Utopia’s Circle Collective imprint has acquired North American rights to About A Hero, Pressman Film’s AI-themed hybrid documentary-murder mystery in which a version of Werner Herzog investigates the death of a factory worker.
The debut feature from Piotr Winiewicz opened the 2024 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and imagines a version of the German film pioneer as he probes the unexplained death in a sleepy European town.
About A Hero blends staged narrative with real-world interviews across art, philosophy, and technology, ultimately revealing that neither the dead man nor the town ever existed and that Herzog is a deep-faked hallucination. The film will open theatrically this autumn.
Herzog approved of the filmmakers training a large language model on his work and using his voice and likeness. The film features Vicky Krieps, Stephen Fry, and Imme Beccard and hails from Pressman Film (American Psycho, Dead Man’s Wire) Tambo Film (Absolute Beginners), Cineteam Hannover, and Utopia (Red Rooms).
Rikke Tambo Andersen, Mads Damsbo, Sven Junker, Sam Pressman, Trey Terpeluk of YO Productions, and Hicham Oudghiri and Aelfie Starr of Enigma served as producers.
Circle Collective and Utopia representative Kyle Greenberg called About A Hero “both intellectually rigorous and quietly unsettling”, while Winiewicz said it was “less about technology itself than our relationship to it”. Pressman Film CEO Sam Pressman said, “I see it as a classic Herzogian quest for ecstatic truth, although Herzog himself characterised it as an ‘intellectual cul-de-sac’.”
About A Film has played festivals including CPH:DOX, Stiges, Karlovy Vary, Bucheon, Thessaloniki and Goteburg. The Danish Film Institute, Film Funen, Nordmedia, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Arte and Catflap co-financed.
Paula Paizes and Max Loeb of Pressman Film brokered the North American deal. Fabien Westerhoff’s Global Constellation represents international sales.
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