10/02/2017 - The Paris-based outfit is selling the upcoming films by André Téchiné, Marco Tullio Giordana and Silvio Soldini, in addition to the feature debuts by nine young talents

With 15 films in the crosshairs – striking a fine balance between seasoned directors and young filmmakers who have won a string of awards for their shorts and are making their first forays into feature-length territory – French international sales agent Celluloid Dreams has started work at the European Film Market of the 67^th Berlin Film Festival (9-19 February 2017) with a very promising line-up.

The team managed by Hengameh Panahi has launched pre-sales for Golden Years [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by French director André Téchiné (toplined by Pierre Deladonchamps and Céline Sallette – read the article – French release scheduled for 13 September 2017, courtesy of ARP Sélection).

Also freshly added to the line-up are two Italian films by well-known auteurs: the project Nome di donne by Marco Tullio Giordana (starring Cristiana Capotondi as a young woman unearthing dark secrets in the retirement home where she works; also starring Fabrizio Gifuni and Kseniya Rappoport) and the title in post-production Emma by Silvio Soldini (with a cast including Valeria Golino and Adriano Giannini).

At Berlin, Celluloid Dreams will continue working on sales for a couple of films: in post-production Lean on Pete by British filmmaker Andrew Haigh (see the article – sales shared with The Bureau Sales) and in pre-productionAndorra by Fred Schepisi (an Australian-Italian co-production boasting an all-star cast that includes such names as Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Redgrave and Riccardo Scamarcio). Plus, the firm will be marketing the animated movie The Swallows of Kabul, which is currently in production and is an adaptation of the famous Yasmina Khadra novel, directed by France’s Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbe-Mévellec.

A number of talented youngsters are also on the slate, with nine feature debuts that will all be ready in the spring and have been directed by filmmakers who turned a lot of heads on the international stage with their shorts. As for French productions, Celluloid Dreams is pre-selling Custody by Xavier Legrand (see the article), who was nominated for the Oscar for Best Short Film in 2014 with Just Before Losing Everything, The Sower by Marine Francen (see the article), and the animated movie Mutafukaz by Run and Shojiro Nishimi, adapted from the cult series of comic books by the former, an Ankama production voiced (in the French version) by Orelsan and Gringe. 

Other feature debuts hitting the line-up include Ravens by Sweden’s Jens Assur (a thriller set against a backdrop of family drama on a farm – see the news – by the director of the short film Killing the Chickens to Scare the Monkeys), the German-Austrian animated co-production using rotoscoping Tehran Taboo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ali Soozandeh
film profile] by Ali Soozandeh (who oversaw the animation in the multi-award-winning documentary The Green Wave, selected in competition at Sundance in 2011) and Tiger Milk by Germany’s Ute Wieland (an adaptation of Stephanie de Velasco’s novel of the same name, which Constantin will release in German theatres in August).

Also among the young directors that Celluloid Dreams will be pinning its hopes on at the EFM are Venezuela’s Gustavo Rondón Córdova with La familia [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (in competition at Berlin in 2012 with his short Nostalgia), Lebanon’s Nadim Tabet with One of These Days, and Norway’s Jonas M Gulbrandsen with Valley of Shadows.

(Translated from French)