New films from Ving Rhames and Marion Cotillard in Oldenburg’s 30th anniversary lineup

The Oldenburg Film Festival, Germany’s leading all-indie celebration, revealed highlights for its 30th anniversary edition, including several world premieres with Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and Mission Impossible star Ving Rhames.

Top cuta boxing movie with Mission Impossible star Ving Rhames, closes the festival on September 17. Director Torsten Ruether made a remake of his own German-language debut Leberhookswhich premiered in Oldenburg in 2021. The Million Dollar Babystyle story sees Rhames as a disillusioned former boxer who gets a chance at redemption when a young woman shows up at his gym and begs him to train her.

Spanish genre director F. Javier Gutierrez brings his latest horror story, The wait, this year to Oldenburg. Gutierrez’s 2008 debut After the falla sci-fi thriller at the end of the world, was a crossover hit and its successor was the big-budget Rings (2017) for Paramount, the third entry in the Japanese-inspired horror saga. But despite grossing $83 million worldwide, the film was judged a disappointment and Gutierrez returned to Spain for his third feature film, about a tough-as-nails family whose life turns into a nightmare. The film, starring Pedro Casablanc, Luis Callejo, Víctor Clavijo and Ruth Díaz, will have its world premiere next month in Oldenburg.

When I’m alone with you a French romantic comedy inspired by Nouvelle Vague by directors Guillaume Campanacci and Vedrana Egon, also has its world premiere at the German indiefest. The directors star as a suicidal Frenchman and a Bosnian ballerina, respectively, who are caught up in a loveless relationship and meet in the South of France.

Other Oldenburg premieres include a 1980s paranoid comedy The Belgian wave by Spit’n’Split director Jerome Vandewattyne; and German features That’s Wunderkind by director Thomas Stiller and Allmen Und The Secret Of The Koi by Sinje Kohler.

Robot dreamsPablo Berger’s animated comedy film with dogs and robots, which premiered at Cannes, will have its first German performance in Oldenburg, just as The King of Algiersa Cannes Midnight Screener by début director Elias Belkeddar with Reda Kateb and Benoît Magimel, and Marion Cotillard starrer Little girl bluea French psychological docudrama by director Mona Achache, in which the Start star plays Achache’s mother, the writer and set photographer Carole Achache. Achache plays herself in the film, which premiered at Cannes, in which she questions Cotillard as her mother about her life and her decision to commit suicide.

Other previously announced Oldenburg titles for 2023 include The Nothing ClubEdgar Pêra’s drama inspired by the world of iconic Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, and passenger cthe directorial debut of veteran producer Cassian Elwes (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud bound, The butler), inspired by a red-eye flight that changed his life.

Oldenburg fans can also check out the festival’s latest spoof trailer below, as director Torsten Neumann gives his best Apocalypse now Marlon Brando as he pontificates about the true meaning of film festivals.

The 30th Oldenburg Film Festival runs from 13 to 17 September 2023.