New films added to lineups for Media Luna, Beta Cinema and m-appeal

German sales companies Media Luna New Films, Beta Cinema and m-appeal have a clutch of new films lined up for official festival sections and the European Film Market (EFM).

Cologne-based Media Luna’s Ida Martins has added another four titles to its Berlinale lineup, including Dirk Lütter’s feature debut The Education (Die Ausbildung)which will have its world premiere in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino on Feb 12.

Martins’ other last-minute acquisitions for market premieres at the EFM are Sol Tryon’s directorial debut The Living Wake, starring Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg, João G. N. Amorim’s 2012 – Time For Change, his first documentary including animated elements and featuring Sting, David Lynch, Ellen Page and Gilberto Gil, and Tao Ruspoli’s documentary Being In The World highlighting how our technological age threatens to make skills and expertise obsolete.

Meanwhile, apart from presenting Yasemin Samdereli’s feature debut Almanya and the Congolese smuggler film Viva Riva! at the Berlinale, Beta Cinema will also have Wolfgang Murnberger’s My Best Enemy screening “out of competition” in the Official Programme, and a slot in the Panorama for the world premiere of Alexander Zeldovich’s Target which focuses on the fears and hopes of Russian society in 2020. In addition, the feature film version of the TV two-parter Hindenburg – which aired on RTL on Feb 6 and 7 - will be shown for the first time in a market premiere at the EFM.

My Best Enemy will be released in Austria by Filmladen on 11 March and has already been pre-sold to the UK (Metrodome), Japan (Klockworx), Czech Republic/Slovakia (Hollywood C.E.) and China (ERG Film). Metrodome had released a previous film by producer Josef Aichholzer, the Oscar-winning The Counterfeiters, and bought My Best Enemy on the basis of the screenplay and a trailer.

At the same time, m-appeal  continues its run of acquisitions from Latin America with another three new titles being presented from that continent  at the EFM.

They are Venezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin’s soccer player drama Brother (Hermano), which won the top prize at last year’s Moscow International Film Festival, Argentinian Nicolas Goldbart’s drama Phase 7 (Fase 7), and Brazilian director Malu de Martino’s lesbian love drama So Hard To Forget (Como Esquecer).

In addition, the Berlin-based sales outfit has picked up international distribution rights for Albanian Bujar Alimani’s feature debut Amnesty (Amnistia) which has its world premiere in the Forum on Feb 12.