Cannes 2024: buzz titles from Italy, Spain and the Nordics

Italy

Coccinelle Film is continuing sales on Veit Helmer’s Gondola, following its premiere at Tokyo International Film Festival. Helmer is known for his dialogue-free style; his latest is a love story between two women who work on a ropeway running through the mountains of Georgia. Coccinelle is also selling Chloé Barreau’s documentary Fragments Of A Life Loved.

Fandango’s Cannes slate includes Italy-Switzerland documentary Bestiares, Herbaria, Lapidaries from directors Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti, whose films have regularly premiered at Venice Film Festival. The documentary is divided into three volumes of around 40 minutes, each dealing with a single subject: animals, plants and stones, and what they tell us about humanity. Fandango also has documentary Kissing Gorbaciov by Italian directors Andrea Paco Mariani and Luigi D’Alife, about the first Soviet rock groups to perform beyond the Iron Curtain — heading to Melpignano, a small village in Apulia, in 1988.

Minerva Pictures and TVCO give a joint market premiere to Kat Rohrer’s comedy romance What A Feeling. The Austrian feature had its world premiere in March at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival and centres on two middle-aged women who hit it off in a lesbian bar. Minerva’s slate also includes supernatural thriller The Bitter Taste by German director Guido Tölke, which was selected as a work-in-progress at Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival last year.

Open Reel is selling debut feature Labyrinths, written and directed by Giulio Donato. It tells the story of two friends from the rugged mountains of southern Italy’s Calabria region, who take opposite paths from the repressed, challenging society into which they were born.

True Colours has Reflection In A Dead Diamond from cult genre directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The Brussels-based duo’s fourth feature is an homage to 1960s Euro-spy stories, and is set in the Côte d’Azur. True Colours is also selling German director Christoph Hochhäusler’s upcoming noir Death Will Come (La Mort Viendra), which centres on a female assassin hired by a gangster to avenge the murder of one of his couriers. The film stars Franco-­Belgian actress Sophie Verbeeck and veteran French actor Louis-Do de Lencquesaing. Both titles are in post-production.

Spain 

Latido Films is screening They Will Be Dust by 10,000 Km director Carlos Marqués-Marcet. Starring Angela Molina and Alfredo Castro, the film centres on a spirited woman in her seventies diagnosed with an incurable illness, and the hardship her husband will face without her. Latido is also introducing first images of Jim Sheridan and David Merriman’s Re-creation, a true-crime thriller based on the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996.

Film Factory Entertainment is market screening Laura Jou’s Free Falling, produced by Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida and JA Bayona. Belén Rueda stars in the suspense drama about a domineering gymnastics coach. Film Factory also screens Salvador Calvo’s Valley Of Shadows, an adventure set in the Himalayas, and introduces buyers to revenge thriller The Gentleman by Gabriel Beristain and starring Ron Perlman and Megan Montaner.

Filmax is screening Robotia, a co-production between Argentina, Spain and Costa Rica. The 3D animated feature is a follow-up to the series of the same name, focusing on a girl who wants to be a footballer in a world inhabited by robots. Filmax will also market premiere actress-turned-director Paz Vega’s Rita, depicting the daily life of a seven-year-old girl and her younger brother during the European football championship in 1984.

Bendita Film Sales will be selling Chile’s The Hyperboreans, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight. By directors Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cociña (The Wolf House), it is a mix of stop-­motion and live-action, portraying an actress and psychologist who decide to shoot a script revealed by the inner voice of one of her patients.

Nordics

TrustNordisk will present a promo in Cannes for Safe House, which wrapped principal photography in South Africa in March. Directed by Eirik Svensson and based on real events from Christmas Eve 2013. Sick Of Myself actress Kristine Kujath Thorp stars as a security worker at a field hospital in the Central African Republic, who must act when a Muslim enters the hospital on being persecuted by a mob. TrustNordisk also has Petra Volpe’s Late Shift, currently in post-­production and starring The Teachers’ Lounge actress Leonie Benesch as a nurse on a surgical ward caught in a race against time.

REinvent International Sales will give a market debut to psychological drama Second Victims, starring Trine Dyrholm and Özlem Saglanmak. It will present a promo for the film, which is the feature debut of director Zinnini Elkington and follows a neurologist whose confidence is tested when a routine case spirals into tragedy. It is one of two Dyrholm-starring films on REinvent’s slate, alongside Jeanette Nordahl’s Beginnings, in which the actress plays a woman who suffers a severe stroke while going through a divorce from her husband, played by David Dencik. REinvent will also show a promo for Christmas adventure Stargate — A Christmas Story, with a local December 2025 release.

LevelK will give market debuts to two titles it boarded at Göteborg’s Nordic Film Market this year. Sarah Gyllenstierna’s Hunters On A White Field is a suspense drama following three men on an extended hunting trip, and has been selected for Tribeca’s international narrative competition. Charlotte Sieling’s Way Home stars Nikolaj Lie Kaas as a man smuggled into Syria on a desperate search for his son. The company is also shopping surrealistic drama Mr. K, starring Crispin Glover as a man stuck in a Kafka­esque nightmare.

Finland-based The Yellow Affair has first footage for buyers of Dreamers, the directing debut of Joy Gharoro-­Akpojotor, a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2020 and producer of Blue Story and Boxing Day. Produced by Emily Morgan, Dreamers is a love story set in an immigration removal centre. The Yellow Affair will also debut Jonas Risvig’s young-adult drama Kontra with a market screening, and has two titles in post-production: Orenda starring Alma Pöysti, and Constanze Klaue’s debut Punching The World, which is adapted from Lukas Rietzschel’s novel of the same name.

Rest of the world 

Germany’s Beta Cinema will launch sales on Fatih Akin’s Amrum, which reunites the director with Diane Kruger. It is about a 12-year-old boy helping his mother in the final days of the Second World War, until the arrival of peace brings new conflicts. Beta is also selling Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl, a portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, director of Nazi propaganda film Triumph Of The Will. The company is continuing sales on Nick Hamm’s William Tell and Tom Tyk­wer’s The Light.

New German sales outfit Epsilon is bringing Toby Henkel’s animated feature Mimi & Harold — Out Of Frame, about a dog who falls out of a painting into the real world. Epsilon is also pre-selling animated feature Brave Heart Yakari from Xavier Giacometti.

Films Boutique is selling Claire Simon’s documentary Elementary, about a school on the outskirts of Paris, which plays in the Special Screenings section. The slate also includes Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s Competition title The Seed Of The Sacred Fig.

Global Screen is pre-selling Mercy, the first English-language feature from German director Emily Atef. The film follows the friendship between a UK journalist posted to Kenya in 1999 and a woman who lives in Nairobi’s largest slum. Global Screen is also pre-selling South African 1840s-set horror-western The Trek, directed by Meekaaeel Adam.

Kinostar’s slate includes Uwe Boll’s new movie Run, which wrapped in Croatia last month. The company is also continuing sales on Patryk Vega’s Putin, which uses deep-fake technology to dramatise the Russian president’s story.

The Match Factory has four films playing in Competition: The Girl With The Needle by Magnus von Horn, Grand Tour by Miguel Gomes, Motel Destino by Karim Aïnouz and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. It is also selling Ariane Labed’s feature debut September Says, which plays in Un Certain Regard.

Media Luna is giving a market debut to paranormal thriller Estela from director Adrian Araujo, about a couple trying to become parents who uncover dark secrets about their seemingly tranquil lakeside mansion.

Picture Tree International will market premiere Constantin Film’s comedy fantasy Chantal And The Magic Kingdom from Bora Dagtekin and Lena Schömann, the duo behind Turkish For Beginners and the Fack Ju Goehte franchise. Picture Tree’s Cannes slate also includes Jon Blahed’s Raptures, about a religious cult in northern Sweden, which is billed as the first ever feature in the Meänkieli (minority) language, as well as Finnish father-daughter comedy Butterflies from director Jenni Toivoniemi.

M-appeal is pre-selling Brazilian LGBTQ+ romantic comedy Perfect Endings by Daniel Ribeiro, about a filmmaker at a crossroads in his personal and professional life. The company also has Brazilian director Marcelo Caetano’s Critics’ Week title Baby.

The Playmaker Munich is showing promos of two new dramas, both in post-production. Klaus Härö’s Never Alone is a wartime story about Jewish refugees seeking safety in Finland. Marcus O Rosenmüller’s Münter & Kandinsky, starring Vanessa Loibl and Vladimir Burlakov, is about artists and lovers Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky. The Playmaker is also holding a private screening of its new Sandra Hüller movie, Two To One.

Pluto Film’s slate includes Soleen Yusef’s Winners, which has just won a German Film Award for best children’s film. The company is continuing pre-sales on Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Hysteria, a mystery thriller based around an incident in which a Quran goes up in flames.

Austrian documentary specialist Autlook is focusing on its topical new title No Other Land, made by a Palestinian-­Israeli activist collective about a young Palestinian and an Israeli journalist campaigning against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The film has won several awards since premiering in Berlin’s Panorama.

Greek outfit Heretic’s Cannes slate includes two films playing in Acid. Kostis Charamountanis’s sidebar opener Kyuka Before Summer’s End is set on the Greek island of Poros and is about a single father and his twin children meeting the birth mother who abandoned them. Iair Said’s comedy drama Most People Die On Sunday centres on an anxious, overweight 30-something who returns to his native Argentina to reconnect with his mother and Jewish family.

Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales is pre-selling (with Charades) Orphan from Oscar-winning Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes. Set in 1957 Budapest, it centres on a Jewish boy who has his world turned upside down when a brutish man appears, claiming to be his true father. The company is also giving a closed market screening to Aislinn Clarke’s Irish folk horror Fréwaka and is selling Leonardo Van Dijl’s Critics’ Week title Julie Keeps Quiet.

Hungarian outfit NFI World Sales is presenting Csaba Martin’s English-­language action comedy Bonus Trip, about two FBI agents on a case in Eastern Europe. NFI is also screening the country’s first animated documentary feature Pelikan Blue in advance of the film’s premiere in Annecy’s Contrechamp section in June. Directed by Laszlo Csaki, the film follows three young men in early 1990s Hungary who forge inter­national train tickets and venture to western Europe.

Dutch outfit Incredible Film has several titles targeted at the Cannes Remakes programme. These include Ruud Schuurman’s romantic drama Bed & Breakfast, about a workaholic who ends up running a bed and breakfast and finds love in the process. It also has comedy drama Sister­hood about two sisters with very different temperaments who go on a road trip together.

Australian outfit Odin’s Eye Entertainment is beginning sales on US family drama Legend Of Catclaws Mountain ahead of its North American release in late May by Lionsgate. Directed by Ritchie Greer, it is about a young girl whose missing pony is said to have mystical powers.

Iranian Independents is giving a market debut to Majid-Reza Mosta­favi’s drama Hard Shell, dealing with love and corruption, and to Ebrahim Azizi’s dark thriller Muddy Foot, in which a player dies after being tackled in a football match — but it turns out the foul was deliberate.

• Cannes 2024: the buzz titles from France