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BERLINALE 2018 Market / France

Four Berlin-selected titles for Wide House

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- The French international sales agent will be touting movies such as Claire Simon’s Young Solitude and Ruth Beckermann’s The Waldheim Waltz, both being showcased in Forum

Four Berlin-selected titles for Wide House
Young Solitude by Claire Simon

Now in the starting blocks and raring to make its way to the European Film Market, which proved extremely fruitful for it last year with I Am Not Your Negro [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
, French international sales agent Wide House, which specialises in documentary and is managed by Anaïs Clanet, will once again have a chance to strike some great deals at the event, as its line-up includes four films that have been accepted into the various sections of the 68th Berlin Film Festival (15-25 February 2018). 

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The leader of the pack is Young Solitude [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Claire Simon
film profile
]
 by Claire Simon, which will have its world premiere in the Forum (in addition to a separate presentation in the Generation 14Plus programme). It is the 12th feature by the filmmaker and her eighth documentary, following The Graduation [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
 (Best Documentary on Cinema at Venice in 2016), The Woods Dreams Are Made Of [+see also:
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 and Géographie humaine [+see also:
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 (out of competition at Locarno in 2015 and 2013), as well as Mimi [+see also:
interview: Claire Simon
film profile
]
(Berlinale Forum in 2003), among others. With her fiction titles, the director has also found favour with Cannes (A Foreign Body in French Cinema in 1997, On Fire [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
 and Les Bureaux de Dieu [+see also:
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 in the Directors’ Fortnight in 2006 and 2008) and Locarno (Gare du Nord [+see also:
film review
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film profile
]
 in competition in 2013). "I’m very proud to be working with Claire again – she’s one of today’s best French female filmmakers and is unfairly underrated, in my opinion," states Anaïs Clanet. 

A veritable ode to youth, Young Solitude portrays an important time for any individual, from 16-18 years of age. Set in the Paris suburbs in high school (for those lucky enough to go), teenagers chat after and even during class, sitting in the hallway or outside on a bench, looking at the city below them. Simon sets up a cinematic dialogue with the teens, speaking about their personal history, their family, but also their passions and loneliness. At this age, they start thinking about leaving their family, when there is one, and even run away from it when it’s completely broken. Being by yourself can bring as many good things as bad ones. This film becomes a place where they search for and discuss the meaning of all this. Young Solitude was staged by Sophie Dulac Productions, which will also be handling its French distribution.

Wide House will also be negotiating deals for another title that will get a world premiere in the Forum: The Waldheim Waltz [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruth Beckermann
film profile
]
 by Austria’s Ruth Beckermann (who was popular in this very same section of Berlin in 2016 with The Dreamed Ones [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
). This time, the director-producer looks into the lies and the truth surrounding the political rise to power of Kurt Waldheim, who was Secretary-General of the United Nations before becoming president of Austria, in spite of his controversial past.

The slate also includes A Journey to the Fumigated Towns by famous helmer Fernando Solanas (which will be unveiled in the Berlinale Special programme), who has been investigating the ramifications of Argentina’s agricultural model (soya, GMOs, health and environmental impacts, and so on), and The Green Lie [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Austria’s Werner Boote (set to be presented in the Culinary Cinema section), which shines a light on the hidden face of products that are marketed as “environmentally responsible”.

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(Translated from French)

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