Armed with a natural, optimistic enthusiasm, not to mention failproof ammunition, which has enabled them to look towards the future and move beyond the restricted context of the unending global health crisis (which has led to a surplus of films for distributors and increasing caution when it comes to acquisitions), French international sales agents have taken the 71st Berlinale’s (online) European Film Market by storm. Here is a brief and non-exhaustive overview of the main announcements to come out of the event.

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Shining bright among the most dazzling vendors is Luxbox, which backed the right horse in the form of Natural Light [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Dénes Nagy
scheda film], the first feature film by Hungary’s Dénes Nagy which walked away with nothing less than the Silver Bear for Best Director. The team also kicked off presales on three titles in post-production: Clara Sola [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Nathalie Álvarez Mesén
scheda film], the first feature film by Swedish-Costa Rican director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (which triumphed at the Les Arcs Film Festival’s Work in Progress event in January – read our news), I Want To Talk About Duras [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Claire Simon
scheda film] by France’s Claire Simon, and Selman Nacar’s first feature film Between Two Dawns [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Selman Nacar
scheda film] (produced by Turkey, alongside French group Arizona Productions, Romania’s Libra Film and Spain’s Nephilim Producciones).

mk2 Films also upped the ante in the wake of Céline Sciamma’s Petite maman [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which went down very well with the foreign press, left the competition empty handed, but which nonetheless racked up some impressive sales at the EFM, notably being bought by Neon for North America. And four hugely tantalising announcements enlivened the pre-sales film slate of the French sales agent, namely the arrival in their line-up of: A Chiara [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jonas Carpignano
scheda film] by Italy’s Jonas Carpignano, a co-production involving Italy, France, Sweden and Denmark on which filming recently wrapped; Corsage [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Marie Kreutzer
intervista: Marie Kreutzer
scheda film] by Austria’s Marie Kreutzer, on which shooting is about to begin (a production steered by Film AG together with German firm Komplizen Film, Luxembourg’s Samsa Film and French group Kazak Productions); the project Women Do Cry [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
scheda film] by Bulgarian directors Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova (who drew a great many heads in Locarno 2019 with Cat In The Wall [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
scheda film]), which is produced by Activist 38 in league with Paris’s Ici et Là Productions; and the Russian-Canadian-German co-production House Arrest by Alexey German Jr. (his most recent film after Dovlatov [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Milan Maric
scheda film]), which is currently in post-production. The team also continued its labours on behalf of the rest of its line-up, notably racking up pre-sales on various other films in post-production, such as The Worst Person In The World [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Joachim Trier
scheda film] by Norway’s Joachim Trier and The Young Lovers [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Carine Tardieu.

Playtime mostly made a killing in pre-sales by way of Jacques Audiard’s Paris, 13^th District [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]. Currently in post-production, the film was bought for territories including the US (IFC Films), the UK (Curzon), Scandinavia (Scanbox), Poland (Gutek Film), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), the Benelux Union (Cineart), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), the countries of former Yugoslavia (MCF), Japan, South Korea and Canada. Also worth a mention is the new film in the vendor’s vastly ample line-up: Aïssa Maïga and Isabelle Simeonie’s documentary about the film industry Regard Noir.

Wild Bunch International was rewarded with the Encounters’ Special Jury Prize, which went to Lê Bào’s Taste [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], and they also kicked off pre-sales on James Huth’s The New Toy [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which is a remake of the hit film of the same name, made by Francis Veber in 1976. Shooting is due to commence in spring with Daniel Auteuil and Jamel Debbouze playing lead roles (produced by Eskwad, alongside Sony Pictures International Productions). The team weren’t idle in the pre-sales area either, vis-à-vis post-production titles Deception [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Arnaud Desplechin
scheda film] by Arnaud Desplechin, Titane [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
scheda film] by Julia Ducournau, Incredible But True [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Quentin Dupieux
scheda film] by Quentin Dupieux, Earwig [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
scheda film] by Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Both Sides of the Blade [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Claire Denis.

For their part, Totem Films took advantage of the trophy won by Alice Diop’s documentary We [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alice Diop
scheda film] in the Encounters section, as well as capitalising on the much remarked presence in competition of Ballad of a White Cow [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam, which was bought for more than half of the major international territories over the course of the EFM.

Elle Driver distinguished itself with four new films, namely Robot Dreams [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which is the first animated film (in production) by Spain’s Pablo Berger, and three French films: Beautiful Minds [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Bernard Campan and Alexandre Jollien, The Lockdown Tower [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Guillaume Nicloux and Everybody Loves Jeanne [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Céline Devaux, the latter two being in pre-production.

The EFM also saw Pulsar Content launch pre-sales on Lady Nazca by Swiss director Damien Dorsaz. This English-language film set to be shot in the summer and starring Germany’s Paula Beer and French actor Guillaume Gallienne, will plunge viewers into the early 1940s and will revolve around a mathematician researching some mysterious geoglyphs in Peru. Production is in the hands of French group Octopolis, Germany’s 27 Films Production and Switzerland’s PS Production, with distribution overseen by Tobis Film in Germany and Memento Films in France.

Les Films du Losange rode the wave of their film which is competing in Berlin, Fabian – Going to the Dogs [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Albrecht Schuch
scheda film] by Germany’s Dominik Graf (bought for North America, among other countries, by Kino Lorber), as well as selling Nicolas Maury’s My Best Part [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Nicolas Maury
intervista: Nicolas Maury
scheda film] for the US.

Memento International likewise clinched a deal with Kino Lorber, who acquired the North American rights for Maltese director Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alex Camilleri
scheda film] (which bagged a trophy at Sundance). The film has been bought for a huge number of other territories, including Spain (Wanda), the UK (Peccadillo), Scandinavia (Edge), France (Epicentre), Portugal (Legendmain), Greece (Weirdwave), the countries of former Yugoslavia (Kino Mediteran), Eastern Europe (HBO) and China.

Orange Studio, meanwhile, kicked off pre-sales on Steve Achiepo’s Slumlord [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which has just wrapped filming, as well as on Sophie Boudre’s dramedy Schoolmates! which is currently being shot, not to mention Finnish-Somalian director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s feature film in post-production The Gravedigger's Wife [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (a product of Cannes’ Cinéfondation residency), which is produced by Finnish group Bufo, together with French firm Pyramide Productions and Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision.

The EFM also saw France Télévisions Distribution expand its line-up by way of Fabienne Berthaud’s Little Man Tom [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] and Sylvie Audcoeur’s An Ordinary Mother [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], which are joining the likes of post-production titles A Radiant Girl [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (the first feature film to be directed by actress Sandrine Kiberlain) and Hear Me Out [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Pascal Elbé, which has notably been pre-purchased for Italy (BIM), Spain (Vértigo) and Germany (Neue Visionen).

As regards Pyramide, the firm launched pre-sales on Tralala [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by brothers Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu, while WTFilms did the same for Tel-Aviv/Beirut [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Michale Boganim. StudioCanal, for its part, thrust Emmanuelle Bercot’s Peaceful [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] back into the spotlight (now in post-production following an epic film shoot, initially delayed as a result of Catherine Deneuve’s health issues and, later, on account of the health crisis).

Loco Films kicked off pre-sales on The Champion by Polish director Maciej Barczewski (revolving around a boxing champion sent to Auschwitz where he joins with a group of resistant deportees), while Best Friend Forever got the ball rolling on Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s Bloody Oranges [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jean-Christophe Meurisse
scheda film], as well as labouring on behalf of two films unveiled in the Panorama section (Souad [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Egypt’s Ayten Amin and All Eyes Off Me [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Hadas Ben Aroya
scheda film] by Israel’s Hadas Ben Aroya). Reel Suspects are likewise worth a mention, having negotiated on behalf of a title presented in the Panorama section (Bliss [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Henrika Kull
scheda film] by Germany’s Henrika Kull) and having also added Vampir [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Branko Tomović
scheda film], by Serbia’s Branko Tomovic (in post-production – article), to its line-up.

Last but not least, some impressive sales were achieved by Other Angle Pictures, thanks to Olivier Dahan’s Simone, A Woman of the Century (article), notably for the US (Samuel Goldwyn Films), Spain (Caramel), South America, Australia and Canada. And Le Pacte struck some impressive deals, too, by way of Olivier Peyon’s Tokyo Shaking, which was bought for Spain (Alfa Pictures), Germany and Austria (ZDF), the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Mediasquad), and Israel and Canada (Axia Films), to name a few.

In short, it’s an interim assessment which speaks volumes for the dynamism of French sales agents (despite the dampener placed by health restrictions on cinemas in countless countries), and that’s without including the much-anticipated results of vendors along the lines of Pathé International (news), Charades (news), Gaumont, Bac Films and Coproduction Office (who have upcoming works by Ruben Ostlund , Michelangelo Frammatino, Gus Van Den Berghe and Ulrich Seidl jostling in the pipeline).