Sales outfit Bavaria Film International has a growing number of reasons to be positive as it expands its slate of non-German titles.
It kicked off MIFED with two strong sessions at Saturday's Milan Screenings, where it showed Peter Bay's Swedish comedy The Man Who Couldn't Say No and Boran, the debut feature by Resident Evil editor Alexander Berner.
"It was very good that there were only screenings and no other market distractions," said sales executive Thorsten Schaumann.
The group is also close to picking up a new title by Korea's most exportable art-house director, Kim Ki-duk. The Korean-language Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring, which is co-produced by Karl Baumgartner's Pandora Filmproduktion, appeared last year at Pusan's PPP project market. It also received investment from the Hamburg film fund.
"We have not signed yet, but will be delighted when we do. It is a very strong project," said Bavaria chief Michael Weber.
Bavaria's Mifed slate includes current German hit Bibi Blocksberg, about a talented young witch; Venice competition film Fuehrer Ex, by Winfried Bonengel; and two films from Toronto - Dany Levy's I'm The Father, and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's Falcons.
It also has Caroline Link's Nowhere In Africa, which was recently nominated as Germany's foreign-language Oscar entry, and Leni Riefenstahl: Her Dream Of Africa, a documentary about the controversial Nazi-era film-maker.
The addition of Kim Ki-duk's film would extend Bavaria's relationship with Cologne-based Pandora, whose own partially-owned sales outlet Orfeo Films, closed down earlier this year. Bavaria handled Pandora's festival favourite and Oscar hope The Man Without A Past.
The company is set to assume sales duties on Strangers, a German-Polish drama by young Polish filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska about a young woman's life or death decision concerning her unborn child. Strangers, which has financial backing from Filmstiftung NRW, begins shooting its winter scenes in Poland today.
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