Das B3 Festival des bewegten Bildes in Frankfurt am Main hat sein Gesamtprogramm veröffentlicht. Die Veranstaltung, die sich nicht nur mit Film, sondern auch Kunst, Virtual Reality und Games beschäftigt und dieses Jahr unter dem Fokus Demokratie läuft, legt einen Schwerpunkt auf Italien und das Schaffen der Taviani-Brüder.

„Padre padrone“ der Taviani-Brüder

Das B3 Festival des bewegte Bildes in Frankfurt am Main hat sein vielfältiges Programm bekanntgegeben. Los geht das Festival am 13. Oktober mit Ehrengast Margarethe von Trotta, die für ihr Lebenswerk ausgezeichnet wird. Als Filmschaffende, die mit ihren Werken einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Auseinandersetzung mit demokratischen Werten leistet, passt sie perfekt zum Fokus des Festivals, der dieses Jahr eben auf der Demokratie ruht. Zu den Ehrengästen zählt auch Ermanno Taviani, Sohn von Paolo Taviani, den das Festival gemeinsam mit dessen Bruder Vittorio posthum für ihren großartigen Beitrag zum italienischen Filmschaffen auszeichnet. Der Italien-Bezug passt perfekt zum Partner Frankfurter Buchmesse,...

Beim B3 Festival of the Moving Image in Frankfurt am Main wird Filmemacherin Margarethe von Trotta mit dem Ehrenpreis für ihr Lebenswerk ausgezeichnet.

Margarethe von Trotta (Credit: Imago/Manfred Siebinger)

Beim diesjährigen B3 Festival of the Moving Image in Frankfurt am Main erhält Margarethe von Trotta den Lifetime Achievement Award, den Ehrenpreis für ihr Lebenswerk. Die Preisverleihung findet im Rahmen der Eröffnungsveranstaltung am 13. Oktober in der Astor Film Lounge statt. Ihr Werk sieht das Festival eingebettet in den diesjährigen Schwerpunkt um das Thema „Demokratie“. In der Ankündigung heißt es: Als eine der bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten des Neuen Deutschen Films leiste von Trotta einen wesentlichen Beitrag zum Diskurs über demokratische Themen. Zu ihren bekanntesten Arbeiten zählen Werke wie „Rosa Luxemburg“; Hannah Arendt“ oder „Die bleierne Zeit“ Über ihre Arbeit und ihr Werk spricht die Filmemacherin am 14. Oktober in einer moderierten Masterclass.

Die Bekanntgabe des B3 Programms sowie weiterer Ehrenpreisträger sollen in Kürze folgen.

Margaret Menegoz, the head of French production company Les Films du Losange, who produced the movies of Michael Hanke, Wim Wenders and Éric Rohmer, among others, has died. She was 83.

The company issued a statement confirming that Menegoz died in Montpellier on August 7. They cited her “love of films and work, and her loyalty to her filmmakers that have become the hallmarks of Les Films du Losange,” describing Menegoz as “open-minded towards Europe and the international scene, which she particularly cherished.”

Menegoz led Les Films du Losange for close to 50 years, taking over at the company in 1973. She produced more than 60 films, including Haneke’s Amour, The White Ribbon and Cache, Wenders’ 1977 feature The American Friend, Volker Schlöndorff’s Swann in Love (1984), Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990), Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime (1990) and A Tale of Winter (1992), among many others.

Amour received 5 Oscar nominations in 2013, including a nomination for Menegoz for best feature.

The Devil’s Bath directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala with Anne-Katrin Titze: “The film takes place in a time when Enlightenment was starting, but still a lot of superstition was going on.”

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil's Bath, starring Anja Plaschg (who is also the composer as Soap&Skin) with Maria Hofstätter and David Scheid, shot by Martin Gschlacht (Silver Bear winner in the 2024 Berlin Film Festival) with costumes by Tanja Hausner (Jessica Hausner’s sister and longtime collaborator) is executive produced by Ulrich Seidl (Rimini and Sparta) and Bettina Brokemper.

Agnes (Anja Plaschg) being led blindfolded by her husband Wolf (David Scheid) to where they will live

Agnes (Anja Plaschg), wearing a thick brown woolen sweater, braids a fragile wreath for her hair and wraps her precious collection of dried grasses, insects and shells into a kerchief. This is her wedding day and together with her mother,...

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s The Devil's Bath, starring Anja Plaschg (who is also the composer as Soap&Skin) with Maria Hofstätter and David Scheid, shot by Martin Gschlacht (Silver Bear winner in the 2024 Berlin Film Festival) with costumes by Tanja Hausner (Jessica Hausner’s sister and longtime collaborator) is executive produced by Ulrich Seidel (Rimini and Sparta) and Bettina Brokemper.

The horror in Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s third feature together (following Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge) is very much of this world and rooted in a belief system that brought hundreds of women “weary of this life” to commit acts of murder and confess,...

Italy’s True Colours has taken on international sales for German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s upcoming noir thriller Death Will Come (La Mort Viendra).

Currently in post-production, Death Will Come centres on a female assassin who is hired by a leading gangster to avenge the murder of one of his couriers – but soon finds herself the prey. The French-language film stars Franco-Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing.

Hochhausler’s previous film Till The End Of The Night premiered in competition at Berlin in 2023.

Death Will Come is a German-Luxembourg-Belgium co-production. The co-producers are leading German...

German acting legend Hanna Schygulla will be honored this year with a lifetime achievement award at the German Film Awards.

Best known for her work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), and Lili Marleen (1981), Schygulla’s career has included collaborations with the likes of Wim Wenders (1975’s Wrong Move), Jean-Luc Godard (1982’s Passion) and Fatih Akin (2007’s The Edge of Heaven). More recently, the 80-year-old actress has a scene-stealing cameo in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winner Poor Things as Martha von Kurtzroc, the eccentric woman Emma Stone’s character befriends on the cruise ship.

“Hanna Schygulla is an institution of German and European cinema,” said Alexandra Maria Lara, president of the German Film Academy, explaining the decision of the honorary jury. “Through her long-standing collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, she wrote herself into film history. She became an icon of German auteur cinema with international appeal.

Mubi has unveiled next’s streaming lineup, featuring notable new releases, including Felipe Gálvez’s The Settlers, Éric Gravel’s Full Time, C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata, and Benjamin Mullinkosson’s The Last Year of Darkness.

This March also brings Elaine May’s Ishtar, four features by Mia Hansen-Løve, and a collection of films shot by women cinematographers, with Claire Denis’ Bastards, shot by Agnès Godard, and more. Next month’s collection also features retrospectives of radical German director Margarethe Von Trotta, experimental animator Suzan Pitt, and additions to their continuing retrospective of Takeshi Kitano.

Check out the lineup below, and get 30 days free here.

March 1st

The German Sisters, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three by Margarethe von Trotta

The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three by Margarethe von Trotta

The Promise, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three...

The Berlin Film Festival has appointed Tricia Tuttle, the former head of the BFI London Film Festival, to become the new director of the international film event starting in 2024.

Tuttle will succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek, who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.

The Berlin Film Festival is the world’s second biggest international film festival after Cannes. It also hosts the European Film Market, a crucial industry gathering where independent films are pitched and sold.

Tuttle was the director of the BFI London Film Festival during a fast-growing five-year era in which audiences nearly doubled before she stepped down after the 2022 edition. She worked as the festival’s deputy for five years before that to her predecessor Clare Stewart. She helped the festival expand outside of London with venues set up across the U.

The German film industry is eagerly awaiting the appointment of the Berlin Film Festival’s new director, expected to be announced tomorrow, and as the guessing game surrounding the choice shifts into high gear, one thing looks increasingly clear: the new head will face considerable financial and political challenges at the Berlinale.

Speculation in the local industry has been rife with likely candidates to succeed Carlo Chatrian and Mariëtte Rissenbeek, who have co-led the Berlinale as artistic and executive directors since 2020 and will step down after this year’s edition when their respective mandates end.

A number of potential contenders have now quashed those rumors, among them Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and director of the European Film Academy, who made it clear to Variety that he was not in the running and was very content in his current post; Kirsten Niehuus, head of funding org Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, who said she...

There's a wonderful little indie distributor based in NYC called Zeitgeist Films, founded in 1988. If you're a die-hard cinephile, you probably already recognize the name. They've supported amazing filmmakers and little films that deserve to be seen in US art house cinemas. From their website, they explain Zeitgeist as: "Distributed over 200 of the finest independent films from the U.S. and around the world including the early works of Todd Haynes, Christopher Nolan, François Ozon, Laura Poitras, Atom Egoyan and the Quay Brothers. Their catalog has also included films from the world's most outstanding filmmakers: Agnes Varda, Guy Maddin, Olivier Assayas, Jia Zhang-ke, Abbas Kiarostami, Derek Jarman, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Peter Greenaway, Philippe Garrel, Yvonne Rainer, Jan Svankmajer, Margarethe Von Trotta, Andrei Zyvagintsev and Raoul Peck." To celebrate their 35th anniversary, Metrograph is hosting screenings of some of their finest gems. "We're particularly looking forward to reuniting with some of...

Martin Scorsese is drawing raves for his latest film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and the nearly 81-year-old is not the only Hollywood veteran who’s still making movies.

Ridley Scott, who turns 86 in November, has “Napoleon” out that same month while Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola both have new films in the works.

Here are 15 directors over 80 who are still busy making movies.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Martin Scorsese, 80

The prolific director of “Goodfellas,” and “The Departed” just released his latest epic, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which reteams him with Leonardo DiCaprio. He also returned to documentaries with 2022’s “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” about New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Margarethe von Trotta, 81

The leading New German Cinema director just released her latest, “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey Into the Desert,” about the relationship between Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann and Swiss novelist Max Frisch.

Anton Corbijn, the renowned Dutch photographer and film director (Control, The American, Life) will head up this year’s competition jury for the 2023 Zurich Film Festival.

Joining Corbijn on the Zurich jury are two-time Oscar-nominated producer Finola Dwyer (Brooklyn, An Education), French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (Mustang), Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen (Compartment No. 6), and VFX artist Bryce Nielsen (Roma, Iron Man 2). Together they will judge the competition line up at the 2023 Zff, which runs September 28 to October 8, and present the best film Golden Eye honor, which comes with a Chf 25,000 ($27,400) cash prize.

Malte Grunert, producer of 4-time Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front, will head up the jury for Zurich’s Focus sidebar, joined by Oscar-nominated producer Gabrielle Tana (Philomena); Katrin Renz, a producer on Margarethe von Trotta’s Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert; editor Heike Parplies (Toni Erdmann); and Swiss actor Sven Schelker (Der Kreis...

Martin Scorsese, Radu Jude, Joanna Hogg, Claire Denis, Bertrand Bonello, M. Night Shyamalan, Kristen Stewart, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Margarethe von Trotta are among the international filmmakers and talents who have signed an open letter in support of Carlo Chatrian whose mandate as artistic director of the Berlinale will come to an end next year. The number of signatories has now exceeded 400 names and keeps growing.

As we reported last week, Chatrian had been expected to stay on beyond 2024, and was surprised to learn that the German body which oversees the festival, Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (Kbb), announced that it would no extend his contract. The org had previously said it would abandon the model of having an executive director and an artistic director and return instead to having a single director, following the next edition. The festival’s executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeek will also be leaving her post after the next edition.

A digest of key Swiss industry news announced during the Locarno Film Festival.

Swiss public broadcaster Srg has extended its co-production agreement with the local film industry for another four years and has increased its annual budget by CHF1.5m ($1.7m) to CHF34m ($38m).

The new “Pacte de l’Audiovisuel” co-production agreement between Srg and the local film industry will run from 1 January 2024 until the end of 2027.

The annual budget available in the “Pacte” for co-producing Swiss feature films will increase from $10m (Chf 9m) to $11.45m CHF10m in response to rising costs for film production.

In addition,...

Christian Petzold’s Afire on the IFC Center marquee Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second instalment with director/screenwriter Christian Petzold on Afire starring Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert (winking at the audience like Ryan Gosling’s Ken in Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster Barbie), Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, and Matthias Brandt we touch upon Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in reference to Paula Beer in the wheelchair; pronouncing Walter Benjamin and Uwe Johnson; Margarethe von Trotta’s film series Jahrestage; Devid Striesow in Yella; new Baltic Sea tourism in the old east, and the goulash in and out of the bag.

Christian Petzold on Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr: “Oh, this is a fantastic movie! It all comes back now!” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Friends Felix (Langston Uibel) and Leon (Thomas Schubert) are on their...

Christian Petzold, the director of the well-timed summer movie Afire with Anne-Katrin Titze: “I’m really sure that we don’t have summer movies. The Americans have summer movies, the French have summer movies.”

Christian Petzold’s slow-burning Afire, shot by Hans Fromm, stars Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, and Matthias Brandt.

Nadja (Paula Beer) with Devid (Enno Trebs), Felix (Langston Uibel), and Leon (Thomas Schubert) in Afire

A scene in Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember (with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr); Sophie Calle’s Voir La Mer and Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs; Astrid Lindgren; a Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre touch; Uwe Johnson’s Mutmassungen über Jakob and Margarethe von Trotta’s Jahrestage series; Johan Wolfgang von Goethe; a Nanni Moretti quote; meeting Paul Dano’s Wildlife cinematographer Diego García (Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery Of Splendor) in Tel Aviv; Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Curt Siodmak, Robert Siodmak,...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including the exclusive streaming premiere of Albert Serra’s extraordinary Pacifiction, a trio of films by Todd Haynes, two by Michael Haneke (Caché and Amour), plus works by David Cronenberg, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, and Derek Jarman.

Additional selections include Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo Celeste, Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers, Sean Baker’s early film Starlet, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s short Mekong Hotel.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

June 1 – Is This Fate?, directed by Helga Reidemeister | What Sets Us Free? German Feminist Cinema

June 2 – Safe, directed by Todd Haynes | I Really Love You: Three by Todd Hayne

June 3 – Caché, directed by Michael Haneke | Close-Up on Michael Haneke

June 4 – Amour, directed by Michael Haneke | Close-Up on Michael Haneke

June 5 – Topology of Sirens, directed by Jonathan Davies

June 6 – Tetsuo, the Iron Man, directed by Shin’ya...

After the misery of the 2022 Berlin Film Festival, held toward the tail-end of the pandemic and with strict social distancing and Covid testing regulations still in place, it was back to normal at this year’s 73rd edition.

Festivalgoers were so pleased to return to a proper, physical event that they were remarkably tolerant toward a competition programme that was very patchy, at least by comparison with those found in rival events like Cannes and Venice.

The Berlinale launched with Rebecca Miller’s quirky new romantic comedy, She Came to Me, starring Peter Dinklage as an opera composer with writer’s block, Anne Hathaway as his neurotic therapist wife, and the scene-stealing Marisa Tomei as a salty, seafaring but very amorous tugboat captain. This was a film with such oddball charm that it was easy to overlook its self-indulgence. Festivals can take themselves far too seriously. She Came to Me...

Steven Spielberg, director of countless blockbusters, delivered a blockbuster speech accepting the Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the Berlin Film Festival.

The filmmaker said that despite directing for six decades, directing “Duel” and “Jaws” felt like “last year.” “I know a lot more about moviemaking than I did when I directed my first feature film at 25. But the anxieties and the uncertainties and the fears that tormented me as I began shooting ‘Duel’ have stayed vivid for 50 years, as if no time has passed. And luckily for me, the electric joy I feel on the first day of work as a director is as imperishable as my fears, because there’s no place more like home for me than when I’m working on a set,” Spielberg said.

“I also feel a little alarmed to be told I’ve lived a lifetime because I’m not finished, I want to keep working.

Eight films have screened with 11 more to come.

As the Berlinale Competition nears the halfway point, Celine Song’s Past Lives is leading Screen’s Berlin 2023 jury grid with an average score of 3.6.

The romantic drama is way out in front after receiving five four-star ratings from critics – the highest mark meaning “excellent”.

Anton Dolin from Meduza and Katja Nicodemus from Die Zeit marked it lower, at three and two stars respectively.

Song’s debut feature follows two childhood friends from South Korea who reconnect for a few days in New York. It had its world premiere at Sundance last month.

From “Rosa Luxemburg” in 1986 to 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” the films of Margarethe Von Trotta, an icon of the New German cinema, have put strong female protagonists center-stage in renditions of German history. For her latest, Von Trotta paints a portrait of German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, author of essays, radio dramas, and opera libretti. Working across media and a doctor of philosophy, Bachmann was also an important figure in the women’s rights and liberation movement in post-war Germany.

Continue reading ‘Ingeborg Bachman – Journey Into The Desert’ Review: Vicky Krieps’s Sensational Performance Leads Period Piece About Art, Love, And Suspicion [Berlin] at The Playlist.

Road to Nowhere: Von Trotta Presents the Basics on Bachmann

Throughout her career, Margarethe Von Trotta, a key figure from the New German Wave of the 1970s, has often focused on the recuperations of specific iconic women, from Rosa Luxembourg to Hildegard von Bingen to Hannah Arendt, usually with exceptional results. Her latest focuses on esteemed Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann and her toxic relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch in Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert, detailing their relationship in the late 1950s.

Unfortunately, for those unfamiliar with Bachmann, this isn’t a helpful entry point, dealing specifically, and through surprisingly superficial flourishes, never conjuring either the actual impetus of this relationship or a clear portrait of the artist herself.…...

One wonders what Ingeborg Bachmann — the celebrated Austrian poet, author, linguist and thinker who became a darling of the midcentury, continental European literary set — would make of the staunchly old-fashioned Margarethe von Trotta biopic that now bears her name. She might be happy to be portrayed by Vicky Krieps — who among us would not be? She might be gratified by the occasional mention of one of her poems or lectures, and the nice amber tinge to Martin Gschlacht’s stately photography. Or she might be justifiably miffed that for all she achieved across a glittering, eccentric literary career, it is her rocky personal life and the men who rocked it, that are the film’s sole, stultifying focus.

Then again, the movie’s Bachmann would be unlikely to have much time to think on the issue at all, being far too busy agonizing over the grand dramatic tragedy of a soured romance.

German cinema looks set for a major boom this year with a strong lineup of diverse works that span historical dramas, coming-of-age tales, high-octane nostalgia, animation and sci-fi fun.

The Berlin Film Festival is bowing a muscular selection of local titles, among them “Afire,” by Berlinale mainstay Christian Petzold (“Undine”), screening in competition. The films centers on a group of young people staying at a holiday house near the Baltic Sea during a hot, dry summer, exploring volatile emotions that start to sizzle when a wildfire spreads through the surrounding forest.

Likewise vying for the Golden Bear is Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic “Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey Into the Desert,” starring Vicky Krieps (“Corsage”) as the radical Austrian author. The film examines her relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch and her 1964 journey of self-discovery through the Egyptian desert.

“Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” by Emily Atef (“More Than Ever”) and...

As one of Germany’s premier female directors since the 1970s, Margarethe von Trotta is no stranger to stories of women, who, like her, have defied conventions in milieus typically dominated by men.

Whether portraying the life and death of a revolutionary socialist (Rosa Luxemburg), a groundbreaking philosopher (Hannah Arendt) or a medieval nun, composer and botanist (Vision), many of von Trotta’s best movies have been carried by protagonists who refuse to bow down to gender and social norms.

This was certainly the case with Ingeborg Bachmann, the celebrated Austrian poet and writer who lived defiantly against her time and wound up paying the price for it, dying prematurely at the age of 47. Played by an illuminating Vicky Krieps, she’s the centerpiece of this handsomely mounted but rather stolid period piece, which chronicles Bachmann’s cantankerous doomed romance with Swiss playwright Max Frisch and the trip she takes...

“They treat you like a movie star,” says an admirer to Ingeborg Bachmann at one of her celebrated readings. She smiles graciously and agrees, thus establishing the baseline for her story.

Ingeborg Bachmann may not be a familiar name to many people outside the German-speaking world, but veteran German director Margarethe von Trotta evokes this mid-century poet’s struggle with life, love, and language in a mood piece so persuasively intimate that it doesn’t matter whether or not you have heard of her.

What matters is that you understand immediately that this is a woman of remarkable talents, a brilliant woman who is visibly colluding in her own destruction by a controlling man. One of the oldest stories in the world, in other words, made immediate by Vicky Krieps’s mercurial portrayal and Von Trotta’s extravagant, operatic and equally mercurial direction

The film is clearly a meeting of minds.

Acclaimed “Phantom Thread” actor Vicky Krieps’ latest film, “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert,” directed by German cinema legend Margarethe von Trotta, has its world premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Krieps plays the titular Austrian Bachmann, one of the most renowned German-language poetry and prose writers of the 20th century. The film follows her life and career and her relationships with Swiss playwright (Ronald Zehrfeld), Austrian author Adolf Opel (Tobias Samuel Resch) and German composer Hans Werner Henze (Basil Eidenbenz) during a six-year period in her life from 1958.

The actor was familiar with the writer from her formative years. “I knew about Bachmann because in Germany she’s very famous. I grew up with her in school,” Krieps told Variety. “I was very into poetry when I was younger, so I knew her poetry.” Krieps familiarized herself further with Bachmann’s work once she was cast.

After a hugely successful year for domestic films, Austria’s movie industry is looking forward to another impressive crop of titles, including many international co-productions that reflect not only cultural and historical ties with neighboring countries but also the sector’s strong cross-border partnerships.

Highly anticipated films this year include Hans Steinbichler’s “A Whole Life,” the story of a humble man’s existence in an Alpine valley that spans more than eight decades; Dieter Berner’s “Alma and Oskar,” which explores the passionate and tumultuous affair between Viennese composer and socialite Alma Mahler and artist Oskar Kokoschka in the early 1900s; and Timm Kröger’s “The Theory of Everything,” a black-and-white, 1960s-set mystery-thriller that takes place in a scientific conference in the Alps.

Forthcoming releases include works from established directors and young filmmakers, says Anne Laurent-Delage, executive director of promotional organization Austrian Films. This year’s strong showing follows...

Zurich-based Tellfilm, the Swiss outfit behind this year’s Golden Bear contender “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert,” has lined up a robust co-production slate, teaming with European partners on the psychological thriller “Motherhood” and the period drama “Gloria!,” while developing their first scripted series “How to Be Sad – The Right Way” with an eye towards global streamers.

Co-produced by Austria’s Freibeuter Film (“The Great Freedom”) and with Germany’s The Match Factory handling international sales, the Johanna Moder directed “Motherhood” will tackle maternal anxieties through the lens of a tense psychological thriller. Production is slated for later this year, with actors Marie Leuenberger and Hans Löw signed as leads. “The Square” star Claes Bang is attached as well.

Lensing this May, the musical drama “Gloria!” will tell a story of artistic liberation in Baroque-era Venice. Headed by Tempesta’s Carlo Cresto-Dina – whose Alice Rohrwacher short “Le Pupille” is...

Let us now praise famous women” could serve as a pithy summation of the work of Margarethe Von Trotta.

With her representations of women of the past – feminists and philosophers, visionaries and revolutionaries, homegrown terrorists and everyday heroines – the veteran German filmmaker has carved out a unique place in cinematic history.

Ahead of the world premiere of Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert in Berlinale competition Feb. 19, von Trotta shared her insights into some of her most iconic onscreen feminists, the real-life women who inspired them and the actresses who brought them to life.

Read her comments below.

Marianne & Juliane

The 1981 drama, which won von Trotta the Golden Lion in Venice, follows two German sisters who both fight for women’s rights but take very different paths. Juliane (Jutta Lampe) becomes a journalist. Marianne (Barbara Sukowa), a terrorist. Inspired by real-life siblings Gudrun and Christiane Ensslin.

The beginning was not the women themselves,...

Row Pictures is the producer of Emily Atef’s Berlin competition title Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything.

Karsten Stöter’s Germany-based Row Pictures, the producer of Emily Atef’s Berlin competition title Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything, has unveiled a slate of features from Natja Brunckhorst, Markus Schleinzer and Eliza Petkova.

Brunckhorst’s second feature, Zwei zu Eins, is set to go into production this summer at locations in Central Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia. It will be co-produced by the Lübeck-based arm of zischlermann filmproduktion with backing from broadcasters Zdf and Arte as well as Mdm, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw and Bkm.

After two years of virtual pandemic editions, the Berlin Film Festival returns this evening with a fully in-person red carpet. Scroll down for pics.

This year, the opening film is Rebecca Miller’s latest She Came to Me, starring Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei, Joanna Kulig, Brian d’Arcy James, and Anne Hathaway.

The film is billed as an exploration of “love in all its forms,” and is set in New York City, centering on composer Steven Lauddem (Dinklage), who is creatively blocked and unable to finish the score for his big comeback opera. At the behest of his wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway), formerly his therapist, he sets out in search of inspiration. What he discovers, the synopsis reads is much more than he bargained for or imagined.

The film screens out of competition as a Berlinale Special Gala at the Berlinale Palast.

The 2023 lineup also includes new films from Christian Petzold and Margarethe von Trotta,...

Kirsten Stewart looked confident, and downright snazzy, as she strode to the platform for her first press conference as jury president of the 2023 Berlin International Festival.

But, stylishly-attired in a tweed Chanel pantsuit with wide trousers and jacket and no shirt underneath, the Twilight and Spencer star confessed that she was nervous of the task ahead.

“Full transparency, I’m kind of shaking,” she said. “I feel, not buckling under [the weight], but I can’t wait who we all ahead at the end of this experience. I’m just ready to be changed by all the films and by all the people around us.”

Stewart said it wasn’t her decision to come to Berlin. “I was shocked they called me,” she said. “[But] it is an enormous opportunity to highlight beautiful things at a time when that is hard to hold.”

Fellow Berlinale juror, actress Golshifteh Farahani, said, so much political upheaval in the world,...

Cologne-based sales company The Match Factory has expanded and restructured its acquisition and development team.

Former head of sales, Thania Dimitrakopoulou, has been promoted to vice president of acquisitions and sales. Claudia Solano comes on board as senior manager of acquisitions, and Cécile Tollu-Polonowski, a long-time partner with the company, has been appointed as head of development.

Dimitrakopoulou, who joined The Match Factory in 2007, will now be heading up all acquisitions activities and manage the sales team, reporting to Michael Weber, managing director.

Solano joins The Match Factory from the distributor Koch Media in Italy where she worked as sales and acquisitions manager. Solano has held various positions in acquisitions in companies such as Videa and Good Films. During her career, she has introduced several high profile directors to the Italian market, including Xavier Dolan and Yorgos Lanthimos.

The Match Factory has appointed long-standing partner Tollu-Polonowski to lead the development team for the company.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSShadow of the Vampire.Willem Dafoe will join Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu film, news that comes 23 years after he played a fictitious version of Murnau's lead actor, Max Schreck, in Shadow of the Vampire. Dafoe’s supporting role is currently “unknown,” according to Deadline, though Eggers's vampire will be Bill Skarsgard.Sight & Sound continues their rollout of the Greatest Films of All Time, now unveiling the critics’ top 250.The great cinematographer Caroline Champetier will be honored with the Berlinale Camera award at this year’s festival, marking a career of beautifully lensed films for Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Jean-Luc Godard, Margarethe von Trotta, Claude Lanzmann, and Leos Carax, among many others.Following Sundance’s closing awards ceremony, we’ve compiled the full list of winners here on Notebook.

Chicago – On the next stop on the book tour, Chicago International Film Festival Founder Michael Kutza will talk about his book “Starstruck: How I Magically Transformed Chicago into Hollywood for More than 50 Years” at Chicago’s Union Club on Tuesday, January 31st, 2023. The tome is a dishy insider account of his two generation run as a film influencer, and moderating the event will be entertainment reporter Candace Jordan. Tickets and more information are available by clicking Starstruck.

After retiring from the festival in 2018, Kutza authored the story, which talks of his early years growing up on Chicago’s West Side, his early interest as a short filmmaker and his founding of one of the most important film festivals in cinema history in 1964. Before Sundance, Telluride, Toronto and Tribeca, there was Michael Kutza and the Chicago International Film Festival.

Michael Kutza of ‘Starstruck’

Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.

The 2023 Berlin International Film Festival will honor French cinematographer Caroline Champetier with a Berlinale Camera award for lifetime achievement.

Champetier, who has lensed groundbreaking work for such directors as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Leos Carax, Claude Lanzmann and Margarethe von Trotta, will be presented with the award at this year’s Berlinale on Feb. 23.

The veteran French cinematographer has sat behind the camera on more than 100 feature films and numerous shorts, from the start of her career in the early 1980s with Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit (1982) and Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord (1981), through such acclaimed films as Xavier Beauvois’ Of Gods and Men (2011), as well as von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt (2012) and Carax’s Holy Motors (2012) and Annette (2021).

Holy Motors won Champetier the Silver Frog at the 2012 Camerimage festival, which celebrates cinematographers, and she has received five César nominations, winning once for Of Gods and Men.

“Love to Love You, Donna Summer,” a docu biopic of the iconic disco singer, has been added to the lineup of Berlinale Special.

Directed by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (“Music by Prudence”) and Brooklyn Sudano, the film weaves rich archive of unpublished extracts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings spanning Summer’s life.

Also joining the Berlinale Special roster is “100 Years of Disney Animation – a Shorts Celebration,” which sees Clark Spencer, the Oscar-winning Walt Disney Animation Studios president, sharing his favorite shorts. Among them are rare gems from the earliest days of animation, from the introduction of sound to Mickey Mouse.

The 73rd edition of the Berlin Film Festival will also pay tribute to renowned cinematographer Caroline Champetier who will receive the Berlinale Camera Award. The prize was created in 1986 to honor personalities and institutions who have made a special contribution to filmmaking.

“With her extraordinary body of work,...

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. It’s Oscar noms week, and we’d be rude not to bring you the latest headlines and analysis from the Academy and beyond. Read on.

And The Nominations Are In

Everything Everywhere all at the Oscars: Zac Ntim here reporting after an Oscar noms week in which A24’s multiverse epic Everything Everywhere All at Once scored a leading 11 nominations, while there was plenty to digest on the international side. The film’s haul included Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, who became the first actress of Asian descent nominated in the category. Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert originally created the role for Jackie Chan. The A24 pic has leapt from plucky underdog to awards frontrunner in a matter of weeks, collecting impressive hauls at BAFTA and numerous others. A nomination for Best Supporting Actress Stephanie Hsu, who...

Bär worked on ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ and contributed to ‘Tar’.

German casting director Simone Bär has died aged 57 in Berlin. She died on January 16, with the cause of death yet to be revealed.

Bär’s latest projects included Edward Berger’s German Netflix feature All Quiet On The Western Front – nominated for nine Oscars and 14 Baftas. She also contributed to Todd Field’s six-time Oscar nominated and five-time Bafta nominated Tar, with a location casting credit.

On the international circuit, Bär worked on Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSNewly-minted Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie.The 95th Academy Awards unveiled their full list of nominees yesterday. Browse the categories and relevant coverage on Notebook to prepare for the ceremony, airing March 12. (Andrea Riseborough made the cut.)On Monday, the Berlinale announced their main competition lineup, including new films by Angela Schanelec, Christian Petzold, Margarethe Von Trotta, and Philippe Garrel. Meanwhile, their Encounters section features new films from Hong Sang-soo, Dustin Guy Defa, Tatiana Huezo, and more. Notebook has the full lineup here.Last Wednesday, January 18, filmmaker, critic, and producer Paul Vecchiali died at the age of 92. Patrick Preziosi summed up a bit of his impact in his Notebook Primer on Vecchiali’s film company, Diagonale, “a solar system of the utopian possibilities of cinematic community.

Berlin Film Festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian and executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeck unveiled the International Competition and Encounters lineups on Monday for the festival’s 73rd edition, running February 16-26.

“It’s quite an eclectic selection,” Chatrian told the press conference in Berlin this morning. “You will see we tried to include as many genres and cinematic forms as possible.”

Related Story Berlin Film Festival Lineup: Sean Penn, Philippe Garrel, Margarethe Von Trotta & Christian Petzold In Competition — Full List Related Story Sean Penn Documentary On Ukraine And Volodymyr Zelenskyy To Debut At Berlin Film Festival Related Story Berlin Film Festival: Watch Competition Lineup Revealed Live

The International Competition features 18 titles, 15 of them world premieres, involving 19 different territories. Encounters, the Berlinale’s equivalent of Un Certain Regard which was launched in 2020, will showcase 16 films.

Chatrian has stuck with his love of mixing established names, including Philippe Garrel (The Plough), Margarethe von Trotta...

The Berlin Film Festival, held every year in February, the cruelest month of the German winter, has never been able to match the Mediterranean flair of Cannes or Venice, or the laid-back indie cool of Sundance. But when it comes to serious movies, few festivals, big or small, can match the Berlinale.

In place of the big blockbuster movies, Berlin has doubled down on political dramas and documentaries that focus on the real troubles of the world. The war in Ukraine — launched by Russia’s invasion a year ago — will be on screens everywhere this Berlinale. Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufmann’s documentary Superpower, shot just before and after Russia’s invasion, and featuring several interviews with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, will have its world premiere in Berlin’s Special Screening section and there are three more Ukraine documentaries — Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies, Vitaly Mansky and Yevhen Titarenko’s doc Eastern Front,...

2023 truly begins taking shape with next month’s Berlinale, which will run from February 16 to February 26 and feature more than a few of our most-anticipated films this year. Among them are Christian Petzold’s Afire (Roter Himmel), starring new muse Paula Beer; Hong Sangsoo’s In Water, which will appear in the Encounters section; and Philippe Garrel’s The Plough, once known as La lune crevée starring his three children Louis, Esther, and Lena, and (judging from the still) his first color feature since 2011’s A Burning Hot Summer. Meanwhile: Angela Schanelec will return with Music, and––six years after the wonderful Person to Person––it’s nice spotting a new feature from Dustin Guy Defa, The Adults.

Find the lineup below and head back next month for our coverage of the festival headed by Kristen Stewart’s jury.

Competition

20,000 Species of Bees (Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)

The Shadowless Tower (Zhang...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday said that Sean Penn will debut the documentary he shot in Ukraine with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Berlin next month.

Related Story Berlin Film Festival Lineup: Sean Penn, Philippe Garrel, Margarethe Von Trotta & Christian Petzold In Competition — Full List Related Story Berlin Film Festival: Watch Competition Lineup Revealed Live Related Story Berlin Co-Heads On Securing U.S. Star Power, Asia's Return & Iran-Russia Bans: "One Of Our Goals Was To Bring Back The Glamorous Side That Was Missing"

The doc is titled Superpower and documents Ukraine and President Zelenskyy at the start of Russia’s invasion. Penn shares a co-director credit with Aaron Kaufman.

Introducing the doc, Berlin artistic director Carlo Chatrian said: “This is a documentary film done under very difficult circumstances, but it is also a film that tells the role of art and artists in difficult times.”

Chatrian added that the film features...

The German sales company’s slate also includes titles by Margarethe von Trotta, Emily Atef, Tatiana Huezo.

The Match Factory has finalised a seven-strong slate of titles playing at the 2023 Berlinale, on which it represents world sales rights.

The company’s lineup includes four titles in Berlin Competition, including German director Christian Petzold’s latest film Afire, about a group of friends in a holiday home by the Baltic Sea where emotions run high as the parched forest around them catches fire.

The film stars Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs and Matthias Brandt and is produced by...

18 titles selected for competition, including films by Christian Petzold, Emily Atef, Margarethe Von Trotta and Philippe Garrel.

The 18-strong Competition line-up for the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival has been announced by festival heads Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek.

Scroll down for full list

New films from Christian Petzold, Margarethe Von Trotte, Emily Atef and Lila Avilés are among those selected. Some 15 of the 18 titles are world premieres, with international premieres for Celine Song’s Past Lives after debuting to strong reviews at Sundance; Makoto Shinkai’s animation Suzume, released in Japan last November; and Australia’s The Survival Of Kindness by Rolf de Heer,...

The Berlin Film Festival on Monday unveiled the titles selected for its official competition as well as its sidebar Encounters competitive section.

A total of 18 films have been selected for the international competition with highlights including Christian Petzold’s latest film Roter Himmel (Afire), Margarethe von Trotta directing Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps in Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert, and Philippe Garrel returns with a new feature titled The Plough.

Scroll down for the full lineup.

This morning the festival also revealed an extra special screening: Actor and filmmaker Sean Penn will debut a documentary titled Superpower, a film shot in Ukraine last year at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion and follows president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Berlin Film Festival takes place February 16-26.

Organizers have already announced more than 100 titles across sidebars spanning Panorama, Forum, and Berlinale Special. The festival had initially done a good job of increasing...

The Berlin International Film Festival unveiled the competition lineup for its 2023 edition on Monday morning, naming the 18 movies that will compete for the coveted Gold and Silver Bears at the 73rd Berlinale.

Berlinale executive director Mariette Rissenbeek and artistic director Carlo Chatrian presented a very international and arthouse-heavy lineup, with a strong focus on politically-charged cinema.

In a late addition, Superpower, Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s documentary on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian invasion of the country and the ongoing war, will have its world premiere in Berlin’s out-of-competition Berlinale Special section. The doc, made for Vice Studios, Aldamisa Entertainment and Fifth Season, is being sold internationally by Fifth Season.

Berlin 2023, taking place a year after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, will have a major focus on Ukraine. Even the festival’s official pin will be in the Ukraine colors of blue and yellow.

In competition, German auteur...