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Bobbi Salvör Menuez is in talks to join an international cast for “Lipstick on the Glass,” the English-language debut of acclaimed Polish director Kuba Czekaj (“Baby Bump”), Variety has learned exclusively.

Pic will star Agnieszka Podsiadlik (“Mug”), who previously collaborated with Czekaj on Berlin player “The Erlprince.” The international cast includes American actor Mari Malek (“The Nile Hilton Incident”), English-French thesp Laura Benson (“Touch Me Not”), and German actors Stipe Erceg (“The Baader Meinhof Complex”), Lena Lauzemis, and Mina Tander.

“Lipstick on the Glass” is a dystopian vision of reality in which a woman is induced to abandon her gangster husband to join a feminist sect. Producer Paweł Kosuń described it as a story about every person’s right to self-determination, regardless of their gender identity or imposed social and cultural norms.

“It poses a fundamental question: who am I?” he said. “This is a question which an ever-growing number...

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has unveiled its 2015 line-up which includes films representing 54 countries, 23 world premieres and 53 U.S. premieres. The U.S. premiere of Niki Caro’s McFarland USA will close out the 30th fest. Based on the 1987 true story and starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello, the film follows novice runners from McFarland, an economically challenged town in California’s farm-rich Central Valley, as they give their all to build a cross-country team under the direction of Coach Jim White (Costner), a newcomer to their predominantly Latino high school. The unlikely band of runners overcomes the odds to forge not only a championship cross-country team but an enduring legacy as well.

The festival runs from January 27-February 7.

Below is the list of World and U.S. Premiere films followed by the list of titles by sidebar categories.

World Premieres

A Better You, USA

Directed by Matt Walsh

Cast: Brian Huskey,...

A self-acknowledged "showcase for Academy Award frontrunners," the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is often overlooked for the actual films that earn it festival status. An amalgamation of international discoveries and ’merica’s circuit highlights, the Sbiff curates a week of best-of-the-best to pair with their star-praising. The 2015 edition offers another expansive selection, bookended by two films that aren’t on any radars just yet. Sbiff will open with "Desert Dancer," producer Richard Raymond’s directorial debut. Starring Reece Ritchie and Frieda Pinto, the drama follows a group of friends who wave off the harsh political climate of Iran’s 2009 presidential election in favor of forming a dance team, picking up moves from Michael Jackson, Gene Kelly and Rudolf Nureyev thanks to the magic of YouTube. The festival will close with "McFarland, USA," starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello. Telling the 1987 true story of a Latino high school’s underdog cross-country team,...

The Josef Fritzl affair and similar cases of horrendous incarceration revealed in its wake have now produced a sizable body of documentaries, feature films and fiction too, of which Michael is a minor, rather puzzling addition. The 40-year-old Austrian film-maker Markus Schleinzer, whose first feature film this is, has worked as a casting director on over 60 films, among them Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf and, most significantly, The White Ribbon, on which he coached the child actors.

The eponymous Michael (Michael Fuith) is a 35-year-old minor official with an Austrian insurance company, who keeps the 10-year-old Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) a prisoner in the soundproofed basement of his suburban home. Michael is a bespectacled, nondescript loner with a brother and sister both married with children. He largely keeps to himself, rejecting the advances of a female colleague, whom he physically throws out of his house when she intrudes.

Michael (18)

(Markus Schleinzer) Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Gisella Salcher. 96 mins

The daily routine of an Austrian paedophile who keeps a young boy locked in his cellar was hardly something anyone was queuing up to see, but this challenges us, and itself, to take a look. At the same time, it thankfully averts its gaze from scenes of actual abuse. There are keen observations on parenting, privacy, power relations and more, but the flat, factual approach verges on dull, and the absence of empathy ultimately just leaves you feeling grubby. So get in line for the grimmest movie of the year!

This Means War (12A)

(McG, 2012, Us) Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon. 98 mins

Two suspiciously close CIA buddies fall out when they discover they're dating the same woman – cue the misuse of government equipment and their own combat skills for one-upmanship. The romcom high concept is novel for a good reason: it's completely ridiculous.

There's not much insight into the figures behind Germany's Red Army Faction from this flavourless movie

This is a severe, opaque, episodic movie from writer-director Andres Veiel about key players in Germany's terrorist group, the Red Army Faction, from the early 60s to its flame-out in the 70s; the film has the same slightly flavourless character as Uli Edel's 2008 film The Baader Meinhof Complex. The 29-year-old actor Lena Lauzemis brings her distinctively mannish, androgynous presence to the role of Gudrun Ennslin, the student-teacher-turned-radical who became the lover of Andreas Baader and was imprisoned for her role in fire-bomb attacks. August Diehl plays Bernward Vesper, the radical publisher who like the rest of his generation was grappling with rage and guilt about his forebears. (Vesper's father, the poet and author Will Vesper, was a Hitler loyalist, and in a scene from Bernward's childhood, we see Vesper Sr explain how cats...

By A.J. Goldmann - February 22, 2011

Two highly anticipated late competition entries in this year’s Berlin Film Festival which wrapped up yesterday scooped up awards at Saturday’s award ceremony. American director Joshua Marston’s “The Forgiveness of Blood,” an Albanian-language dramatic thriller nabbed the Silver Bear for best screenplay. Andres Veiel’s feature film debut “Wer Wenn Nicht Wir” (“If Not Us, Who”), a German production about the origins of the West German terrorist organization The Red Army Faction, was awarded the Alfred Bauer prize –named for the festival founder—for unique contribution to the art of cinema. In the opinion of this critic, both prizes were undeserved.

Marston, whose only previous feature “Maria Full of Grace” was a critical favorite (and Berlinale competition entry) in 2004, wrote the screenplay to “Forgiveness” with Andamion Murataj, based on hundreds of interviews with ordinary Albanians for this story of familial loyalty,...

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

One of the most successful German films of recent memory, The Baader Meinhof Complex achieved something rare for the national cinema in that it achieved international success (in relative terms) and was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. So the decision taken by director Andres Veiel to re-visit some of those characters and events in his first non-documentary feature, and barely four years later, is either inspired or foolish. It turns out it’s pitched somewhere in between.

If the press release for Wer wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who) is anything to go by, the approach of the filmmakers has been to put their fingers in their ears and refuse to acknowledge the other movie’s existence. And it’s a response that works for a while and you forget the other superior film. That is until Andreas Baader...

Now we know why this announcement was put on hold. Seeing as both fests are back to back and one ends up supplying the other, Sundance John Cooper kindly obliged before annoucing the inclusion of Miranda July's The Future, a German-u.S co-production title that Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick is obviously pleased to include in his festival. After announcing that the Coen Brothers’ excellent True Grit would open the comp, here comes the first batch of 8 competition titles which include a Wim Wenders film we actually want to see, Turkish filmmaker Seyfi Teoman's Our Grand Despair and one filmmaker who we were sure was headed to Park City will instead receive a huge showcase in Berlin in Victoria Mahoney’s “Yelling to the Sky”. Here's the complete list of titles: “Bizim Büyük Çaresizligimiz” (Our Grand Despair); Turkey / Germany / Netherlands by Seyfi Teoman (Tatil Kitabi/Summer Book) with Ilker Aksum,...

About a week after the Sundance Film Festival announced its complete lineup, the Berlin title with (the Berlin International Film Festival) just publicized the first batch of films that will be in competition at the festival, and, a film that I fully expected would debut at Sundance (but obviously will not) is one of Shadow And Act’s Filmmakers To Watch, Victoria Mahoney’s feature film debut, Yelling To The Sky – a film we’ve given mucho pixels to on this blog, which stars Zoë Kravitz, Gabourey Sidibe, Tim Blake Nelson, Antonique Smith, and many others.

So, congrats to Victoria and company! I’d even further say that a Berlin debut could be considered more prestigious than a Sundance birth. The competition is stiffer, and your film may get more international exposure. Victoria can count veteran Wim Wenders and Miranda July as some of her competition.

The Coen Brothers’ remake...

The 61st Berlin International Film Festival has announced the rest of the Competition line-up in addition to opening film True Grit (which is screening out of competition). They include Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut Coriolanus, co-starring Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave, and Wim Wenders’ 3D dance film Pina. Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) Turkey / Germany / Netherlands by Seyfi Teoman (Tatil Kitabi/Summer Book) with İlker Aksum, Fatih Al, Güneş Sayın, Baki Davrak, Taner Birsel, Mehmet Ali Nuroğlu World premiere Coriolanus UK – debut film by Ralph Fiennes with Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, James Nesbitt World premiere / out of competition Lipstikka Israel/UK by Jonathan Sagall (Urban Feel) with Clara Khoury, Nataly Attiya, Moran Rosenblatt, Ziv Weiner World premiere Pina Germany/France - dance film in 3D by Wim Wenders (The American Friend, Buena Vista Social Club, The Million Dollar Hotel) with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal...