11/02/2016 - Highly anticipated films in competition, the Panorama and the Forum are finding sales and distribution

Even before the 66th Berlin International Film Festival kicked off, German distributor Weltkino had already acquired two films from French production company CG Cinéma. Charles Gillibert is the producer of Mia Hansen-Løve’s competition entry Things to Come [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Mia Hansen-Løve
film profile], starring Isabelle Huppert, as well as Personal Shopper [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Artemio Benki
interview: Olivier Assayas
film profile] by Olivier Assayas. The latter is a thriller of a ghost story that takes place in the Paris fashion world and stars Kristen Stewart and Lars Eidinger, who is a member of this year’s international jury at Berlin.

There are also interesting works to discover in the Panorama and the Forum, where Vienna-based world sales agent Autlook has picked up the international rights for three documentaries that will be sold at the European Film Market (EFM). The Swiss-German co-production Europe, She Loves [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jan Gassmann
film profile] by Swiss director Jan Gassmann (Chrigu [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Off Beat [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), which centres on four couples in Europe, is the opening film of the Panorama Dokumente section. The movie digs deep into their relationships, jobs, and love and sex lives, looking at how they struggle and indulge in their pleasures, while their prospects for guaranteed education and jobs are crumbling, hand in hand with the vision of Europe.

Another Panorama Dokumente entry is the feature documentary Who's Gonna Love Me Now? [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by acclaimed Israeli directing duo Tomer and Barak Heymann, who produced the film in co-production with ARTE and British outfit Breaking Productions, with the support of the BFI. “Who's Gonna Love Me Now? is highly accessible to a broad audience: HIV infections are on the rise again, and there is still a lot of reservation in our society. Barak and Tomer have crafted an honest and uplifting movie, a tool to break down these barriers,” comments Salma Abdalla, Autlook Filmsales’ CEO, who has acquired all rights exclusive of Israel.

Austrian director/producer and DoP Nikolaus Geyrhalter is presenting his new documentary, Homo Sapiens [+see also:
trailer
interview: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
film profile], in the Forum section. Homo Sapiens is the long-awaited third part of his trilogy that began with Our Daily Bread [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and was followed up with Abendland [+see also:
film review
film profile]. In his new film, the Austrian filmmaker shows abandoned buildings, and places and areas being reclaimed by nature – myriad locations that each carry the traces of erstwhile human existence. Shot without any dialogue in precisely framed wide shots, the movie focuses on the present post-apocalypse.