julia von Heinz, Heike Makatsch, Philippe Bober, Albrecht Schuch, Helena Zengel and Annabelle Mandeng.

Kirsten Niehuus, Volker Schlöndorff

“It’s been a fun ride,” Niehuus told Variety.

“I think we really had it all. When I started 20 years ago, the capital region of Berlin was not the place to be for film in Germany. That developed over the past 20 years,...

Veteran director Tom Tykwer sends a magical Syrian cleaner into a bohemian yet unhappy family, bringing with her a flashing-light treatment for depression

Here is a weirdly incoherent and very long aria of semi-comic dismay from white-liberal Europe, and from a Germany whose bold “Wir schaffen das” – or “We can handle this” – Angela Merkel-era attitude to refugees has turned to anxiety. Veteran German director Tom Tykwer has created a heavy-footed magical-realist romp lasting two hours and 40 minutes about a complicated extended family in Berlin whose painful lives are turned around by a magic refugee whose purpose is to salvage their happiness. The film twice uses Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to provide a jukebox blast of energy – the second time at the very end, worryingly indicating that the classic track is being brought on to save the day because the film is out of ideas.

Lars Eidinger gives a muscular,...

Tilda Swinton brought the heat on a snowy night as the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival opened with a gala that included a career achievement honor presented to the Scottish Oscar winner known for her versatility and adventure.

https://twitter.com/raminsetoodeh/status/1890187574960091425?s=46

As reported by Variety‘s Ellise Shafer in Berlin, Swinton took square aim at the surge of far-right governments that promise to reshape the U.S. and Europe in the coming years.

“The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I’m here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognize the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet-wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from,” Swinton said during the event held at the Berlinale Palast, about a mile away from the Brandenburg Gate.

This year’s...

A bloatedly operatic saga about a liberal Berlin family coming apart and together again with the arrival of a Syrian housekeeper (Tala Al-Deen), German director Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” almost rudely keeps its audience in their seats for a very long 160-plus minutes. A discordant symphony of ideas around white guilt wherein the filmmaking itself does much of its own virtue-signaling despite trying to critique that very gesture, this slog of a Berlin Film Festival opener feels destined to languish on the European film circuit, a quote-unquote epic that would’ve been better framed as a four-part miniseries than a single feature that lacks the compression and punch of Tykwer’s 1998 breakout “Run Lola Run.”

Here is a quasi-musical, pseudo-sci-fi set in the drabbest pockets of a rain-drenched Berlin, unless it’s flinging us to Nairobi where Melina (Nicolette Krebitz) does penance for her own white guilt through Ngo work,...

On a snowy Thursday night, the 75th annual Berlin Film Festival launched with some heat — thanks to some fiery speeches about politics — as film executives, European buyers and movie stars trekked through the slush to celebrate cinema.

The prestigious festival in Germany kicked off with Tom Tykwer’s drama “The Light,” starring Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz as a dysfunctional married couple whose lives change with the hiring of a housekeeper (played by Tala Al-Deen).

But the real fireworks arrived in the form of a tearful speech delivered by Tilda Swinton. The actress, in a glamorous sparkling black gown, talked about the perils of political dictatorships around the world as she accepted an honorary Golden Bear for career achievement.

Swinton, 64, who has been coming to the festival since she was 26, spoke about Berlin as “a borderless realm and with no policy of exclusion, persecution or deportation.” She added that the...

Beware novel psychological therapies from Austria: You never know where they may lead.

In the curious case of German director Tom Tykwer’s The Light, which opened the Berlin Film Festival, such a quacky therapy — mostly involving a flashing LED light and an egg-timer — is Syrian refugee Farrah’s comfort, an escape hatch from the horrors of her life and, ultimately, a tool to heal the multiple afflictions tearing apart the German family for whom she is keeping house. The parents are in failing couples therapy, the kids are disaffected, and Farrah appears from nowhere to sort them out. Sort of like Mary Poppins, but with extra lashings of fragrant Orientalism.

At first, a handful of characters are introduced, the connections between them drip-fed, Magnolia-style, over a long series of intercut scenes where we see them at work and play. Milena Engels (Nicolette Krebitz) is working in Kenya on an arts project funded from Germany,...

The 75th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival opens today and, following the rather unceremonious end of its previous two directors’ respective tenure, all eyes are on new Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle and whether she can help the wintry film fest level up vis-à-vis competitors in Cannes and Venice. While we have ten days to reach a verdict, the opening-night selection isn’t the surprise some might have hoped for. Screening out of competition, The Light is a wannabe urban fairytale that finds German filmmaker Tom Tykwer succumbing to his worst maximalist impulses. Bombastic and nearly charm-free, this misfire may have its heart in the right place but is so deeply inarticulate one can’t even be sure of such.

Its story revolves around a bourgeois family in Berlin: Tim (Lars Eidinger) is a successful advertising executive who no longer has the coolest ideas; Milena (Nicolette Krebitz) works on...

Independent international production company and financier Gold Rush Pictures has signed a deal with Ilya Stewart’s Hype Studios to participate in financing and co-producing a slate of at least five feature films, Variety can exclusively reveal.

The news comes ahead of the world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s contemporary German drama “The Light” (pictured), which was co-produced by Gold Rush Pictures and will open the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 13.

Two of the five titles on the companies’ slate will be collaborations with the Polish screenwriter-director and two-time Berlinale prizewinner Małgorzata Szumowska, including “The Gambler Wife,” a dark comedy about Russian literary figures Anna and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The anticipated feature, which was announced in Variety, is due to begin principal photography this spring. A second feature from Szumowska is currently in development.

Rounding out the slate are three titles with long-time Hype Studios collaborator Kirill Serebrennikov, whose previous four...

The Light Photo: © Frederic Batier/X Verleih Ag/courtesy of Berlinale

Berlin Film Festival opens its 75th edition tonight with Tom Tykwer’s The Light about a family whose lives are disrupted by the arrival of a Syrian housekeeper (Tala Al-Deen). Screening out of competition, it also stars Lars Eidinger, who was so good in last year’s Berlin alumni Dying.

This edition marks the first for former London Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle, who will be hoping for a less controversial edition this year, which saw unrest over everything from the invitation of members of the far-right AfD (Alternative For Germany) party to the opening ceremony to a row which blew up after No Other Land won the documentary prize when several filmmakers, including the film’s Israeli co-director Israeli Yuval Abraham expressed support for the people of Palestine. This led minister of cultural affairs Joe Chialo to brand...

German auteur Tom Tykwer and producer Uwe Schott decried the limited funding opportunities available to make German-language films, ahead of the world premiere of their film The Light opening this year’s Berlinale.

“It’s always too costly, too expensive if you try and come up with really juicy cinema,” said Tykwer, who holds the record for having directed the most films to open the Berlinale. The Light is his third, after Heaven in 2002 and The International in 2009.

“At least in my life, the public broadcasters are real heroes,” he continued. “There are always these discussions about their role in society…...

After a decade spent exploring the lives “of my grandparents’ generation” in the 1930-set period series Babylon Berlin, Tom Tykwer has returned his focus to modern-day Germany with the cinematic opus The Light, the opening night film of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

Tykwer, along with The Light stars Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz, and first-timer Tala Al Deen discussed the inspiration behind the feature at the Berlinale press conference ahead of the movie’s world premiere on Thursday.

Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz play Tim and Milena Engels, a late-40s couple juggling privilege and discontent: He’s a trend-chasing ad exec, holding onto his left-wing progressive views while assisting major corporations in their greenwashing; she’s wrestling with a doomed arts project in Kenya. Their teenage twins spiral in opposite directions — one lost in Berlin’s club scene, the other in a VR fantasy — while their eight-year-old drifts alongside unnoticed.

Lars Eidinger, the star of Tom Tykwer’s latest film “The Light,” said during a Berlin Film Festival press conference that the drama exposes “the reason the world is on the brink”: narcissism.

The German-language film, which is set to open the fest on Thursday night, stars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz as Milena and Tim, the 40-something parents of irate 17-year-old twins. Tala Al-Deen (“Tatort”) portrays Farrah, their housekeeper, who challenges the family in unexpected ways but turns out to have her own agenda.

When asked about the hot-button topics the film addresses, Tykwer said that the generational divide between the parents and the children “is an abyss … You’ve missed the train! That’s what the other generation tells us.”

Eidinger added that “The Light’s” main statement is that “we are the reason the world is on the brink,” he said, referring to the generation of the parents in the film.

Tom Tykwer has long been a filmmaking innovator, and he’ll be pushing boundaries again with his Berlinale opener “The Light,” making its world premiere February 13.

The English-language release for “The Light” will be dubbed into English using the ethical AI company Flawless’s TrueSync technology which seamless fits the translated words to fit actors’ mouth movements — solving a problem for dubbing that until now was all but impossible to fix.

In an article for the World Economic Forum earlier this year, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland praised Flawless for securing “actors’ explicit informed consent before creating or editing digital replicas of their performances, using its Artistic Rights Treasury (A.R.T.) system to manage rights and ensure compliance.”

Crabtree-Ireland added, “The system will also integrate with standard industry tools such as Avid and Final Cut Pro, making it easier for productions to align with ethical standards. This...

Flawless has partnered with XYZ Films to sell US rights at EFM on an English-language version of Tom Tykwer’s Berlinale opening night film The Light that used the AI company’s immersive dubbing technology.

The process involves Flawless’s visual translation tool TrusSync, which has been praised by SAG-AFTRA’s top negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, and matches up manipulated lip movements of consenting original actors to a dubbed dialogue track in another language.

The Light is the latest in a growing pipeline of international films to undergo this process that Flawless and XYZ Films have acquired and, in some cases,...

Flawless has partnered with XYZ Films to sell US rights at EFM on an English-language version of Tom Tykwer’s Berlinale opening night film The Light that used the AI company’s immersive dubbing technology.

The process involves Flawless’s visual translation tool TrusSync, which has been praised by SAG-AFTRA’s top negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, and matches up manipulated lip movements of consenting original actors to a dubbed dialogue track in another language.

The Light is the latest in a growing pipeline of international films to undergo this process that Flawless and XYZ Films have acquired and, in some cases,...

Has Hollywood reached peak AI paranoia? This awards season, before Karla Sofía Gascón’s posts on X (formerly Twitter) about George Floyd and Islam became the focus of consternation, the Oscar uproar was centered on the use of artificial intelligence in the tweaking of voice performances in Emilia Pérez — for Gascón’s singing — and in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, to improve the pronunciation of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian-language dialog.

The virulence of the backlash against such minor and technical applications of AI — used, in both cases, with the full participation and approval of the artists involved — illustrates the widespread perception, inside the film industry and among the general public, that AI is a threat to jobs and to artistic integrity. An AI zero-tolerance policy has become fashionable for celebrities, with the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Glenn Close and Hank Azaria raising the alarm. Distributors have taken...

What Martin Scorsese is for New York; what Paul Thomas Anderson is for Los Angeles; Yasujiro Ozu is for Tokyo and Federico Fellini is for Rome, so Tom Tykwer is for Berlin.

Tykwer has only made three films set in the German capital — his 1998 breakout Run Lola Run, the mid-career highlight 3 (2010) and now The Light, the opening film of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival — but no other director so exemplifies the city, in all its messy glory and contradictions.

“I’ve spent nearly 40 years in Berlin, and everything I need is here,” says Tykwer from his apartment in Prenzlauer Berg. “I have the people I love, the cinemas I need, and the city’s strange aesthetic — these beautiful districts next to catastrophically ugly architecture. It’s what delights and infuriates and inspires me.”

The Light is also Tykwer’s third Berlinale opening-night film, following Heaven (2002) and The International (2009) and...

Tom Tykwer opens the Berlin Film Festival for a third time on Thursday with his dazzling snapshot of life in contemporary Berlin, taking stock of German society as the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close.

It is his first feature-length film since 2016’s Saudi Arabia-set drama A Hologram for the King starring Tom Hanks.

Tykwer, who has spent the past decade immersed in the final years of Germany’s 1918-1933 Weimer Republic with hit series Babylon Berlin, has returned to the present with gusto.

He plunges his protagonists into a reality marked by digitization, globalization, climate change, job insecurity, global migration, conflict-driven displacement and rising political extremism, and watches them navigate this age of disruption.

Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz play chaotic, comfortably-off, late 40s couple Tim and Milena Engels, who are parents to 17-year-twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and John (Julius Gause), and 8-year-old Dio (Elyas Eldridge...

As the European Film Market kicks off Feb. 13 in Berlin with a new market head, Tanja Meissner, at the helm, this year’s buzziest titles suggest the industry will be looking toward tried-and-true genre fare and splashy, star-driven packages to thaw the winter chill.

Bankable stars are expected to heat things up in Berlin, with Ari Aster and A24’s “Eddington”, Guy Ritchie’s “Wife & Dog”, Ernest Dickerson’s untitled hitman thriller and Kantemir Balagov’s “Butterfly Jam” showcasing how marquee names remain a safe bet as uncertainty continues to reign in the theatrical market.

On the genre side of things, horror is still expected to scare up sales, with buyers looking to sink their fangs into Isabelle Huppert’s 16th-century vampire mystery “The Blood Countess” and Jacob Chase’s killer canine genre-bender “Bad Boy,” starring Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart. Meanwhile, comedy could be making a comeback,...

24 years ago, Isabelle Huppert starred in an erotic psychological drama called The Piano Teacher, which won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival, where Huppert also earned a Best Actress award (and her co-star Benoît Magimel won Best Actor). The Piano Teacher was based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek – and now, Huppert and Jelinek are set to reteam for a vampire movie called The Blood Countess, where Huppert will be taking on the role of the title character, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer!

Variety reports that German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger will be directing The Blood Countess and wrote the screenplay with Jelinek. Huppert will be playing Báthory as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld. She and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life.

Big names, high concepts, and crowd-pleasing thrills are the order of the day at this year’s European Film Market, where commercial fare is dominating over the usual arthouse prestige plays, reflecting an industry uncertain of the future of the theatrical business in the post-covid world. Action, horror, and comedy are leading the charge, with star-driven projects like Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog (Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike), Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, A$AP Rocky), and Ernest Dickerson’s untitled hitman thriller (Samuel L. Jackson, Daveed Diggs) among the titles generating early buzz.

Genre filmmakers are also stepping up in a big way, with The Raid’s Iko Uwais launching a new production/sales outfit in Berlin for his brand of martial-arts madness, and horror entries like Bad Boy — starring Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart — and the body-horror thriller...

An auteur-actor pairing to nearly match last week’s word of Johnnie To and Tony Leung comes via Variety, who tell us Ulrike Ottinger will direct Isabelle Huppert in The Blood Countess, a vampire feature based on the infamous Elizabeth Báthory from a script by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek (The Piano Teacher). Lars Eidinger (Irma Vep), Thomas Schubert (Afire), and Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else) will co-star; sales start at the European Film Market imminently.

The Blood Countess is described by “immersive and delightfully eccentric vampire mystery” that unfolds as “a highly visual, narrative scavenger hunt.” Here’s sales agent Magnify’s official synopsis

“[Madame Báthory] and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists,...

Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson were among the latest high-profile names confirmed this afternoon as attendees for this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The pair were included this afternoon in an updated guest list shared by the festival.

Chalamet will attend for the German premiere of his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown while Pattinson will debut his Bong Joon-ho flick Micky 17. Both films play in the Berlinale Specials sidebar.

Other confirmed guests include Conclave filmmaker Edward Berger who will present Tilda Swinton her Honorary Golden Bear. Jessica Chastain will hit the German capital with Michel Franco’s Golden Bear Contender Dreams, and Jacob Elordi will make the trip to Berlin for the world premiere of his Justin Kurzel series The Narrow Road to the Deep South.

Other celebrity guests confirmed today by the festival include Naomi Ackie, Rose Byrne, Toni Collette, Denis Côté, Marion Cotillard, Lars Eidinger, Mala Emde,...

Isabelle Huppert is starring as the notorious Countess Elizabeth Báthory in the upcoming vampire mystery feature The Blood Countess, which is set to launch sales next week at EFM, Variety reports today.

The Blood Countess is directed by Ulrike Ottinger, who co-wrote the screenplay with the Nobel Prize in Literature winner Elfriede Jelinek.

The film follows Elizabeth Báthory as “She and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists, a police inspector, and more lively characters in this twisted and humorous vampire tale.”

For the uninitiated, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries,...

Magnify has boarded “The Blood Countess,” a vampire mystery movie starring Isabelle Huppert as Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer.

Directed by renowned German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, the movie is inspired by the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory. The screenplay was penned by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner and acclaimed author of “The Piano Teacher.”

Huppert stars in the film opposite Birgit Minichmayr (“Daughters”), Lars Eidinger (“Dying”), Thomas Schubert (“Afire”) and André Jung (“The Forger”).

“The Blood Countess” is one of the hottest European projects to head to the EFM next week where Magnify’s sales team, led by Lorna Lee Torres, will be introducing the movie to buyers.

Huppert plays the Countess Elizabeth Báthory (aka ‘The Blood Countess’), as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld. “She and her devoted maid...

Jessica Chastain, Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton and Marion Cotillard were among a first wave of star guests confirmed for the 75th edition of the Berlinale at its line-up press conference on Tuesday.

Chastain will hit the festival as the co-star of Michel Franco’s Golden Bear Contender Dreams, while Whishaw and Hall will attend with Ira Sach’s Peter Hujar’s Day, which plays in the competitive Panorama sidebar. Sevigny is the star of another Panorama title, Magic Farm by Amalia Ulman.

Cotillard tops the cast of Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Golden Lion Contender The Ice Tower in the role of the enigmatic star of a production of The Snow Queen, who bewitches a young runaway.

Other confirmed guests include Archie Madekwe, who co-stars in Berlinale Special Gala title Lurker; Rose Byrne, who tops the cast of Golden Bear contender If I Had Links I’d Kick You and Lars Eidinger,...

Ahead of the Berlinale 2025 taking place February 13-23, they’ve unveiled their lineups for Berlinale Special, Panorama, Generation and Forum sections. Highlights include confirmation of Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 alongside Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day, Ancestral Visions of the Future from This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, a documentary on the making of Shoah, a new Jacob Elordi-led series from Justin Kurzel, and more.

See the lineup below via Deadline and check back for the competition lineup next week.

Berlinale Special

Ancestral Visions of the Future

by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese | with Siphiwe Nzima, Sobo Bernard, Zaman Mathejane, Mochesane Edwin Kotsoane, Rehauhetsoe Ernest Kotsoane

France / Lesotho / Germany / Saudi Arabia 2025

Berlinale Special | World premiere | Documentary form

A poetic allegory of the filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s childhood, an ode to cinema and an inner nod to his mother. Through fragmented narratives and mythic imagery,...

Aussie filmmaker Justin Kurzel’s series adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, starring Jacob Elordi, will screen at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North was among several titles added to Berlin’s lineup this morning.

The festival describes the series as a “riveting new Australian drama” about a WWII hero haunted by his past. The show will screen as a Berlinale Special Gala. Also in Specials strand is The Thing with Feathers starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The pic screens at Berlin following a debut bow at Sundance and is from filmmaker Dylan Southern. The pic is an adaption of Max Porter’s novel about a grieving father wrestling with the sudden death of his wife while also raising their young children. As previously reported, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 will also screen. Scroll down...

There are many war movies that military experts praise for realism. However, just as many TV shows do an excellent job of touching upon the true cost of war. Conversely, since the realities of war are so intense, there are some series that omit the harsher aspects. The toll war takes on the psyches of the soldiers and, most prominently, how many civilian lives are lost are at the forefront of many of these narratives. By centering on the individual experiences of people paying the everyday price of war, the realities feel more immediate and impossible to ignore.

Many of these series feature the best TV show battle scenes, as the violence of infamous clashes is frequently portrayed on television. However, it's not just the big bombastic moments that make these projects memorable. The quieter, more intimately devastating moments typically hit the hardest in these narratives, as this is more...

"We are the reason why the world is on the brink of disaster..." The truth right there. Whoa! X Verleih has revealed the full German trailer for the film titled The Light, also known as Das Licht in German. It's the latest feature film from acclaimed German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, his first feature since A Hologram for the King in 2016, because he's also been working on the "Babylon Berlin" series for the last 8 years. The film has a March 2025 release date in Germany and will premiere at the upcoming 2025 Berlin Film Festival in February as the big Opening Night film. A family faces collapse as they deal with modern issues, searching for new beginnings in a troubled world. Their life is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious Syrian woman, who "puts the Engels' emotional world to an unexpectedly wild test." Filming took place in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia and Kenya.

A “typically dysfunctional German family” gets a spiritual makeover in Das Licht (The Light), the new film from Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlas), which will open the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival.

The first (German) trailer for the film dropped Thursday, via local distributor X Verleih and Warner Bros. Germany (see below). It shows Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz as Tim and Milena, the unhappy heads of the Engels family. In the words of their daughter Frieda, played by Elke Biesendorfer: “We’re typically dysfunctional German family, where everyone does their own thing and does give a sh** about one another.”

The Engels get help in the form of a mysterious woman, Farrah (Tala Al Deen), a housekeeper from Syria, who enters their lives, bringing to light feelings that have long been hidden. But Farrah is pursuing a plan all of her own that will fundamentally change the family’s life.

Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” won best film, director, screenwriter and actress at the 37th European Film Awards, which were held Saturday in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The best film nominees included narrative features “The Room Next Door,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” “The Substance” and “Vermiglio,” as well as documentaries “Bye Bye Tiberias,” “Dahomey,” “In Limbo,” “No Other Land” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” and animated films “Flow,” “Living Large,” “Savages,” “Sultana’s Dream” and “They Shot the Piano Player.”

The statuette for actress was won by Karla Sofía Gascón for “Emilia Pérez.” The other nominees were Renate Reinsve in “Armand,” Trine Dyrholm in “The Girl With the Needle,” Vic Carmen Sonne in “The Girl With the Needle” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door.”

The director award went to Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” who beat Andrea Arnold for “Bird,” Pedro Almodóvar for “The Room Next Door,” Mohammad Rasoulof...

Emilia Pérez got an early boost in its awards campaign on Saturday night by cleaning up at the 37th European Film Awards, handed out in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language transgender musical won best film, best director and best screenplay honors for Audiard. Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the titular character, won best actress, becoming the first trans performer to win in the category.

“I didn’t prepare anything because I was sure I wasn’t going to receive anything tonight,” said Gascón, accepting her prize. She thanked Audiard, “the best European director for making the best European actress.” Gascón dedicated here prize “to my mother and to all mothers in this world because their values and their function are sometimes undervalued, [and] I would like to devote this prize to all families and ask all parents to love their children, because, unfortunately, in this world, there are families that...

The European Film Awards is taking place in the Swiss city of Lucerne tonight (December 7) and Screen is revealing the winners live from the ceremony, which kicked off at 20.00 Cet.

Scroll down for winners

To read the winners as they are announced, you can refresh the page and scroll down to the full list below.

The ceremony is also being live-streamed below.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door are the front-runners for this year’s awards with four nominations apiece.

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule...

The world premiere of “Das Licht (The Light),” the latest feature film from Tom Tykwer, will open the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on February 13, 2025. The German-French production will be presented as a Berlinale Special Gala out of competition in the Berlinale Palast.

“We knew as soon as we saw ‘Das Licht (The Light)’ that we wanted to have it open the 75th Berlinale,” the festival’s director Tricia Tuttle said in making the announcement. “Tom Tykwer finds beauty and joy in our often fractured and challenging world, and magically captures the essence of our modern life on screen. It is our great pleasure to welcome Tom back to the Berlinale with ‘Das Licht (The Light).'”

Tykwer has already opened the Berlinale — twice, as a matter of fact. In 2022 it was his first international production, “Heaven,” that had the honor. The director and screenwriter most recently opened the festival...

Tom Tykwer is returning to the Berlinale.

The acclaimed German director of Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlas and Drei will open the 75th Berlin International Film Festival with his new feature, Das Licht (The Light).

Tykwer’s first feature since 2016’s A Hologram for a King is a family drama set in modern-day Germany featuring Lars Eidinger, Nicolette Krebitz and Tala al Deen. It tells the story of the Engels family, parents Tim (Eidinger) and Milena (Krebitz), their twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and Jon (Julius Gause) and Milena’s son Dio (Elyas Eldridge). The family has been growing apart for years before housekeeper Farrah (Al-Deen), a mysterious woman from Syria, enters their lives, bringing to light feelings that have long been hidden. Farrah is pursuing a plan all of her own that will fundamentally change the family’s life.

“We knew as soon as we saw Das Licht (The Light...

The Light Photo: Courtesy of Berlinale The world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s latest feature film The Light (Das Licht) will open the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on February 13 as an out-of-competition title.

Tim, Milena (Nicolette Krebitz), their twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and Jon (Julius Gause) and Milena's son Dio (Elyas Eldridge) are a family that lives more side by side than together and nothing holds them together until the housekeeper Farrah (Tala Al-Deen) enters their lives. The mysterious woman from Syria puts the Engels’ world to an unexpected test and brings to light feelings that have long been hidden.

Incoming festival director Tricia Tuttle said: "We knew as soon as we saw The Light that we wanted to have it open the 75th Berlinale. Tom Tykwer finds beauty and joy in our often fractured and challenging world, and magically captures the essence of our modern life on screen.

German filmmaker Tom Tykwer will open the Berlin Film Festival with his latest feature The Light (Das Licht).

The screening will take place on February 13. It will be a world premiere and the film will screen out of competition in the Berlinale Palast.

Starring in the pic are German actors Lars Eidinger (Dying) and Nicolette Krebitz (A Cloud in Our House).

The film tells the story of the Engels family. Tim (Lars Eidinger), Milena (Nicolette Krebitz), their twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and Jon (Julius Gause) and Milena’s son Dio (Elyas Eldridge) are a family that lives more side by side than together and nothing holds them together until the housekeeper Farrah (Tala Al-Deen) enters their lives. The mysterious woman from Syria puts the Engels’ world to an unexpected test and brings to light feelings that have long been hidden. In the process, she pursues a plan all of her...

Tom Tykwer’s latest feature film The Light (Das Licht) is to open the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on February 13.

The German-French production will play as a Berlinale Special Gala out of competition.

The film’s cast includes German star Lars Eidinger, actor and director Nicolette Krebitz and Tala Al-Deenand tells the story of a family whose lives are changed by their Syrian housekeeper.

The Light was produced by X Filme Creative Pool, in co-production with Zdf, Arp Séléction, Gold Rush Pictures, Gretchenfilm and B.A. Filmproduktion.

Tykwer has opened the Berlinale twice previously: in 2002 with his first international production...

Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” will open the 75th Berlin International Film Festival. The German-French production, Das Licht (“The Light”) will be presented as a Berlinale Special Gala out of competition in the Berlinale Palast.

The film marks Tykwer’s return to the big screen after seven years and four seasons as writer and director of the hit series “Babylon Berlin.”

“We knew as soon as we saw ‘Das Licht’ (‘The Light’) that we wanted to have it open the 75th Berlinale,” said festival director Tricia Tuttle. “Tom Tykwer finds beauty and joy in our often fractured and challenging world, and magically captures the essence of our modern life on screen. It is our great pleasure to welcome Tom back to the Berlinale with ‘Das Licht’ (‘The Light’),” she continued.

“The Light” stars Lars Eidinger, Nicolette Krebitz, Elke Biesendorfer, Julius Gause and Elyas Eldridge.

Set in present day in Berlin,...

The Berlinale has lost €2m in financial support from the Berlin Senate for its upcoming 2025 edition as part of drastic expenditure cuts to the €3bn overall budget of the city government.

However, Berlinale spokesperson Frauke Greiner said the event would not be impacted. “Despite the tight financial situation, we are able to secure balanced financing until the end of March 2025.”

“We are in regular contact with the Senate and learned that the €2m is not incoming for the 2025 financial year this summer,” Greiner told Screen. “We have a balanced budget through the next festival, and with a new director and executive team in place,...

‘La Habitación de al Lado’ encabeza las nominaciones y Karla Sofía Gascón opta al premio a la Mejor Actriz. © Warner Bros| Elástica Films | DeAPlaneta

Ya se conocen las nominaciones a la 37ª edición de los Premios del Cine Europeo (Efa), y España está de enhorabuena: La habitación de al lado, de Pedro Almodóvar encabeza las nominaciones (junto a Emilia Pérez) y la española Karla Sofía Gascón se encuentra nominada a la Mejor Actriz. Además, las películas animadas españolas El sueño de la sultana y Dispararon al pianista se llevan dos nominaciones cada una. Los ganadores de los premios se anunciarán el 7 de diciembre de 2024. Aquí está la lista de nominados:

Mejor PELÍCULA Europea

Bye Bye Tiberias

Dahomey

Emilia Pérez

Flow

In Limbo

Living Large

No Other Land

Savages

Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

El sueño de la sultana

La habitación de al lado

The Seed of the Sacred Fig...

Jacques Audiard‘s “Emilia Pérez” and Pedro Almodóvar‘s “The Room Next Door” topped Tuesday’s 37th European Film Awards nominations with four apiece.

Both are up for Best European Film, Best European Director, and Best European Screenwriter prizes, while their leads, Karla Sofía Gascón in “Emilia Pérez” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door,” will face off in Best European Actress.

Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” nabbed three nominations for film, director, and screenwriter. Coralie Fargeat‘s word-of-mouth hit “The Substance” scored two bids for film and screenwriter honors.

For the first time, films nominated for Best European Documentary and Best Animated Feature Film are eligible in the Best European Film category, leading to an expanded list of 15 nominees. Also making the cut for the top prize are Italy’s Oscar entry “Vermiglio,” Senegal’s entry “Dahomey,” and Latvia’s entry and animated film “Flow.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door have emerged as the front-runners for the European Film Awards 2024, with four nominations apiece.

The nominations for the main categories of this year’s awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne, were announced this morning by the European Film Academy.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule change which means that films shortlisted for the best documentary and animation categories can also compete in the section.

Emilia Pérez is nominated in the best European film category,...

The European Film Awards has broadened the scope of its prestigious Best European Film category for this year’s ceremony. Documentaries and animated features will now be eligible to compete alongside traditional narrative films for the top honor.

This change is reflected in the nominations announced ahead of the December 7 ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland. A record 15 films are nominated in the expanded Best European Film category, representing a variety of storytelling formats. This includes narrative films like “Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance,” documentaries such as Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias,” as well as the animated film “Flow” by Gints Zilbalodis.

The directing category also highlights both established names and newcomers. Past winner Pedro Almodóvar received a nomination for “The Room Next Door,” alongside Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” Andrea Arnold for “Bird,” Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” and Maura Delpero for “Vermiglio.

The nominees for this year’s European Film Awards have been unveiled, with “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Room Next Door” all up for best European film.

Movies also in the running for the ceremony’s top award — which was expanded this year to documentaries and animated features — include Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias”; Mati Diop’s “Dahomey”; Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow”; Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Balla’s “No Other Land”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio.”

“Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance” lead the nominees overall, with each film scoring four respective nominations. The winners will be revealed during an awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

See all the nominees below.

European Film

“Bye Bye Tiberias” — documentary film, directed by Lina Soualem, produced by Jean-Marie Nizan, Guillaume Malandrin and Ossama Bawardi

“Dahomey” — documentary film, directed by Mati Diop,...