Screen presents a selection of the buzziest projects from Europe available to international buyers at this year’s Cannes market.
A Brief Affair
Dir. Ludovica Rampoldi
A Brief Affair (Breve Storia d’Amore) is the directorial debut of acclaimed Italian screenwriter Rampoldi, known for films and TV work including Gomorrah — The Series. The psychological drama follows Lea, who meets Rocco in a bar and becomes his lover. Their clandestine affair is confined to a hotel room, but takes a sinister turn when Lea begins to infiltrate Rocco’s life beyond their secret encounters. The film stars Pilar Fogliati, Adriano Giannini, Andrea Carpenzano and Valeria Golino, who plays the lead in Mario Martone’s Competition title Fuori. A Brief Affair is produced by Indigo Film and HT Film in collaboration with Rai Cinema. Currently in post, it filmed in Rome and Naples.
Contact: Giulia Casavecchia, True Colours
Chasing Millions
Dir. Stephen Burke
One of the biggest bank robberies in British history, when £26.5m in cash (equivalent to $35m) was stolen from Belfast’s Northern Bank in 2004, is the inspiration for this heist comedy. Australian actress Madeleine Madden will play a police detective investigating the robbery while on a family visit, paired with Christopher Eccleston’s seasoned local detective. With backers including Screen Ireland and Screen Australia, the film — which begins shooting on June 2 in Dublin and Dundalk — is produced by Jane Doolan for Ireland’s Mammoth Films.
Contact: Tine Klint, LevelK
Doggies
Dir. Oleksii Yesakov
Leading Ukrainian production and sales outfit Film.UA arrives in Cannes with proudly nationalistic titles such as Mavka: The True Myth (the live-action version of animation hit Mavka: The Forest Song) and zombie horror The Dam, which echo events since the Russian invasion. However, one title on the slate in a lighter register is romcom Doggies, about a hard-driving career woman who accidentally places a curse on herself that leads to every man she sleeps with being turned canine. This is Yesakov’s feature debut and reportedly more than 100 dogs were collared for the production. Ukrainian TV presenter Lesia Nikitiuk plays the lead role.
Contact: Inna Kovbasynska, Film.UA
Dreamers
Dir. TBC
Dreamers is the latest animated feature to be launched at the market by German sales outfit Epsilon. Written by Rob Moreland (Shrek, Gnome Alone), children’s book author Alison James and Heiko Hentschel (The Amazing Maurice), it is made through Kickstart Entertainment and features animal characters with incredible resources, unhampered by their disabilities. German producer Andreas Schneider from Parapictures Film Production describes it as “a story about accepting and embracing those who are different from you — and about fully embracing what is different about yourself”. Currently in financing, the project already has support from MOIN and FFA in Germany, and Creative BC in Canada. Delivery date is 2028.
Contact: Julia Weber, Epsilon Film
Egghead Republic
Dirs. Pella Kagerman, Hugo Lilja
Swedish sci-fi directing duo Kagerman and Lilja have built a cult following thanks to their hit Aniara, about humans fleeing to Mars. Now they are back with their equally mindbending feature Egghead Republic. The English-language but Sweden-made yarn is set in an alternative reality where the Cold War did not end, and an atomic bomb has just struck Soviet Kazakhstan. Sonja, a 22-year-old Swedish clubber working at one of the hippest magazines in the world, is invited to report from the epicentre of the blast. Belgian outfit Best Friend Forever will be showing a first promo of the movie, which is in post.
Contact: Martin Gondre, Best Friend Forever
Frank & Louis (working title)
Dir. Petra Volpe
After Berlinale 2025’s Late Shift starring Leonie Benesch was a box-office hit in German-speaking territories this spring, Swiss filmmaker Volpe makes her English-language debut with a prison drama about a man serving a life sentence who takes a job caring for ageing and infirm prisoners living with memory-loss diseases. Bob Marley: One Love’s Kingsley Ben-Adir stars alongside Rob Morgan, and the film is currently shooting in the UK.
Contact: Nicolai Korsgaard, TrustNordisk
The Harvester
Dir. David Perez Sañudo
This is the third feature by Basque director Perez Sañudo, whose debut Ane won three Goya Awards in 2021. Returning to the genre arena, he sets the story in 1870s northern Spain amid civil strife between liberals and Carlists, where the mutilated bodies of several women who were raped, tortured and strangled suggest a serial killer is on the loose. The film is produced by La Claqueta (also behind Patricia Ortega’s Sundance entry Mamacruz) and the director’s label Amania Films.
Contact: Juan Torres, Latido Films
The Idiots
Dirs. Malgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert
Polish duo Szumowska and Englert are taking on Fyodor Dostoyevsky — not adapting his work directly, but rather Andrew Kaufman’s 2021 novel The Gambler Wife, about the period in the Russian writer’s life with his wife Anna that inspired him to write The Idiot. Shooting gets underway next month with Johnny Flynn and Aimee Lou Wood leading the cast, and producers Ilya Stewart and Vladimir Zemtsov for French-US Hype Studios and the UK’s Gold Rush Pictures.
Contact: The Match Factory
The Murder Of Benjamin
Dir. Ingvild Soderlind
The racially motivated murder of Benjamin Hermansen, a 15-year-old boy of Norwegian Malian heritage, in 2001 sparked a nationwide outcry against racism and xenophobia in Norway. This film explores the life of Hermansen and his killer, 19-year-old Joe Erling Jahr, through flashbacks and the trial in which Benjamin’s mother faces Jahr in court. With Norwegian Film Institute backing, it is produced by The Worst Person In The World producer Thomas Robsahm and is currently in post-production.
Contact: Nicolai Korsgaard, TrustNordisk
The Painted Bride
Dir. Jeremiah Zagar
Jeremy Allen White will lead the latest feature from We The Animals director Zagar. He plays a man drawn back home to Baltimore by a crisis, where his world begins to both collapse and expand around him. The film will combine live action and stop-motion animation, with Isabella Rossellini and Mandy Patinkin also in the cast. It is a US-Poland co-production, with Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska producing for Warsaw-based Madants.
Contact: Charades; Katarzyna Siniarska, New Europe Film Sales
The Pupil
Dir. Karin Junger
Hard-hitting Dutch drama The Pupil, produced by The Film Kitchen, deals with the devastating consequences of grooming and sexual abuse on a family and their community. A 12-year-old boy suffers appallingly at the hands of his football coach but is too ashamed to admit what is happening to him. Director Junger’s previous features include documentary Sexy Money, about Nigerian women exploited as prostitutes in Europe. The Pupil, which co-stars Gijs Naber and is nearing completion, is based on a true story.
Contact: Daniela Cölle, Pluto Film
Re-Creation
Dirs. Jim Sheridan, David Merriman
Directed and co-written by Irish filmmaker Sheridan, a Berlinale Golden Bear winner for 1994’s In The Name Of The Father, and David Merriman, the anticipated Re-Creation blends documentary and fiction, echoing Sidney Lumet’s classic 12 Angry Men. In a fictional trial, 12 jurors must decide whether UK journalist Ian Bailey is guilty of the 1996 murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Based on real events, the film reconstructs the case through the jurors’ debate, ultimately inviting viewers to come to their own verdict. Vicky Krieps, Colm Meaney and Aidan Gillen star.
Contact: Juan Torres, Latido Films
A Scary Movie
Dir. Sergio Oksman
Goya award-winning Brazilian (but Spain-based) director Oksman is delving into Stanley Kubrick-like territory in his creepy Lisbon-set drama. During the summer holidays, a documentary maker and his 12-year-old son stay in an abandoned hotel similar to the one featured in The Shining. The boy is haunted by stories of ghosts and monsters but it seems the place may also have links with the first Portuguese serial killer. Patra Spanou is launching A Scary Movie in the market, having also handled the director’s earlier Locarno success O Futebol. The new feature, produced by Dok Films, Ferdydurke and Terratreme, is currently in post-production.
Contact: Patra Spanou
The Talent
Dir. Polo Menarguez
The second feature from Menarguez (The Plan) is a psychological thriller starring Ester Exposito (Netflix hit Elite). The Talent follows Elsa, a cellist from a once-wealthy family, who faces a harrowing moral dilemma: to save them, she must submit to abuse by her best friend’s father. Co-written with Fernando Leon de Aranoa, whose The Good Boss was Oscar shortlisted in 2022, it is produced by Leon de Aranoa’s Reposado PC and The Mediapro Studio.
Contact: Film Factory Entertainment
Three Bowls
Dir. Isabel Coixet
Spanish filmmaker Coixet’s Three Bowls stars Italian A-listers Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano. The adaptation of a book by Italy’s Michela Murgia centres on a couple — Marta and rising chef Antonio — who break up after a trivial argument. Everything changes when Marta discovers her loss of appetite has more to do with her health than the pain of separation. Shot in Rome, the film is lead produced by Italy’s Cattleya.
Contact: Alessandro Caccamo, Vision Distribution
Zejtune
Dir. Alex Camilleri
Currently in post-production, the second feature from Maltese American filmmaker Camilleri features Maltese folk music in the story of a woman determined to leave Malta, until she meets an elderly troubadour who helps her rediscover her love for her country. Camilleri’s Luzzu debuted at Sundance 2021. Zejtune has strong development pedigree, having won the grand prize from Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel lab and backing from Qatar’s Doha Film Institute.
Contact: Films Boutique
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