BERLINALE 2011 Market / France
Memento flexes its claws
by Fabien Lemercier
11/02/2011 - Well-placed again in the showcase at the 61st Berlinale, French seller Memento Films International will be pinning its hopes on two features selected at the German festival, which opened yesterday: Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian title A Separation in competition and French film Top Floor Left Wing [trailer] (see news) in the Panorama.
The team headed by Emilie Georges and Tanja Meissner also arrived at the European Film Market with three new titles in its line-up: Laurent Cantet’s Foxfire (see news), which will be shot this summer; Ursula Meier’s French/Swiss co-production L’Enfant d’en Haut (“The Child from Above”, see news), which is about to start shooting; and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Thai film Headshot, which is in post-production and will be pre-sold on the basis of a promo-reel.
Memento will also continue the so-far-successful pre-sales for Dominik Moll’s French/Spanish co-production The Monk (see news), which will be ready this summer. The same delivery date has been announced for Malgorzata Szumowska’s French/Polish co-production Sponsoring (see news and video interview), whose cast includes Juliette Binoche and Anaïs Demoustier. Moreover, a promo-reel will be shown for Pawel Pawlikowski’s French/UK/Polish co-production The Woman in the Fifth (see news), which will be ready in spring and stars Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Finally, the line-up also includes So-Yong Kim’s US film in post-production For Ellen; and two titles which are scheduled to shoot in spring and summer: Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Brit vampire movie Hello Darkness (starring Dominic Cooper and Julie Christie); and Cate Shortland’s German/Australian/UK co-production Lore. The latter centres on a German teenage girl who tries to put her young brothers and sisters in safety in devastated Germany at the end of the Second World War and sets out on a 900-kilometre journey during which she will discover the evil committed by her compatriots (including her Nazi parents who have been arrested).
(Translated from French)
