Munich Film Festival Pitch Features Superheroes, Subway Tales, Performing Teddy Bears, Prisoners & Politics

Icelandic superheroes, political dramas, performing teddy bears and a film from Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, who counts The Witcher among his acting credits, were among the nine projects at the Munich International Film Festival’s popular CineCoPro pitch.

Munich has heavily leaned into co-production with its CineCoPro strand, which is part of the industry days at the festival. The pitch is a central part of proceedings.

CineCoPro has a focus on Nordic producers and projects this time. Accordingly, many of the documentaries, films and series pitched were set up as potential Nordic-German co-productions.

Thule was first up and is firmly in the realm of Nordic Noir and a dark mystery series hailing back to the Cold War. Producer Ingimar Guðbjartsson said there is an unnamed Icelandic broadcaster attached and the search is on for international co-pro partners.

Coming-of-age drama Bjørn & Matthias, meanwhile, is a linkup between Germany and Denmark and a packed room during the pitch got a first look as producers played a clip. Elsewhere, the team behind Morphs (WT) said they plan to assemble a German and Nordic cast and crew for the drama, set on a North Sea island. It is the feature debut of Hilke Rönnfeldt, whose series Festmachen won a Grimme, Germany’s top TV award.

From Norway there was Bolliver, a family feature about a teddy bear with a penchant for singing and performing. The live-action and CG hybrid picture is budgeted at €4.5M ($5.1M).

Icelandic actor Haraldsson pitched a very personal project. He explained that after a family tragedy he wrote Let There Be Light, a movie about a released prisoner forced to confront his troubled past. He plans to direct and star in the film, which has a $2.5M budget.

Paulina Piipponen said that superhero stories can come from Europe as she pitched Alma. The supernatural action thriller follows Alma, a teen who gets superpowers after a meteor strike in World War II Finland. It is set across past and present timelines.

“As Finnish filmmakers, we cannot compete with Marvel or DC with a special effects spectacle, but we can take the concept of superheroes and apply that to a personal story,” she said of Alma, which is budgeted at €4M.

Documentaries pitched included Tallboy, about efforts to recover unexploded munitions from the seabed, and Metrocosmos, a series that explores subway systems around the world. Season 1 of the latter is finished and producers said the team is searching for partners for Season 2, which is already 50% financed.

Last up in the packed pitching session was Brandt, a political drama film that tells the story of iconic German leader Willy Brandt through the perspectives of three women who shaped his life; his Norwegian wife Rut, a close female confidante, and a television news anchor. It is part of a trilogy about European political figures whose lives intersected.

Bruno – The Young Kreisky, about the eponymous Austrian politician is wrapped and premieres here at Munich. Brandt, which has a €7.5M budget is next. The final instalment is Palme, about Swedish political figure Olof Palme.

Here’s the full rundown of pitched projects.

THULE – Ingimar Guðbjartsson (Atlavík) – Iceland

BJØRN & MATTIAS – Felix Schreiber (Sommerhaus Filmproduktion) – Germany

BOLLIVER – Eleonore Anselme (The Global Ensemble Drama) – Norway

TALLBOY – Ruth Ersfeld (Alma Bäng) – Germany

MORPHS (WT) – Virginia Martin (Contando Films) – Germany

LET THERE BE LIGHT – Rakel Gardarsdottir (Vesturport) – Iceland

METROCOSMOS – Sebastian Rieker, Timo Novotny (Seehund Media) – Germany

ALMA – Pauliina Piipponen (Making Movies) – Finland

BRANDT – Genia Krassnig (DOR Film / DOR Film-West) – Germany