Berlin

Small Things Like These,” based on the novella by Claire Keegan, opened the Berlin Film Festival, scored solid reviews for both Murphy’s quietly intense starring role and Emily Watson’s turn as a tyrannical nun (a performance that won her the Golden Bear). Yet a domestic deal for the film — which Murphy also produced for his new Big Things Films banner — has yet to be announced by FilmNation. But “Small Things Like These” is just part of a growing new trend of starry indie titles that are struggling — or at least taking much longer than usual — to secure a U.S.

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Films Boutique Sells Mohammad Rasoulof’s ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ to Multiple Territories (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed the first international sales for Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” ahead of its world premiere on Friday in the Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival. The film has been acquired in Italy by BiM Distribuzione and Lucky Red, Benelux by September Film Distribution, Spain by Bteam Pictures, Greece by Ama Films, Hungary by Cirko Film, Norway by Selmer Media, Portugal by Leopardo Filmes, Taiwan by Hooray Films and Turkey by Bir Film.

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Latido Takes David Pérez Sañudo’s ‘Sacamantecas’ (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Spain’s Latido Films has clinched world sales rights to “Sacamantecas,” the third feature by writer-director David Pérez Sañudo, whose Latido-repped debut feature, “Ane,” swept three Spanish Academy Goya Awards in 2021. Latido is already handling Pérez Sañudo’s second feature, “Los últimos románticos,” which it announced at the Berlin Film Festival as the first title in a two-picture deal with Sañudo.

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Swiss Fest Solothurn to Make Big Splash at Goes to Cannes with Curated Slate including Latest Nicolas Steiner Jacqueline Zünd

Annika Pham Unspooling May 18 as part of an overall Swiss Focus at the Marché du Film, Solothurn Film Festival Goes to Cannes marks the first collaboration between the long-standing Swiss festival and the Cannes market, but also a first for many of the talents and producers carefully picked for the event. Two of Switzerland’s top documentary filmmakers Jacqueline Zünd, winner of a 2019 Crystal Bear nominated for “Where We Belong,” and Nicholas Steiner, director of “Above & Below”, ranked among Variety reviewer Peter Debruge’s Top 10 films of 2015, are set to attract buyers, sales agents and programmers’ attention with their star-stubbed fiction debuts.

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Studiocanal Rolls Out German Trilogy ‘Woodwalkers’; Execs Talk Ambitions For New Franchise – Cannes Market

EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal has been rolling out sales on the first instalment of Germany-language film trilogy Woodwalkers in Cannes.

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Adria Arjona & Edgar Ramirez Sign For Jayro Bustamante’s ‘El Sombreron’ As The Match Factory Launches Sales In Cannes

Adria Arjona and Edgar Ramirez have been announced to co-star in Jayro Bustamante’s dystopian thriller El Sombreron as The Match Factory launches worldwide sales on the project in Cannes, with CAA Media Finance representing North America.

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Ruben Östlund Regular Partner Film i Väst Hikes Co-Pros with Noomi Rapace Starrer ‘Mother,’ Flags Five Films in Cannes (EXCLUSIVE)

Annika Pham Billed the ‘Trollywood’ of the North for its close ties to talent, the leading Scandinavian regional film fund Film i Väst in Sweden’s Trollhättan has boarded the Noomi Rapace starrer “Mother, to be helmed by Macedonia’s Teona Stugar Mitevska. The biopic, in which Rapace will play the legendary religious figure Mother Teresa, will mark the English-language debut of esteemed auteur Mitevska, credited for the 2019 Berlin entry “God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya”.

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Movistar Plus+ Partners on Alauda Ruíz de Azua’s ‘Los Domingos’ (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Movistar Plus+, Spain’s most-viewed pay TV operator, is partnering on “Los domingos,” a new film from “Lullaby” director Alauda Ruíz de Azua and the producers of that critically acclaimed film. “Los Domingos” is set in and will shoot in Ruíz de Azúa’s native Basque country, said Nahikari Ipiña at Sayaka Producciones (“Colossal”). Now in development, “Los Domingos” is produced by Movistar Plus+ and Sayaka and Marisa Fernández Armenteros’ Buenapinta Media (“The Mole Agent”), Sandra Hermida at Think Studio and Colosé Producciones (“Society of the Snow”) and Manu Calvo (“Wounded”).

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‘Crip Camp’ Director Nicole Newnham Teams With NBC News Studios on a Doc About Secret Tunnel Dug Under Berlin Wall (EXCLUSIVE)

Addie Morfoot Contributor Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nicole Newnham (“Crip Camp”) is at work on her next documentary — “Tunnel 29,” about a secret escape tunnel built under the Berlin Wall in 1962. The film, co-produced by NBC News Studios and Story Force Entertainment, will chronicle the story of a group of students who risked their lives and defied the Iron Curtain by digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall, enabling 29 East Germans to escape to the West. “‘Tunnel 29’ will cinematically immerse the audience in the fraught and tense time when the world grappled with the trauma and consequences of the Wall and the Cold War — a time that bears an astonishing resemblance to today,” says Newnham.

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Hot Spots: How Ireland’s Booming Screen Sector Shows No Signs Of Slowing Down And Why It’s “An Overnight Success, Thirty Years In The Making”

Ireland’s screen industry is having a moment. With the Cannes Film Festival well underway, there’s a notable strong Irish presence in this year’s line-up including Element Pictures’ three entrants – Competition title Kinds of Kindness from Yorgos Lanthimos, Rungano Nyoni’s sophomore feature On Becoming A Guinea Fowl and Ariane Labed’s directorial debut September Says (both in Un Certain Regard). There’s also Competition title The Apprentice, which is co-produced with Irish outfit Tailored Films and Lorcan Finnegan’s Nicolas Cage starrer The Surfer premiering in the Midnight Screenings strand. Even Andrea Arnold’s Competition title Bird is rich with Irish talent with star Barry Keoghan and Oscar-nominated cinematographer Robbie Ryan both having worked on the film.

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Renate Reinsve On Her Return to Cannes With ‘Armand’, “The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done”

Before making Joachim Trier’s 2021 hit The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsve was about to jack it all in. Three years later — after A Different Man, with Sebastian Stan, Another Life, with Gael García Bernal, and Handling the Undead, a chiller from Let the Right One In writer John Ajvide Lindqvist — she now finds herself not just back in Cannes but doing double duty at the Sundance, Berlin and Tribeca film festivals (“It’s a running joke that I have two movies everywhere”). Reinsve takes the lead in the Swedish drama Armand, directed by Ingmar Bergman’s grandson Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel.

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Carlos Saura’s ‘The Hunt’ Gets Modern-Day ‘Revision’ Which Rolls in July (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “La Mesías” star Carmen Machi, Almodóvar muse Rossy de Palma and Blanca Portillo, a Cannes best actress co-winner for Almodóvar’s “Volver,” are set to star in “The Prey” (“Dia de Caza”), billed as a contemporary revision of Carlos Saura’s 1965 pic “The Hunt,” quite possibly his crowing achievement. The film is set to shoot in July in Spain’s Extremadura, with theatrical release scheduled for summer 2025. Brutal, kinetic at times and taking no prisoners, Saura’s original won a Berlin Silver Bear.

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Breaking Baz @ Cannes: ‘Barbie’s Michael Cera Brings Holiday Cheer To Cannes & Has Two Feature Movies In Development To Direct

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cera caught Tyler Taormina’s feature directing debut Ham on Rye after a friend suggested he check it out. He was so impressed that he signed himself up as a sort of producing “cheerleader” on the filmmaker’s latest picture Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Marcelo Gomes’ Romantic Period Drama ‘Portrait of a Certain Orient’ Gets International Trailer Ahead of Cannes Market Screening (EXCLUSIVE)

Jamie Lang Brazil’s O2 Play, the distribution arm of O2 Filmes group, will host a Cannes market screening for director Marcelo Gomes‘ latest feature, “Portrait of a Certain Orient,” on Friday, May 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Lerins 4. Ahead of the screening, O2 has given Variety exclusive access to the romantic period drama’s international trailer.