Johan Renck’s Spaceman starring Adam Sandler and Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo starring Hunter Schafer are to receive their world premieres at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (February 15-25).
The festival has revealed a raft of titles set to premiere in its Berlinale Special strand as well as in its Generation competition and Forum Expanded sections.
The seven newly announced titles in Berlinale Special also includes Jula von Heinz’s Treasure, starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry; David and Nathan Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset with Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg; Atom Eogyan’s Seven Veils, starring Amanda Seyfried; Damiano and Fabio D’Innocenzo’s Italian drama Dostoevsky; and Tsai Ming-liang’s Taiwan-US documentary Abiding Nowhere.
The world premiere of Spaceman will take place ahead of its release on Netflix on March 1. It will mark the first visit to the Berlinale for Sandler, who stars as an astronaut that attempts to save his marriage while on a solitary mission through the solar system with the help on a mysterious creature, voiced by Paul Dano. Swedish director Renck is known for directing HBO miniseries Chernobyl.
Cuckoo is a horror that stars Schafer (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes) as a teenager who moves with her family to a resort where things are not what they seem. The cast also includes Dan Stevens, previously at Berlin in 2021 with Maria Scrader’s Competition title I’m Your Man, and Jessica Henwick. German filmmaker Singer previously made feature debut Luz, which screened at the Berlinale in 2018. The feature was financed by US outfit Neon.
Treasure follows a neurotic businesswoman from New York, who takes her Holocaust survivor father on a journey to Poland to make sense of her family’s past. The comedy was formerly titled Iron Box and is adapted from Lily Brett’s critically acclaimed novel Too Many Men. German filmmaker Heinz previously made And Tomorrow The Entire World, which played in Competition at Venice in 2020.
The Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset is set to world premiere at Sundance in January and Bleecker Street announced earlier this month that would release the film in the US in 2024. Described as a year in the life of a singular family, Eisenberg – Oscar-nominated for his performance in The Social Network – will reportedly play a hairy Bigfoot, also known as a Sasquatch. Co-star Keough is known for Daisy Jones And The Six and made her directorial debut alongside Gina Gammell on War Pony, which won the 2022 Cannes Camera D’Or.
Eogyan’s Seven Veils premiered at Toronto, although Seyfried was not present due to the actors strike. The psychodrama about buried trauma follows a theatre director who has the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome.
The complete Berlinale Special programme will comprise around 20 titles will be finalised in mid-January.
The Competition lineup for the 74th Berlinale will be unveiled on January 22.
Berlinale Special
* world premeire
- Cuckoo (Ger)* dir Tilman Singer
- Dostoevsky (It)* dir. Damiano & Fabio D’Innocenzo - series
- Sasquatch Sunset (US) dir. David & Nathan Zellner
- Seven Veils (Can) dir. Atom Egoyan
- Spaceman (US)* dir. Johan Renck
- Treasure (Ger-Fr)* dir. Julia von Heinz
- Abiding Nowhere (Tai-US)* dir. Tsai Ming-liang - documentary
Generation Kplus
- Fox And Hare Save The Forest (Neth-Bel-Lux)* dir. Mascha Halberstad
- The Major Tones (Arg-Sp) dir. Ingrid Pokropek
- Winners (Ger)* dir. Soleen Yusef
Generation 14plus
- Who By Fire (Can-Fr)* dir. Philippe Lesage
- Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story (Fr-Mad-Ger-Maur-S. Afr-Qat) dir. Luck Razanajaona
- Elbow (Ger-Turk-Fr)* dir. Aslı Özarslan
Forum Expanded
- for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world (Fr)* dir. Gala Hernández López
- Here We Are (Thai) dir. Chanasorn Chaikitiporn
- O Seeker (US-Ind)* dir. Gavati Wad
- The Perfect Square (Ger-Bel)* dir.
- Quebrante (Bra) dir. Janaina Wagner
- Room 404 (Pol-HK) dirs. Elysa Wendi, Shing Lee
- Sarcophagus of Drunken Loves (Fr-Leb)* dirs. Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige France
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