The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first films selected to run in the Panorama and Generation sidebars of its 2023 edition.
The lineups include films featuring Willem Dafoe, Alicia Silverstone and The White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney and a broad geographical range, with features from Ukraine, Yemen and Iran, among others.
Ira Sachs’ Passages, a Paris-set drama featuring Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulous and German actor Franz Rogowski, will have its European premiere in Berlin’s Panorama section, while the Jennifer Reeder-directed Perpetrator, described as a “bloody coming-of-age story” featuring Silverstone, Christopher Lowell and Kiah McKirnan, will have its world premiere bow in Berlin.
Another U.S. title heading to Berlin is Reality, the directorial debut of filmmaker Tina Satter featuring The White Lotus and Euphoria star Sweeney as NSA whistleblower Reality Winner, who received a five-year prison sentence for leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. It will have its world premiere in Panorama.
Euphoria and White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney is starring in Tina Satter’s debut feature about whistleblower Reality Winner.
She’ll play Winner in a cast that features Josh Hamilton (The Walking Dead, Eighth Grade) and Marchánt Davis.
Winner was a former American intelligence specialist. She was given the longest sentence ever (five years, three months in federal prison) for the unauthorized release of government information to the media for leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections via an email phishing operation.
The project is inspired by Satter’s acclaimed play Is This A Room, which had a critically lauded Broadway run last fall. The script was adapted by Satter and James Paul Dallas.
Producers on the project are Riva Marker and Noah Stahl, Brad Becker-Parton and Greg Nobile for Seaview. EPs are Ellyn Daniels and Will O’Connor for Burn These Words, Daniel Ginsberg for In The Cut, Bill Way and Elliott Whitton for Fit Via Vi, Eva Maria Daniels, Andrew Beck, Philipp Englehorn for Cinereach, and Satter. David Duque-Estrada and Rita Walsh are Co-Producers
EXCLUSIVE: James D’Arcy (Homeland, Dunkirk) and Ellyn Daniels (Funny Girls) are starring in an off-the-shelf comedy series from Burn These Words, a new UK production outfit established by former advertising executive Will O’Connor.
Created, written, and directed by comedian and actress Daniels, The Show tells the darkly comic story of sitcom star Hayley Harris creating a one-woman stage show following the death of her mother in North Carolina. It draws on Daniels’ own experience of staging a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
D’Arcy features as Harris’ brother, Edward, while other cast includes Nicholas Farrell (Chariots of Fire, The Iron Lady). The Show was entirely financed and produced by Burn These Words during the pandemic.
The Show is the first series to emerge from a “fighting fund” Burn These Words has assembled from a variety of private backers. The company is also working with Seb Billings, who directed romantic horror short My Bloody Valentine, to adapt an upcoming comic book under the title Confusion Agent. Feature films are also on the agenda.
O’Connor is basically applying the film financing model to television, a growing trend seen on shows including Alex Rider, which Sony Pictures Television self-funded before taking to buyers including Amazon in the UK. He is confident about Burn These Words’ prospects despite a period working outside of the TV and film business. “At the end of the day, it’s about having a product, and it’s always a lot easier when you have a product to look at and go, ‘This is where we are’,” he said in reference to The Show.
Prior to launching Burn These Words, O’Connor founded creative agency Fire Without Smoke, which provided advertising services to video game publishers and developers. The company was acquired by Keywords Studios in 2018. Previously, he spent four years as managing director at film, TV, games, and advertising production and financing company WROCA, while he was also MD at post-production house Crow TV (now Radiant Post Production). He also held positions at SVEN, The Mill, and Escape Studios.