EXCLUSIVE: Brussels-based sales house Best Friend Forever has taken on international sales rights to Patric Chiha’s documentary feature A Russian Winter, which is set to premiere in Berlin’s 2026 Panorama section.
The film is set between Paris and Istanbul in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when many Russian men and women faced a brutal choice: prison, the army, or exile. It centres on a group of friends who refuse to comply with the Russian regime and are forced into exile, searching for a place to call home but not feeling welcome anywhere.
Katia Khazak and Charlotte Vincent produce for Aurora Films alongside co-production outfit Le Fresnoy.
It will mark Chiha’s fourth consecutive film in Panorama following his 2023 adaptation of Henry James’s The Beast In The Jungle, and the documentaries If It Were Love in 2020 and Brothers Of The Night in 2016.
The Austria-born filmmaker described the protagonists of his latest film as “trapped in a permanent present, an endless time, as the absolute horror of war looms in the distance”.
He added: “My aim is not to stick to current events, but rather to make a film about their impact – about lost pasts and uncertain futures. A film about people overtaken by history who still don’t know how they will make it through.”
Best Friend Forever is coming off a strong 2025 with Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes Critics’ Week grand prize winner A Useful Ghost, Alireza Khatami’s Canadian Oscar entry The Things You Kill, and Yasuhiro Aoki’s Annecy award winner ChaO.
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