17/12/2010

Up against Oscar-winning German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s US outing The Tourist [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile], German distributors are playing the French auteur film card.

NFP is launching Xavier Beauvois’s Of Gods and Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Xavier Beauvois
film profile] (Grand Jury Prize at Cannes Festival 2010). Meanwhile, Projektor is distributing Sarah Leonor’s A Real Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the last movie starring the late Guillaume Depardieu, as well as the actor’s penultimate one, Alex Iordachescu’s The Way Beyond [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (co-produced with Romania and Switzerland). Salzgeber is hoping for success with Sébastien Lifshitz’s Going South, starring Yannick Rénier and Léa Seydoux.

Majestic is releasing Bruno Chiche’s French/German co-production Small World [+see also:
trailer
film profile], starring a bevy of big-name actors, including Rénier, Depardieu senior as the old family friend who turns threatening, Romania’s Alexandra Maria Lara, Niels Arestrup, Françoise Fabian and Nathalie Baye. This adaptation of Martin Suter’s best-seller was co-produced by Munich’s Blueprint Films with Paris-based Quad Films.

This week’s two other European releases are 100% German. First up is Till Endemann’s comedy Vater Morgana, in which an elderly father (Michael Gwisdek) returns to disrupt the life of his son (Christian Ulmen) while he is getting ready to make a marriage proposal. But it’s also a chance to rebuild their relationship when the latter realises his father is suffering from Alzeimer’s disease. Produced by Hamburg-based Movie Company, the title is distributed by Warner.

Finally, Um Welt is releasing Joachim Tschirner’s documentary Yellow Cake.

(Translated from French)