Beta Cinema adds Competition titles I’M YOUR MAN by Maria Schrader and NEXT DOOR by Daniel Brühl to strong Berlinale line-up

Beta Cinema is proud to announce the acquisition of two emotionally engaging, thoughtful and authentic Berlinale Competition entries from actors turned directors, Maria Schrader (Unorthodox, Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe) and Daniel Brühl (Rush, Good Bye Lenin), to spearhead an eclectic Berlinale/EFM slate.
I’M YOUR MAN, directed by Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee Maria Schrader, stars acclaimed UK actor Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast), Maren Eggert (I Was at Home, But) and Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann).
Alma (Maren Eggert) is a scientist at the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin, persuaded to participate in an extraordinary study: For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Alma meets Tom (Dan Stevens), a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy.
The playful comic-tragic tale about the questions of love, longing and what makes a human being human marks Maria Schrader’s third theatrical feature as a director after European Film Award winner and box-office hit Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe and her debut Love Life. Most recently, Maria Schrader directed the Netflix hit-series Unorthodox, which already won an Emmy Award and received multiple nominations at this year’s Golden Globes. The Critics’ Choice Television and Independent Spirit Awards are yet to be decided.
I’M YOUR MAN, written by Maria Schrader and Jan Schomburg (Above Us Only Sky) is based on Emma Braslavsky’s short story. DoP Benedict Neuenfels (The Counterfeiters, Styx), Editor Hans-Jörg Weißbrich (7500, Colonia) and Letterbox Filmproduktion producer Lisa Blumenberg (Bad Banks) round out the extraordinary team behind the film, which will be released in German cinemas this summer.

Daniel Brühl has also chosen the director’s chair, as he directs and stars in his debut feature NEXT DOOR next to Peter Kurth (Babylon Berlin, In the Aisles), Aenne Schwarz (All is Well) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread).
Berlin, the Prenzlauer Berg district. Daniel (Daniel Brühl) is a movie star accustomed to success. His loft apartment is stylish and so is his wife (Aenne Schwarz), and the nanny has the children under control. Everything is tip-top, bilingual and ready for him to jet off to an audition in London where a role in an American superhero film awaits the celebrated German-Spanish actor. Popping into the local bar on the corner, he finds Bruno (Peter Kurth) sitting there. As transpires by the minute, Bruno has been waiting for this moment for a long time. And so this eternally overlooked man – one of reunification’s losers and a victim of the gentrification of what was once East Berlin – takes his revenge. With Daniel as his target…
Daniel Brühl also provided the original idea and developed the script in collaboration with acclaimed novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann (Measuring the World). Internationally renowned producer Malte Grunert (A Most Wanted Man, The Aftermath, Land Of Mine) produced with his company Amusement Park Film and Warner Bros. Film Productions in co-production with Gretchenfilm and Erfttal Film.

Beta Cinema will also reveal a first promo from the highly anticipated new film by Academy Award winner Stefan Ruzowitzky: HINTERLAND, starring Murathan Muslu (Pelican Blood), Liv Lisa Fries (Babylon Berlin) and Max von der Groeben (Kidnapping Stella).
HINTERLAND is a haunting historical thriller – in a most modern form. Using modern CGI technology for the creation of the sets, Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters) recreates and heightens the atmosphere of German expressionism in a serial-killer investigation set in Vienna in 1920, the aftermath of the First Wold War.
The producers are Austria’s Freibeuter Film and Amour Fou Luxembourg, in co-production with Belgian’s Scope Pictures and Lieblingsfilm. SquareOne Entertainment will release the film in German cinemas in the second half of the year.
Neus Ballús’ THE ODD-JOB MEN is on the other end of the spectrum. Nothing is heightened here, but realism is felt in each and every detail. And yet it couldn’t be more enlightening and fun to follow three ‘odd-job men’, actually a plumbing squad, along their six decisive days going from door to door in Barcelona to fix whatever is broken. Prejudice and jealousy surface since Moha has joined them for a one-week trial. And the Moroccan does surprisingly well with the customers… Neus Ballús follows our three heroes with the most empathetic eye and recalls a love for the ordinary man that is similar to such of an Aki Kaurismäki or a less absurdist Roy Andersson. A first promo will be presented.
Also showing during the virtual EFM will be the topsy-turvy romantic comedy HELLO AGAIN – A WEDDING A DAY by Maggie Peren, the Argentinean discovery KARNAWAL by Juan Pablo Félixand THE BIKE THIEF by Matt Chambers, another striking debut that sold to Signature in the UK during the AFM.