Turkish producer-distributor Limon Program Yapim Tanitim has picked up Hans Steinbichler's second feature film (Winter Journey (Winterreise) which will have its world premiere in the International Competition of the forthcoming Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Beta Cinema's Andreas Rothbauer told ScreenDaily the film had been sold on the strength of the film's female lead German-Turkish actress Sibel Kekilli who shot to international fame with her breathtaking performance in Fatih Akin's Golden Bear-winner Head-On (Gegen Die Wand) two years ago.

In Winter Journey, Kekilli appears as a young translator opposite such veteran German players as Josef Bierbichler (who also appeared in Steinbichler's debut Hierankl) and Fassbinder muse Hanna Schygulla.

Limon Program currently has Kekilli cast as the female lead in its co-production with Greece's Highway Production of Omer Ugur's Homecoming (Eve Donus) about the Turkish military putsch of 1980 and the effects on the Turkish working class.

Shooting for the Eurimages-backed project began in Turkey in mid-May and has Kekilli playing a trade union activist who is tortured opposite Memet Ali Alabora, Savas Dincel and Altan Erkekli.

Limon's previous acquisitions from Beta Cinema include Hermine Huntgeburth's The White Masai, Roland Suso Richter's Dresden - The Inferno, and Mongol, the first part of Sergei Bodrov's planned Genghis Khan trilogy.