International distribution rights to films by Bruce McDonald, Jiri Menzel and Paulo Caldas are among the latest titles picked up by German sales agents ahead of this year's Berlinale and European Film Market (EFM).

Bavaria Film International will handle international sales for McDonald's The Tracey Fragments, which will be the opening film of the Panorama's main programme, as well as for Menzel's adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal's novel I Served The King Of England. The Czech-Slovakian co-production, which has already opened with great success in Czech cinemas, will be shown as an international premiere in the festival's Competition section.

As previously reported, Bavaria Film International will be representing Serbian filmmaker Srdan Golubovic's thriller The Trap (Klopka) which will have its world premiere in the Forum.

Meanwhile, Berlin-based MDC has acquired the international rights to Brazilian film-maker Paulo Caldas' Deserto Feliz which has been co-produced by Camara Films with Germany's Noirfilm (one of the co-producers of last year's Golden Bear winner Grbavica). Starring Nash Laila, Peter Ketnath, Hermila Guedes, the story of a young girl's descent into a life of prostitution and drugs and her hope of salvation through a German tourist will have its world premiere in the Panorama section.

MDC will also handle world sales for Ann-Kristin Reyels' family drama Hounds (Jagdhunde), which was produced by Credofilm as her graduation film from Babelsberg's Academy for Film & Television 'Konrad Wolf' and will premiere in the International Forum. Moreover, MDC's Wigbert Moschall is organising a digital screening at the EFM of the Bangladeshi director Golam Rabbany Biplob's On The Wings Of Dreams (Swopnodanay) which has its world premiere in Rotterdam's Time and Tide sidebar at the beginning of next week and is described as a 'humorous and critical portrait of the traditional man-and-woman relationships in the countryside of Bengal'.

At the same time, Beta Cinema has announced that it has taken on international distribution for German director Achim Bornhak's debut feature Eight Miles High about the life of 60s supermodel Uschi Obermaier. Starring new face Natalia Avelon as Obermaier, Matthias Schweighoefer, David Scheller and Alexander Scheer, Eight Miles High is being released in German cinemas on February 1 by the local office of Warner Bros and will have its market premiere at the EFM a week later.

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