In less than a week, Athens-based sales agent and production company Heretic will stroll into the 75th Berlinale’s European Film Market (EFM, 13-19 February) with Little Trouble Girls [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Slovenia/Italy/Croatia/Serbia), world-premiering in the Berlinale’s brand-new Perspectives competition. Little Trouble Girls is the debut feature by Ljubljana-born filmmaker Urška Djukić. The 90-minute drama centres on shy 16-year-old Lucia, who befriends a charismatic older female student while also taking an interest in a restoration worker during a trip to the countryside with her Catholic school all-girls choir. The Slovene-language film is one among a weighty line-up, with many titles from the Balkans or by filmmakers with a connection to the region.

The sales agency also brings a feature directly from Rotterdam's Tiger Competition: Wind, Talk to Me [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (Serbia/Slovenia/Croatia) by Stefan Djordjević. The Serbian-language film, which was inspired by Djordjević’s personal experiences, follows the character of Stefan on a homecoming journey as he tries to finish a film about his recently deceased mother.

Heretic wields two Berlinale Encounters strand winners from last year: Aliyar Rasti’s The Great Yawn of History (Iran), which snagged a Special Jury Award from the section, and Asli Özge’s Faruk [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Asli Özge
scheda film] (Germany/Turkey/France), which was presented with the FIPRESCI Award. In the former, a Farsi-language drama and Rasti’s feature-length debut, a man recruits a non-religious assistant to accompany him on his search for a box of gold he dreams about. The latter follows a nonagenarian who starts to get involved in activism to stop the demolition of his flat in Istanbul.

The sales company is also bringing two titles in post-production for which they also served as producer: the Willem Dafoe-led The Birthday Party and the Zlatko Burić-led Novak. The Birthday Party (Greece/Netherlands/Spain/UK), which also stars Victoria Carmen Sonne (The Girl with the Needle [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Besir Zeciri
intervista: Directors Talks @ European…
intervista: Magnus von Horn
scheda film]), is directed by Miguel Ángel Jiménez and set in 1970s Greece. Dafoe plays a Greek tycoon celebrating his daughter’s 25th birthday on his private island, only to encounter a series of events that shake up his world. Harry Lagoussis’ Novak (Greece/Switzerland/India) follows the titular Croatian neuroscientist who is brought into a collective of idealistic young scientists after years hiding from his past.

Two Radu Jude titles will also be showcased: the widely honoured Do Not Expect Much from the End of the World [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Radu Jude
scheda film] (Romania/Luxembourg/France/Croatia) and found-footage documentary Eight Postcards from Utopia [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Radu Jude, Christian Feren…
scheda film] (Romania), which he co-directed with Christian Ferencz-Flatz. Heretic’s dramedy side will be represented through Peter Hoogendoorn’s father-son-centric Three Days of Fish [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Peter Hoogendoorn
scheda film] and Most People Die on Sundays [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Iair Said (Argentina/Italy/Spain), which premiered in Cannes’ ACID programme in 2024 and also enjoyed a lap at San Sebastián’s Horizontes Latinos sidebar.

Heretic’s slate is rounded out by a diverse set of dramas, including Kostis Charamountanis’s Greek-North Macedonian family drama Kyuka: Before Summer’s End [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Kostis Charamountanis
scheda film], which opened last year’s Cannes ACID sidebar and is also produced by Heretic. In the film, coming-of-age journeys clash with family secrets on the Greek island of Poros, where a single father brings his twins to meet their birth mother. Others include the Locarno-selected supernatural thriller New Dawn Fades [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Gürcan Keltek
scheda film] (Turkey/Germany/Italy/Norway/Netherlands) by Gürcan Keltek, Karlovy Vary 2023 Crystal Globe-winner Blaga’s Lessons [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Stephan Komandarev
scheda film] by Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria/Germany) and Sweet Dreams [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ena Sendijarević
scheda film] by Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević (Netherlands/Sweden/Indonesia/France (Réunion)), set in colonial-era Indonesia.