WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 2012


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Forest Whitaker


Joffé signs up Whitaker as Desmond Tutu


BY GEOFFREY MACNAB Roland Joffé is plotting a prison movie set in South Africa that will deal with the Truth and Reconcilia- tion hearings. Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is on board to play Arch- bishop Desmond Tutu in the project, which has the working title The Archbishop And The Antichrist. The film will be produced


through Joffé’s company, Light- motive. Based on the play by Michael Ashton, the story imagines a meeting between Tutu and a boorish white South African mass murderer named Piet Blomfeld. Joffé has adapted the play. Speaking in Berlin, Joffé also


revealed details of another project he is preparing, In God We Trust. “It is a thriller about stealing a country, manipulating money but also about the desire to kill your parents — sometimes those things go together,” Joffé said. The London-born director of The


Mission and The Killing Fields is in post-production on his $35m fea- ture, Singularity (sold at the EFM by Antwerp-based Corsan, the outfit behind The Devil’s Double). Joffé said Singularity, which stars


Josh Hartnett, Neve Campbell and Bipasha Basu, was likely to be ready by August or September.


Meryl Streep holds a Russian doll, a gift from a journalist, at the press conference for The Iron Lady. The Oscar nominee is receiving the festival’s Honorary Golden Bear for her career achievements.


Avalon team climbs Pyramid


BY WENDY MITCHELL Erika Wasserman of Stockholm- based Idyll & Fasad is here in Berlin with festival hit Avalon. She is also working on director


Axel Petersen’s next fi lm, Under The Pyramid, which will shoot next Jan- uary, set in Los Angeles, Israel, Egypt and Sweden. “It is about art, commerce and


Axel Petersen


politics,” she tells Screen. The story is about a woman trying to fi nd her


father, who is an art gallery owner. The biggest film on Idyll &


Fasad’s slate is an adaptation of The Hunters Of Karinhall, Carl H Wijkmark’s cult hit novel. “It is a Nazi orgy fi lm,” Wasserman says. “It will have an inter national cast, about world leaders meeting and having erotic escapist adventures. It will create a lot of stir.” The company — which includes her producing partner, Jesper Kur-


landsky — is now in post on the second feature from Fredrik Wen- zel and Henrik Hellstrom, who directed the 2009 Forum selection Burrowing. The latest fi lm, Hollows, shot late


in 2011 in Norway and Sweden, about an older woman (Eva-Britt Strandberg) living in the fjords and dealing with family issues. “It is about intimacy and inde-


pendence,” Wasserman says. Nordisk releases Avalon in


Sweden on February 24, with Trust- Nordisk handling sales.


Van Hoy & Knudsen gear up with Devor, Foster, Araki


BY WENDY MITCHELL Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen of Parts & Labor, producers of the Oscar-nominated Beginners, are lin- ing up a busy slate of projects including Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter, Gregg Araki’s The Womb and new films from Robinson Devor and Ben Foster, the latter making his directorial debut. Van Hoy and Knudsen are work-


ing with Oren Moverman to pro- duce Foster’s directorial debut. Details are not being revealed yet, but the drama could be ready to shoot in the summer. Devor (Zoo) will direct You Can’t


Win, a late 1800s period piece about a petty criminal who mixes with the criminal underworld in the Ameri-


Hubert Boesl


can West. The project is adapted from adventurer Jack Black’s mem- oir, which was a favourite of Wil- liam S Burroughs. The film will likely shoot in Washington state. Parts & Labor, which has Keep


The Lights On and The Loneliest Planet at the festival, recently struck an output deal with K5 Media Group. “For us as independent pro- ducers, it’s a necessity to have direct access to a sales company. It’s a good fi t,” says Knudsen. Red Light Winter is being fin-


anced now for an autumn/winter shoot to star Mark Ruffalo, Billy Crudup and Kirsten Dunst. Scott Rudin will produce. The Womb is out to cast now and could shoot as soon as this summer.


The “twisted police thriller” is set in LA. Van Hoy said it will see Araki “step into a bigger, broader scope”. Like most of Parts & Labor’s


projects, it will be in the $3m-$5m range. “We understand how to maintain our creative production values at these low budgets,” says Knudsen, who noted that Beginners was made for only $3.2m.” Another hot title in production is


Shaul Schwarz’s documentary Narco Cultura, about the drug-car- tel culture in the US and Mexico. The company is also set to pro-


duce Jens Assur’s feature debut, dramatic thriller Close Far Away, which recently won the 2012 Sun- dance/NHK International Film- makers Award.


NEWS Kids in America Electrick Children continues to be a hot seller for M-Appeal. » PAGE 2


REVIEWS Family values Hans-Christian Schmid offers more familial hell in Home For The Weekend. » PAGE 6


Travels abroad Miguel Gomes explores stunning locales in his inventive Tabu. » PAGE 7


SCREENINGS What to see today » START PAGE 10


Match Factory strikes Qissa


BY LIZ SHACKLETON The Match Factory has picked up international rights to Indo-Euro- pean co-production Qissa, which is shooting in Punjab, India. Starring Irrfan Khan (Slumdog


Millionaire), Anup Singh’s Punjabi- language film revolves around a Sikh who is seeking to rebuild his life after the Partition of India. Qissa is co-produced by Germa-


ny’s Heimatfi lm with Dutch produc- tion house Augustus Film, France’s Ciné Sud and India’s National Film Development Corporation. The Match Factory has interna-


tional rights outside the co-produc- tion territories. Singh also directed 2002’s The Name Of A River.


Metrodome’s five


BY WENDY MITCHELL The UK’s Metrodome has picked up five more titles at EFM: The Sorcerer And The White Snake from Distribution Workshop, directed by Ching Siu-tung and starring Jet Li; Jaume Balaguero’s psychol- ogical thriller Sleep Tight from Filmax; Gerardo Herrero’s serial- killer thriller Frozen Silence from Latido; Renzo Martinelli’s Day Of The Siege from Rai Trade; and Remains from Screen Media. The deals were negotiated by


Metrodome’s head of acquisitions Joel Kennedy and acquisitions man- ager Giles Edwards. Deals were reported earlier in the EFM for Lovely Molly and Piggy.


DAY 7


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