05/10/2016 - Germany comes well-prepared to the Italian gathering with the new films by Fatih Akin and Gordian Maugg

German films will be prominent at the 11th Rome Film Fest (13-23 October), with two important new films having their international premiere in two major sections: Gordian Maugg’s Fritz Lang [+see also:
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Fritz Lang, produced by Belle Epoque Films and Gordian Maugg Film, is a fiction feature about the legendary filmmaker and the making of his masterpiece M, staged as a crime thriller in black-and-white, combining a mixture of legend and fact. Co-stars Heino Ferch and Samuel Finzi will be travelling to Rome together with Maugg.

Fatih Akin's latest, produced by Lago Film and StudioCanal, is an adaptation of Wolfgang Herrendorf's novel of the same name, a hymn to adolescence and one of the biggest literary successes in recent years. Tschick takes the viewer on a journey, without a map or compass, across the East German sticks during a scorching summer, the kind of summer everyone wants to have experienced at least once. Since its national release on 15 September, the film has been seen by over 240,000 Germans and sits at the top of the arthouse box office charts.

The Official Selection is also featuring the German co-production Snowden [+see also:
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interview: Oliver Stone
film profile] by Oliver Stone (coproduced by KrautPack Entertainment with French and American partners), which was largely shot in Bavaria, as well as the documentary Into the Inferno [+see also:
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film profile] by German cult director Werner Herzog, a UK-Austrian co-production. All of the films selected in this central section are competing for the Audience Award, which is endowed with €10,000 for the film's Italian distributor.

Eva Weber’s Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (coproduced by Ma.ja.de with British and American partners) was selected as one of 18 projects in development to be presented at the Cinema Co-Production Market of the MIA – Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo/International Audiovisual Market. It will also be competing for the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (which comes with a cash prize of €20,000).