Berlin-based m-appeal has taken on international distribtion for two films from Cuba and Greece selected for this year’s Berlinale.
m-appeal’s Anne Wiedlack confirmed exclusively to ScreenDaily that the sales agent has picked up its first Cuban title, Carlos Machado Quintela’s The Swimming Pool which will be shown as an international premiere in the Panorama section.
Quintela’s debut feature follows five outcasts meeting for a swimming lesson with a difference: three of the teenagers are physically handicapped, one boy refuses to speak a single word, and the swimming instructor is also a social misfit.
The film received the award for the Best First Feature on its national premiere at the Havana International Film Festival at the end of last year.
The second acquisition is Greek filmmaker’s Elina Psykou feature debut The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, which will have its world premiere in the Forum.
Christos Stergioglou stars as the title character who arrives at a seaside hotel resort in winter and drifts around aimlessly until there is an announcement on television about the disappearance of the famous TV host Antonis Paraskevas.
Described as “immensely political and laced with a subtle humour”, this film became the first in Greece to make use of the nation’s new tax credit system for supporting audiovisual production and to tap the possibilities of crowdfunding through the groopio.com platform.
Moreover, Psykou, who attended the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2007, was helped in the making of this film by fellow film-makers Syllas Tzoumerkas, Panagiotis Fafoutis, Alexis Alexiou, Yorgos Zois and Yannis Veslemes making cameo apearances.
The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas received the award for the Best Project at the ‘Works in Progress’ showcase in Karlovy Vary last year.
No comments yet