13/02/2026 - The German-French sales agent’s slate includes Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars and Kilian Armando Friedrich’s I Understand Your Displeasure

Berlin- and Lyon-based international sales agent Films Boutique is participating in this year’s EFM with a well-curated catalogue of highly anticipated titles. Its line-up includes the Berlinale Competition title Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars, a co-production between France and Chad, directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Grigris [+see also:
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film profile], A Screaming Man [+see also:
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film profile]), and starring Maïmouna Miawama, Ériq Ebouaney and Achouackh Abakar Souleymane. The film focuses on Kellou, a young woman from a village close to the Ennedi Desert in Chad, where millennia-old mountains rise from the sand. Haunted by visions she cannot escape, she sees her life change the day she meets Aya, a young outcast shunned by the community.

The Berlinale Panorama entry I Understand Your Displeasure is also part of the company’s slate. The German debut feature by Kilian Armando Friedrich is a drama centred on 59-year-old Heike (Sabine Thalau), a worker at a cleaning company. When a powerful subcontractor warns that he’ll pull his support unless she assigns more work to his crew, Heike is forced into a tough decision, which would require her to sacrifice one of the employees on the team she oversees.

The company founded by Jean-Christophe Simon is also bringing the Maltese-German co-production Zejtune, helmed by Alex Camilleri (Luzzu [+see also:
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interview: Alex Camilleri
film profile]), to the market. Screened in competition at the Göteborg Film Festival, this 108-minute drama focuses on Mar (Michela Farrugia), a woman who plans to leave Malta for good by selling the farmland she’s inherited. But as she travels the island to claim her land, she meets Nenu (Nenu Borg), an irrepressible 80-year-old folk singer whose music and spirit challenge her desire to escape.

Also featured on the line-up is the US flick Hot Water, Ramzi Bashour’s debut feature. The road movie, whose protagonists are an American kid and his Lebanese mum, stars Lubna Azabal (Incendies [+see also:
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Supported by Cate Blanchett, the Displacement Film Fund and the Hubert Bals Fund, Sense of Water, a short film by Mohammad Rasoulof, was part of the official selection of the recently concluded IFFR and is now having its market premiere at the EFM. The 39-minute drama stars Ali Nourani and Behnush Najibi as the protagonists of a story that merges love, exile, unfair prison sentences and a longing for home.

Finally, the 2025 titles Calle Málaga [+see also:
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interview: Maryam Touzani
film profile], starring Carmen Maura and directed by Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, Adam [+see also:
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film profile]), and Strange River [+see also:
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interview: Jaume Claret Muxart
film profile] (the debut feature by Jaume Claret Muxart) round off the list. Both movies have been seen at a long list of international festivals: the former was screened at Venice, Toronto and BFI London, among others, while the latter was also featured at Venice, followed by San Sebastián, Busan and the Chicago International Film Festival.