The international sales agent based in Brussels Best Friend Forever will enjoy a notable presence at the 75th Berlinale, with one of its films screening in competition and another selected for the Panorama section, and with the group also negotiating on behalf of both movies at the European Film Market (running 13 – 19 February).

The first of the two is Timestamp [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Kateryna Gornostai
scheda film], a pressing Ukrainian documentary by Kateryna Gornostai which examines the issues surrounding the continuity of education in wartime. In Ukraine, keeping schools open is an act of resistance, an attempt to return to a semblance of normality, before war was declared on 22 February 2022, and even as far back as 2014 for some of the country’s regions. The filmmaker takes us to the heart of the brutal reality of war, revealing its impact on the everyday lives of pupils and teachers. In wartime, life goes on, and so does school. Presented as a mosaic, the film explores how schools function in extreme conditions, both on the front line and in the background, where ordinary life cohabits with omnipresent danger. Kateryna Gornostai’s previous film, Stop-Zemlia [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Kateryna Gornostai
scheda film], bagged the Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film, courtesy of the Génération 14plus Competition’s Youth Jury. Timestamp was produced by 2Brave Productions (Ukraine) in co-production with a_BAHN (Germany), Rinkel Film&Docs (Netherlands) and Cinéphage Productions (France).

BFF will also be presenting Jun Li’s new movie, Queerpanorama, within the aptly matched Panorama section. This will be the director’s third feature film, having previously presented Drifting at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2021. The film follows the trajectory of a gay man who adopts the personalities of the men he sleeps with in order to seduce other men, convinced that he can only be himself by being other people. He plays the role of scientist, delivery man, teacher and architect, until he meets an actor… The film is co-produced by the USA, Hong Kong and China.

The firm is also proud to be pressing on with sales on The Things You Kill [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Alireza Khatami
scheda film] by Iranian-American director Alireza Khatami, which is a thriller set in Turkey where university lecturer Ali forces his enigmatic gardener to carry out an act of vengeance in cold blood. The film has just scooped the Best Director Prize in Sundance’s International Competition.

Last but not least, Best Friend Forever’s line-up will be buoyed by Universal Language courtesy of Canada’s Mathew Rankin - an absurd and surrealist comedy which was launched in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and which is continuing its world tour - and a trio of films put forth by a new generation of filmmakers: the second feature film by Lenny and Harpo Guit, who set Sundance on fire with their comedy as trashy as it was crazy, joyfully stupid and mean Mother Schmuckers [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Harpo e Lenny Guit
scheda film], and who are now returning with Heads or Fails [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Lenny e Harpo Guit
scheda film], a kind of anti-romantic comedy following in the footsteps of a beautiful loser who’s constantly unlucky in love as well as at cards; Silent Storms [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Dania Reymond-Boughenou
scheda film], which is a French-Algerian fantasy drama and debut feature film on the border between genres, by Dania Reymond-Boughenou; and Milano [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], a first feature film and family drama by Christina Vandekerckhove, which recorded upwards of 60,000 admissions in Belgium and which stars one of the biggest names in Flemish cinema, Matteo Simoni.