07/02/2009

Philippe Bober’s The Coproduction Office has just added to it’s line-up Ruben Östlund’s upcoming feature film Play, the follow-up to the Swedish filmmaker’s critically acclaimed Involuntary [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Hemmendorff
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile].

Written by Östlund, the €1.6m film is described as a tragicomic behavioral study in which a gang of robbers make their victims race for their belongings. Play will be produced by Östlund and his Plattform Produktion partner Erik Hemmendorff. The project, still in development, was recently submitted to Rotterdam’s Cinemart.

The Co-Production Office has sold Involuntary to 16 territories, including the US (Sundance Channel), France (KMBO) and the UK (Atlantic Film).

In Berlin, the company has Antonio Campos’ US film Afterschool screening in Generation 14Plus.

Four other European promo reels are also being presented to world buyers at the festival: Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, an Austrian/French/German co-production starring Sylvie Testud and Bruno Tedeschini; Shirin Neshat’s Summer 1953, about four women who find independence and solace in a metaphorical orchard garden, against the backdrop of Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’etat; animated film A Town Called Panic by Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar, a Belgian/French/Luxembourg co-production; and Memory Hotel, a historic animated film by German filmmaker Heinrich Sabl.