25/07/2024 - The German company will sell Athina Rachel Tsangari's latest Harvest, Türker Süer's debut Edge of Night and the Quay Brothers’s dreamlike tale Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

One month ahead of the start of the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival (28 August-7 September), the Cologne-based sales agent The Match Factory has announced its line-up of films heading to the Lido.

This year, the German firm whips out three aces. The first is a competition title, namely Athens-born filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari’s latest effort Harvest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile]. Shot in English and based on the Booker Prize shortlisted novel penned by Jim Crace, the 131-minute picture unfolds over seven hallucinatory days when a village with no name, in an undefined time and place, disappears. In Tsangari's tragicomic take on the Western, townsman-turned-farmer Walter Thirsk and befuddled lord of the manor Charles Kent are childhood friends about to face an invasion from the outside world: the trauma of modernity. 

The main cast is led by Caleb Landry Jones (seen last year at the Lido in Luc Besson’s DogMan [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) who stars alongside Harry Melling, Rosy McEwen, Arinzé Kene and Thalissa Teixeira. Tsangari penned the script with Joslyn Barnes. Rebecca O’Brien produced the film for Sixteen Films (UK), Louverture Films (USA) and The Match Factory (Germany), in co-production with Haos Film (Greece), Faliro House Productions (Greece) and Why Not Productions (France) in association with Meraki Films (Cyprus) and Roag Films (UK). It received backing from Ashland Hill Media Finance, BBC Film, Screen Scotland, Electric Shadow, Bayerischer Rundfunk, ARTE and Film under Medienstiftung NRW, EKOME, the Greek Film Centre, Arte France and Arte France Cinéma, the Artemis Rising Foundation and In Bloom.

The second title of The Match Factory line-up is Türker Süer’s Edge of Night [+see also:
film review
film profile], playing in the Orizzonti Extra strand. The outfit bills the German-Turkish co-production as “a deeply intimate and universally resonant debut feature” helmed by this “Berlinale Talent standout.” The story follows Sinan, a young lieutenant in the Turkish army, who is asked to hand over his brother Kenan to a military court. Burdened by the tragic death of their father, both brothers embark on a journey through a land marked by political unrest. As they confront their beliefs, Sinan's convictions are put to the ultimate test on the night of the coup. In a country where the state demands absolute loyalty, the brothers must decide if they are ready to face the sacrifices required by their duty and their conscience. The cast includes Ahmet Rıfat Şungar and Berk Hakman.

Finally, the third title sold by the German sales agent is Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass [+see also:
film review
interview: Quay Brothers
film profile], directed by the Quay Brothers. The dreamlike tale, based on the 1937 novel by Polish writer and painter Bruno Schulz, zooms in on a ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line which transports a son, Jozef, visiting his dying father in a remote Galician Sanatorium. Upon arrival, Jozef finds the Sanatorium entirely dilapidated and run by a dubious Doctor Gotard, who tells him that his father’s death, the death that has struck him in his country, has here not yet occurred, and that the Sanatorium is always late by a certain interval of time, the length of which cannot be defined. Jozef will come to realise that the Sanatorium is a floating world halfway between sleep and wakefulness and that time and events cannot be measured in any tangible form. The feature is produced by Koninck Studios (UK), Galicia Limited (UK) and IKH Pictures Production (Poland), and co-produced by The Match Factory (Germany) and the Institute Adam Mickiewicz (Poland).

The cast is spearheaded by Tadeusz Janiszewski, Wioletta Kopańska, Andrzej Kłak, Zenaida Yanowsky and Allison Bell.