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 [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]), 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 [+lee también:
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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 [+lee también:
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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 [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], starring Carmen Maura and directed by Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, Adam [+lee también:
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entrevista: Jaume Claret Muxart
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