A House Made Of Splinters
Sales powerhouse Cinephil has boarded Forum rough cut project A House Made Of Splinters, directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont, about the plight of kids in war-torn Ukraine. The doc is being made by Danish production company Final Cut for Real, responsible for The Distant Barking Of Dogs (2017) which was shortlisted for the 2019 Oscars, and which won IDFA at IDFA First Appearance in 2017.
Cinephil is already reporting “great interest” and is closing deals “all over Europe” on the film, expected to be ready by the summer of 2021.
Speaking early during IDFA, Cinephil MD Philippa Kowarsky was in typically defiant mood.
“Fortunately, we do know the market. We do have our contacts and people still want to see films,” she said of the challenges facing the doc sector during the pandemic. “In the end of the day, we want to sell all our films everywhere in the world and to maximise exposure and revenues for every filmmaker. Now, let’s try to do it under this new regime of Covid,” she added.
Two of Cinephil’s biggest recent titles, Victor Kossakovsky’s Gunda (a Dutch premiere in IDFA’s Masters) and Alexander Nanau’s Collective, had the good fortune to premiere before the Covid crisis hit. Both have had illustrious festival lives.
Kowarsky confirmed that US distributor Neon is now looking at releasing Gunda in the first quarter of 2021 – and is holding out to get the film into cinemas rather than have to go down the online route.
Collective will be released in US cinemas and online by Participant and Magnolia later this week – and is being tipped for Oscar glory.
Just before IDFA began, Cinephil clinched a Dutch deal for another of its titles, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, with Piece Of Magic. Set in a dive bar outside Las Vegas, the film, directed by Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross, is a Dutch premiere in IDFA’s Best Of Fests.
Also screening in IDFA’s Frontlight section is Anita Rivaroli’s crowd-pleaser We Are The Thousand, which tells the extraordinary story of how rock band The Foo Fighters were persuaded to perform in a small Italian town. Another Cinephil title, A Thousand Cuts from Ramona Diaz, is a European premiere in Frontlight.
Cinephil has been doing strong sales on Maya Sarfaty’s Love It Was Not, recent winner at DocAviv for Best Israeli Documentary and now in the running for the documentary Oscar. The doc (in IDFA’s Luminous section) tells the extraordinary story of the romantic relationship between Helena, a young and beautiful Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, and Austrian SS officer Franz Wunsch, a close associate of the notorious Josef Mengele. “There is a lot of good attention around it. We have already closed deals which we will be announcing shortly,” Kowarsky said.
The film was co-produced by Israeli broadcaster Yes Docu and various Israeli funds together with Vienna-based Langbein & Partner, and received support from the Austrian Film Institute and Vienna Film Fund, among other partners.
“It’s incredible that 75 years after the war, Israel and Austria are making films together,” Kowarsky said of the collaboration. German broadcaster SWR also supported the film.
“Everything happens but everything takes longer,” Kowarsky observed of how deal making is slowing down during these extraordinary times. “It’s true that with the international SVODs it has been slower, but with the theatrical (distributors) and with broadcasters, we are fine.”
