17/01/2013 - Barmak Akram's film in the competition line-up at Park City. Premiere in Paris for La Tendresse ahead of Rotterdam. Doillon and Peck in Berlin

Full steam ahead to the Sundance Film Festival for French sales company Doc & Film International whose line-up features Wajma (An Afghan Love Story) directed by Barmak Akram (photo), a film to be presented next Monday in its world premiere at Park City in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section.

Coproduced by France, this movie by the Afghan filmmaker traces a love story which unfolds in Kabul between a pretty student, Wajma, and a waiter called Mustafa. Aware of the rules they are breaking, the two youngsters meet secretly until the day that Wajma discovers she is pregnant. Her certainty that she could marry Mustafa begins to falter. The young woman's father will have to choose between a cultural tradition insisting that the family's honour be upheld, and his devotion to his daughter.

Since the beginning of the year, Doc & Film International has been present on all fronts, with Daniela Elstner's team hard at work at the 15th Rendez-vous with the French Cinema, organized in Paris by Unifrance. Today, it is presenting the market premiere of La tendresse [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marion Hänsel
film profile] (Tenderness) by Marion Hänsel, a film soon to be screened in the Spectrum section of the Rotterdam Festival (from January 23 to February 3). With a cast including Marylin Canto, Olivier Gourmet, Adrien Jolivet and Sergi Lopez, this Belgian-French coproduction is about a couple, separated for 15 years, who are reunited for two days by the need to take to the road to find their son, hospitalized abroad after a serious skiing accident.

The merry-go-round of festivals and markets will continue at a very hectic pace for Doc & Film in Berlin (February 7 to 17), in particular with the new Jacques Doillon film, Mes séances de lutte (lit. My Fighting Sessions, with Sara Forestier and James Thiérrée - article), which will be presented in its world premiere in the Panorama, and also with the documentary Assistance mortelle (Fatal Assistance) by Raoul Peck, to be screened as part of the Berlinale Special programme.

Also worth noting in the line-up, De l’usage du sex toy en temps de crise (Sex and Love in Times of Crisis) directed by Eric Pitard (article) which will have its market premiere this Thursday in Paris.

(Translated from French)