09/05/2025 - The Brazilian-born, Berlin-based producer talks about his passion and his most inspiring projects

Fred Burle is a Brazilian producer based in Berlin, and partner at One Two Films. His company has been working on different internationally acclaimed projects such as Holy Spider [+see also:
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interview: Ali Abbasi
interview: Ali Abbasi
interview: Zar Amir Ebrahimi
film profile] by Ali Abbasi, Armand [+see also:
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interview: Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel
interview: Renate Reinsve
film profile] by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel or recently Peter Hujar’s Day [+see also:
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interview: Ido Fluk
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Cineuropa: Would you say that you follow a particular philosophy as a producer?
Fred Burle: It's a philosophy that came into being gradually over time. I want to work on projects that talk about relevant topics from around the world and that resonate with me. It's fulfilling to be able to tell stories that need to be told and to give a voice to people that maybe would have otherwise found it more difficult to tell those stories. As producers, we have a great positive power in our hands to be the ones that first select the stories that we're going to tell, and to enable the ones who should be telling them to do so. That's what makes the job of a producer so dynamic, it's eclectic and diverse. We get to know so many different countries and stories. I have learned so much from these projects.

How do you find your projects?
There is no recipe, but some guidelines. It takes some time to get into the international market, but once you start picking the right markets and labs and programs to participate, you start seeing where the best projects are. For instance, I love going to the Torino Film Lab, because for me it's by far the best place to find new projects, especially by new voices. Along the way, you make friends and you can find interesting projects there as well. Finally, of course for me the most important thing is to keep watching films. It's important to know what is happening, what is being made. Moreover, to watch films during festivals reminds me, why I always dreamt of doing this job.

You work mostly on international co-productions. Is it also important for you to support German filmmakers?
There are two reasons, because so far, we have done fewer German-only projects. Honestly we have struggled so far to find stories that have a more international resonance and don't tell the same stories about a few typical German areas such as the war, refugees or the GDR. For sure, these stories have to be told too. We are looking for more original topics, such as the one we recently worked on with Köln 75, shown at the Berlinale. And then, since we do so many international projects, I guess that the best German talents don't think of us in the first place as potential partners for their projects. But we would love to do great German projects, and to offer them to international audiences. So, please, to the great talents in Germany reading this, come to us! I would love to see your projects as soon as possible.

Will you be taking a slate of projects to Cannes, and what are you searching for?
I will focus on packaging and finding good partners for two projects in particular, for which we want to enter financing very soon. The first one is a French-German-Portuguese co-production, The Oblivion Theory by acclaimed Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir. She is one of the most renowned and important voices in cinema today. We have been developing the project for four years already, and are now finalising the casting. It is certainly a very important project for me and will remain so for the next few years. The second project is a British-German co-production, the third feature film by Hong Khaou, who did Lilting [+see also:
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film profile], starring Ben Whishaw. The new film is an amazing adaptation of a German theatre play by Marius von Mayenburg called The Ugly One. Besides these two projects we have two more in post-production right now, namely Calle Malaga by Maryam Touzani with Carmen Maura in the leading role. It's an amazing film. The second one is Zejtune by Maltese director Alex Camilleri, whose first feature film Luzzu [+see also:
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interview: Alex Camilleri
film profile] premiered at Sundance and won an award. Also a beautiful film. And as we speak. we are shooting two more films. One, shooting in Berlin, by Dutch filmmaker Michiel ten Horn, Any Other Night, as well as the debut feature film by Sara Ishaq, who made several documentaries such as the Oscar nominated short film called Karama Has No Walls. But right now, I am mostly very excited about the world premiere in the competition in Cannes of our film The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho. This film is very important for me as a Brazilian national, since it's my very first Brazilian collaboration.