Camino Filmverleih to move into production

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, Camino head of distribution, acquisitions and sales Kamran Sardar Khan revealed that sci-fi drama Der Polder and the comedy Metal Train will be co-produced via Camino’s parent company Niama Film.

The Stuttgart-based distributor will be a minority partner on Samuel Schwarz’s Der Polder will be produced by Switzerland’s Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion, Kam(m)acher GmbH, and Niama Film with backing from broadcasters SWR and SRF and Bundesamt für Kultur (BAK) and Zürcher Filmstiftung.

Campaigns with an augmented reality game and a MP3 audiowalk based on the film’s storyline have already been running in various Swiss towns to generate interest in the project.

Principal photography is set to begin in Zurich this March, with theatrical release planned for spring 2015 by Camino Filmverleih in Germany and Stammfilm in Switzerland.

The second project – Metal Train – brings a ‘fish out of water’ story and the road movie genre together on the ‘Metal Train’ charter train packed with raucous heavy metal fans travelling from Southern Germany to the annual rock festival in Schleswig-Holstein’s Wacken.

Specially chartered trains run from Swabia and Bavaria to the world’s biggest heavy metal open air festival at the end of July.

Camino Filmverleih’s release line-up for 2014 also includes Rotterdam’s open film Qissa – The Tale Of A Lonely Ghost, Baris Aladag’s user-generated movie Alaaf You, Herman Vaske’s portrait of actor-art connoisseur Udo Kier, Arteholic, and Uwe Janson’s dramedy To Life! (Auf das Leben!), starring Hannelore Elsner and Max Riemelt.

Rasoulof and Robelin in Detail

Hamburg-based Detailfilm, co-producer of Kutlug Ataman’s CICAE Award-winning The Lamb in the Panorama, is lining up new projects by Mohammad Rasoulof and Stephane Robelin, among others.

Speaking exclusively to Screen Daily in Berlin at the weekend, producer Fabian Gasmia revealed that his company has received development support from the FilmFörderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, BKM and the EU’s MEDIA Programme for Iranian film-maker Mohammad Rasoulof’s thriller Mahan.

In addition, Detailfilm will serve as the German partner on French director Stéphane Robelin’s new project, the € 5m comedy #Flora36, which reunites him with veteran star Pierre Richard. Memento Films is handling international sales.

Richard had been in the cast of Robelin’s last film All Together, with Jane Fonda, Geraldine Chaplin and Daniel Brühl, as Locarno’s closing film in 2011.

Meanwhile, financing is almost complete for Detailfilm’s third collaboration with Polish-born Radek Wegrzyn for the documentary The School On Magic Mountain about a year in the life of an elite Swiss boarding school.

Detailfilm had previously worked with Wegrzyn on his documentary Violinissimo and his feature film Father, Son and Holy Cow (Sommer auf dem Land).

At the same time, Gasmia’s partner in the company, Henning Kamm, is handling postproduction on Hungarian newcomer director Lili Horváth’s feature debut The Wednesday Child which was shot at the end of last year. The project had previously been pitched at the Sofia Meetings and Sarajevo’s CineLink.

The collaboration between Kamm and Horváth had developed from working together on her short film Sunstroke which won the Robert Bosch Foundation’s Co-production Prize in 2008.

Detailfilm is also in postproduction on another Bosch prize-winner, Armenian film-maker Arman Yeritsyan’s documentary The Chosen Ones.

Neue Mediopolis developing adaptation of Egyptian novel

Alexander Ris and Jörg Rothe’s Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion is currently at the financing and casting stage of an adaptation of leading Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim’s Sharaf (Honour) to be directed by Egyptian-German film-maker Samir Nasr.

One of Nasr’s previous films, Folgeschäden, addressed the atmosphere of hysteria after the terrorist attacks of September 2011.

In an exclusive interview with Screen Daily, Ris added that other projects in Neue Mediopolis’ slate include Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov’s Rhino and Austrian film-maker Valentin Hitz’s sci-fi drama Stille Reserven.

The latter film will be a co-production with Austria’s Freibeuter Film and Switzerland’s Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion already has Coop 99’s Martin Gschlacht onboard as DoP and is scheduled to shoot this coming winter in Austria and Berlin.

In addition, Neue Mediopolis is in the final stages of postproduction on Bulgarian director Stephan Komanderev’s new feature The Judgement which was originally pitched at the Sofia Meetings.

The company was represented at this year’s Berlinale with Hüseyin Karabey’s Come To My Voice (Were Dengê Min) which had its world premiere in Generation Kplus. (ends)