French international sales company Playtime continues its honeymoon with the Berlinale, having featured one contender for the Golden Bear in 2019, one in 2020, two in 2022 and two more in 2024, this time it is Leyla Bouzid's In a Whisper that it will be showcasing at the 76th edition of the German festival (12 to 22 February).

Starring Eya Bouteraa, Hiam Abbass and Marion Barbeau, In a Whisper is the Tunisian filmmaker's third feature film after As I Open My Eyes [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Leyla Bouzid
scheda film] (Audience Award and Europa Cinemas Label at the Giornate degli Autori in Venice in 2015) and A Tale of Love and Desire [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (unveiled during the Critics' Week in Cannes in 2021, three nominations for the 2022 Lumières Awards). Written by the director, the screenplay centres on Lilia, who returns to Tunisia for her uncle's funeral and is reunited with a family that knows nothing about her life in Paris. Determined to unravel the mystery of her uncle's sudden death, Lilia finds herself confronted with family secrets in a house where three generations of women live together... Produced by Caroline Nataf for Unité, the feature film will be released in France by Memento on 22 April.

Also featured in Berlin, Playtime will be showcasing Rithy Panh's documentary We Are the Fruits of the Forest, which will make its European premiere at the Forum. The film focuses on the endangered Bunong indigenous people of Cambodia, who live in an isolated mountainous region - where international conglomerates are appropriating their land and where the consequences of climate change are weighing heavily. The film is produced by Catherine Dussart Production with Anupheap Production and Arte France.

At EFM, the Playtime team, led by Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, Sébastien Beffa and François Yon, will continue sales for Jérôme Bonnell's The Arrangement [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (which recently earned Swann Arlaud a nomination for the Lumière Award for Best Actor) and will pre-sell several attractive titles in post-production: It Will Happen Tonight by Italy's Nanni Moretti (news), A Sucker’s Born Every Minute by Spain's Arantxa Echevarria (news), Sound Of Silence by Joyce A. Nashawati, A Woman Today by Robert Guédiguian (news), A Man’s Skin by Léa Domenach (article), Too Many Beasts by Sarah Arnold (article), Greenland by Emmanuel Courcol (article), and the Franco-Belgian animated production Iron Boy by Louis Clichy.

And let's not forget Safy Nebbou's Nobody’s Son (article), which Sony has acquired for numerous territories (including France, with a release date set for 11 November), Julien Decoin's Franco-Canadian family film Indiana and The Otters’ Legend, currently in pre-production, and Bertrand Bonello's Santo Subito! (starring Mark Ruffalo - news), which is about to start shooting.