EXCLUSIVE: Swiss drama received world premiere at Berlinale.

Aloys

Tobias Nölle’s Aloys, which received its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama strand on Saturday (Feb 13), has scored a brace of distribution deals.

Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has sold the film to Taiwan (Flash Forward) and Benelux (Contact). The Swiss distributor is Outside the Box.

Austria’s Georg Friedrich (The Piano Player, Faust) stars as a lonely private investigator who is contacted by a mysterious woman. She pulls him into a mind game known as ‘telephone walking’. Fascinated by her voice, he discovers an imaginary universe that allows him to break out of his isolation.

Cast also includes Tilde von Overbeck, Kamil Krejci, Yufei Lee and Koi Lee.

First-time director Nölle, who studied film at NYC’s School of Visual Arts, previously completed the award winning short Rene in 2008, which won multiple awards on the international festival circuit including a Golden Leopard for Best Swiss short in Locarno.

Nölle was one of 10 Swiss directors who worked on the omnibus project Wonderland last year.

Aloys is a Swiss-French co-production produced by Switzerland’s Hugofilm and France’s Petit Film. The film was developed at the Torino Film Lab and pitched at Cinemart and Berlinale Coproduction Market.

New Europe is the sales agent behind the Icelandic Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Rams and is also selling Polish drama United States Of Love, which is playing in Competition at Berlin and has already secured deals.