Berlin/EFM 2023

Superpower by Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman to world premiere in Berlin. “In a festival that will take place one year after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, it is important to show the film that Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman made under such difficult conditions,” writes the festival. Additionally, Sur l’Adamant by Nicolas Philibert is selected for Main Competition.

Is the Klezmer Project a failed movie? Because, in essence, it doesn’t feature a lot of klezmer (Yiddish folk) bands. And it is definitely not a straightforward documentary on music or musicians. What it is, nevertheless, is a smart, funny, personal and at the same time universal document of an almost erased culture, an honest, analytical self-reflection on identity and traditions…and a tragic love story.

Seven Winters in Tehran is a tough watch. This has nothing to do with the qualities of the film but with the incredible injustice the main protagonist and her family are subjected to. The kind of injustice we unfortunately have grown accustomed to when watching documentaries from Iran. Even so, this one still manages to put a knife through your heart.

Some perspectives can only be revealed by insiders. That can provide unexpected insights, present unknowable facts and deliver very uncomfortable truths, as in this unvarnished portrait of a gold mining village in Burkina Faso, in which the prospect of redemptive wealth holds the inhabitants in an iron stranglehold.

Roman Liubyi’s film concerns the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, for which the Russians were responsible but have done everything they can to cover their tracks and shift the blame. “One of the central goals from the very beginning was [to show] the Russian media activity round it [the tragedy],” he tells BDE of his determination to examine how the Russian propaganda machine works.

When D Smith (whose Kokomo City won two awards at Sundance last month) made her transition from male to female, she was startled by the hostility she encountered from her colleagues in the music industry. She was an award-winning producer and songwriter who had worked with some very big names, including Katy Perry and Lil Wayne - but all of a sudden, it was as if no-one wanted to know her, she tells Business Doc Europe.

It was only by chance that Georg Gruber noticed that his Berlin-based film sales company, founded in 2003, is celebrating its 20th anniversary. No big events are planned but he gives his word that when the company turns 25, there will be a party. "It's so funny, we kind of realised in January, oh, Jesus Christ, 20 years! It really took my surprise a bit," he tells BDE of his dawning realisation that his company has now been in existence for two decades.

The stunning scenery of the Austrian Alps acts as the perfect backdrop for Bernhard Braunstein’s absorbing doc about acclaimed ski boarding school Stams, where top young skiing talent chase their dreams. For these fresh-faced youngsters it is all about the possibility of making the Olympics, but their journey also includes strict exercise, academic lessons as well as battles with the dangerously icy slopes.

Leading sales outfit Deckert Distribution will be selling the recent Sundance title at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin, alongside Indian Sarvnik Kaur’s Against the Tide (Special Jury Award for Verité Filmmaking at Sundance 2023) and Eastern Front by Vitaly Mansky and Yevhen Titarenko, world-premiering in Berlinale Encounters. Deckert Distribution also welcomes new sales & acquisitions exec Tommaso Priante.

The brand-new, four-part high-end documentary series Juan Carlos was presented February 20 as part of the EFM’s Up Next: Germany, a showcase of the country’s most interesting upcoming series projects. Produced by Emmy-nominated producer Christian Beetz (Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion, controlled by Munich-based conglomerate Leonine Studios), the series promises to explore the rise and fall of former Spanish King Juan Carlos I.