Berlin-based sales outfit Films Boutique has unveiled a six-title Berlinale slate, including Zhang Lu’s competition title The Shadowless Tower as well as features playing in the festival’s Encounters, Forum and Panorama sections.
Films Boutique is representing two films playing in Encounters: Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann’s The Klezmer Project and Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó’s White Plastic Sky.
It is also handling director Claire Simon’s Forum documentary Our Body and Amr Gamal’s Panorama film The Burdened.
Rounding out Films Boutique’s EFM slate is Jessica Woodworth’s Luka, which premiered last week in the Big Screen Competition at Rotterdam International Film Festival.
The Shadowless Tower marks a return to Berlin competition for Korean Chinese writer-director Zhang after the 2007 selection of Desert Dream. He has also participated at the festival with 2010’s Dooman River in Generation 14plus and 2019’s Hukuaka in Forum.
Starring Xin Bai Qing, Huang Yao and Tian Zhuang Zhuang, the film follows a food critic, drifting through vibrant Beijing bistros with his younger photographer colleague. A middle-aged, divorced man with a six-year-old daughter, he is looking for a new perspective on life while re-evaluating his past. The Shadowless Tower is produced through the director’s label Lu Films and co-produced by Great Luck Films.
“This is a contemporary tale depicting the Chinese middle class as we have rarely seen it and with a powerful political vision on modern Chinese society,” said Films Boutique CEO Jean-Christophe Simon.
Feature debut The Klezmer Project is a road trip shot on two continents focusing on an Argentinean cameraman who makes a living from filming Jewish weddings. According to Films Boutique COO Gabor Greine the film is a “crowd pleaser” which reveals the beauty of traditional Yiddish folk music. It is produced by Austria’s Nabis Filmgroup and Argentina’s Nevada Cine.
White Plastic Sky is the first animated feature from Bánóczki and Szabó, whose graduation short Milk Teeth took the Special Jury Award at Annecy Animated Film Festival in 2007. The environmental-themed film blends 2D, 3D and rotoscoping techniques. It is set in 2123, when the human race can only survive through a trade-off – at the age of 50, every citizen is gradually turned into a tree. White Plastic Sky is produced by Hungary’s Salto Films in co-production with Slovakia’s Artichoke.
Observational documentary Our Body is a film about what it means to live in a female body and is centred on a gynaecological clinic in Paris. Director Claire Simon’s Young Solitude played in Forum in 2018, and her 2008 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight SACD Prize winner God’s Offices was handled internationally by Films Boutique. Produced by France’s Madison Films, it will be theatrically released by Dulac Distribution in France.
The Burdened is the first Yemeni film to participate in the Berlinale official selection and tells the story of a couple who find out they are expecting a baby and must make difficult decisions. It is produced by Yemen’s Adenium Productions in co-production with Sudan’s Station Films and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival.
Luka is the solo feature debut of Woodworth, who won Venice’s Young Cinema award in 2012 with The Fifth Season, co-directed with Peter Brosens. The English-language film is based on classic Italian novel, Dino Buzatti’s The Desert Of The Tatars. It is about a young man who heads off to join the army in a remote and desolate area, where the soldiers are waiting to confront enemies from the north. The enemies, though, never seem to arrive.
Films Boutique will be selling all six titles at this year’s European Film Market (February 16-22), alongside other titles from its catalogue including Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan, Ariel Escalante‘s Domingo and the Mist and Albert Serra’s Pacifiction.
Simon said: “It’s a well-balanced line-up, focusing on diverse voices from all over the world, ranging from high production and artistic values to gripping realities. We are excited to continue pushing filmmakers with a clear vision who are able to target a wide audience.”
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