IFC Films picks up "Puzzle" (Variety)

IFC Films has snapped up North American rights to Berlin fave "Puzzle."

The Argentine pic about a woman who discovers she's gifted at puzzling was helmed by first-timer Natalia Smirnoff and had its Berlinale competition bow on Thursday night.

Maria Onetto plays the lead, a middle-aged housewife who has devoted her life to her husband and grown children. When she's given a puzzle, she finds she can solve it quickly and takes on a tournament training partner (Arturo Goetz).

IFC Entertainment prexy Jonathan Sehring said, "'Puzzle' completely charmed our entire team at the Berlinale. It is one of the rare crowd pleasers that manages to respect its audience and deliver profound thrills."

Producers are Carousel Films' Gabriele Pastore and La Ninas Pictures' Caroline Dhainaut.
Smirnoff has served as a casting director on three of fellow Argentine director Lucrecia Martel's films, including her last, "The Headless Woman." She's also worked as an assistant director.

Deal was negotiated by IFC's Elizabeth Nastro and Memento Films Intl.'s Emilie Georges and Tanja Meissner.

Meissner also reported brisk foreign sales on "Puzzle," which has sold to distribs in more than 15 territories so far.

IFC will bow "Puzzle" in theaters and VOD later this year, after a fall fest run.

Berlinale 2010 - "Rompecabezas", de Natalia Smirnoff (críticas)

Variety
By Jay Weissberg

A Carroussel Films (Argentina)/Las Ninas Pictures (France)/Zarlek Producciones (Argentina) production. (International sales: Memento Films Intl., Paris.) Produced by Gabriel Pastore, Caroline Dhainaut, Luis Sartor, Natalia Smirnoff. Executive producer, Gabriel Pastore. Directed, written by Natalia Smirnoff. (Spanish dialogue)

After a decade as assistant director and casting director for the likes of Pablo Trapero and Lucrecia Martel, Natalia Smirnoff settles into the director's chair with her delicate feature debut, "Puzzle." A detail-oriented look at a housewife quietly asserting her independence through a puzzle tournament, this femme-skewed chamber piece is a low-key charmer for auds open to its honest subtleties, boosted in no small part by Maria Onetto's beautifully modulated performance. The pic's Berlin competish slot should spur moderate Euro sales, though critical support will be necessary if other pieces are to fall into place.

The opening segment perfectly captures the situation at home for Maria del Carmen (Onetto): We see closeups of a meal being made as she prepares for a large party, during which she serves the guests, takes veiled barbs from her mother-in-law and then brings out a cake featuring a big "50" in candles. Only then do auds realize it's her own birthday. After cleaning up (unassisted, of course), she looks at her presents and starts doing a puzzle.

Maria del Carmen has reached a difficult moment: Her husband, Juan (Gabriel Goity), has his business and is eminently satisfied with his wife's status as a loving drudge at home, while her two kids, Ivan (Julien Doregger) and Juan Pablo (Felipe Villanueva), are reaching the age where they're moving out or otherwise preoccupied with their lives. Lacking any interests outside the home, Maria del Carmen needs a purpose again, or at least a passion.

Her first puzzle sparks an interest, and at a shop, she sees a flier from someone looking for a puzzle tournament partner. Without letting her family know, she meets rich bachelor Roberto (Arturo Goetz), who's struck by her unorthodox but rapid puzzle-solving skills, and this old hand at competitions agrees to take her into training. In the coming weeks, Maria del Carmen tells her family she's looking after a sick aunt -- while she and Roberto do puzzles together at his mansion, where he opens her up to outside interests.

While story-driven, the pic knows it's a slip of a tale, and Smirnoff's success comes in the way she fills in her characters, signaling the dynamics at home in a clear but understated way. Maria del Carmen is taken for granted by her kids, and it's ultimately difficult to decide whether Juan really loves his wife or just likes the comfort of knowing there's a warm, devoted and willing body next to him in bed.

If Maria del Carmen is on a different wavelength from her husband and kids, the same goes for her relationship with the sophisticated Roberto. The point is, she doesn't truly fit in either world, at least not until she's able to assert a modicum of independence at home and find the happiness in herself that's been lacking. Considering how close Smirnoff keeps the camera on her protag's face, registering Onetto's every shifting feature, it's clear the helmer had absolute, and justifiable, trust in the thesp's ability to get inside her character. Without overdoing the mousiness, Onetto (who starred in Martel's "The Headless Woman") combines an unsophisticated fragility with a strong core, and when she gets what she wants, there's a radiance in her smile that fills the screen.

For the most part, Maria del Carmen's world is shot with diffused, pale tonalities, matching the pallid colors of her clothes and skin. Roberto's home appears slightly warmer, increasing the sense of escape into something comforting and rare. Ace d.p. Barbara Alvarez ("Whisky," "The Headless Woman") at times overdoes the shaky lensing, though it's nothing out of the ordinary in this obsessively handheld age. Auds will be divided over whether the odd mouth-harp music detracts from or enhances the proceedings.

Camera (color, HD-to-35mm), Barbara Alvarez; editor, Natacha Valerga; music, Alejandro Franov; production designer, Maria Eugenia Sueiro; costume designer, Julio Suarez; sound (Dolby SRD), Fernando Soldevila, Facundo "Paco" Giron; associate producer, Alvaro Urtizberea; assistant director, casting, Natalie Urruti. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (competing), Feb. 17, 2010. Running time: 89 MIN.

Screendaily

By Jonathan Romney

Dir/scr Natalia Smirnoff. Argentina/France 2010. 88 mins.

A middle-aged housewife finds a new lease of life through discovering her skills at jigsaw puzzles. That may sound like a weekday afternoon TV movie, and although Argentinian domestic drama Puzzle is slightly more distinguished than that, it’s not hard to drift off while watching it and imagine who you’d cast in the remake: Julie Walters, perhaps, with Bill Nighy as her suave jigsaw mentor.

A debut from Natalia Smirnoff, former AD to Pablo Trapero and casting director for Lucrecia Martel, Puzzle is a slender, unremarkable piece of feminist affirmation that represents no stretch for lead Maria Onetto. Mundane execution and mainstream approach should make it a low priority even for distributors committed to new Argentinian cinema.

The film lays its cards on the table at the start, showing Buenos Aires housewife Maria del Carmen (Onetto) slaving to prepare a birthday party – which turns out to be her own 50th. Her husband Juan (Goity) and two teenage sons are devoted, but they take Maria for granted and let her do all the work around the house, which she endures with long-suffering calm.

Then she discovers jigsaw puzzles, and when she finds an advert for a partner in a tournament, she’s game. Apparently an unschooled natural, she’s taken up by elderly, dashing and moneyed Roberto (Goetz), who shows her the ropes of the jigsaw world. As Carmen spends more time shuffling around little bits of cardboard, her family starts to fend for itself, the men even learning to cook. Before long, Maria is on the way to her first jigsaw trophy, with an impressed Roberto even getting, well, jiggy with her.

And, apart from a lightly bittersweet ending, that is just about it. If we were expecting Maria’s hobby to become a morbid obsession with disturbing repercussions for her family, Puzzle certainly doesn’t go there. Nor does Smirnoff particularly develop the metaphor of Maria reconstructing the scattered order of her life: no, this is quite simply a film about a woman who likes doing jigsaws. The characters are thin, but generally likeable: even Juan, for all his machismo, is a loving husband, played by affable blokeish charm by Goity, and there’s some relaxed ensemble acting, apparently improvised, within Maria’s household.

But we learn next to nothing about Roberto, except that he knows a bit about Egyptian history, and it’s hard to credit any erotic spark between Maria and this dry, patrician townie. As for the humorous domestic moments – Juan confesses a propensity for tai ch’i, Maria’s younger son embraces vegetarian cooking - it’s all designed to elicit the lightest chuckle.

Onetto sensitively downplays the harried, hesitant Maria, but hardly gets the scope to shine as she did in The Headless Woman. Barbara Alvarez’s photography is warm-hued but muted, establishing a tone of low-key kitchen-sink naturalism. The film’s most distinctive touches are its incongruously hippie-ish percussion and flute score, together with a great deal of what looks suspiciously like product placement for jigsaw manufacturers Ravensburger.

Berlinale 2010 - Jew Suss, On the Path, Rompecabezas (Clarín)

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Berlinale 2010 - Rompecabezas, The Kids Are All Right, Shahada, How I Ended This Summer (Clarín)

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Argentina: Latin America's Berlinale standard-bearer

Buenos Aires - Rompecabezas (Jigsaw Puzzle) might be Argentinian director Natalia Smirnoff's debut feature film but it brings together 12 years of work in her country's movie industry. The film - about self-discovery and on how people handle crucial moments in life - has been selected for the race for Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The low-budget Rompecabezas' inclusion in the main competition for one of the world's top film festivals also crowns five years of character-based work. But Smirnoff, 37, is modest about her experience. "I want people to like it," she told the German Press Agency dpa.

"I want the film to be as universal as possible."Not in a commercial sense, she said but so that the hard work of the people involved in the movie can reap the biggest possible rewards. And the film does indeed touch upon universal themes, Smirnoff said.

It tells the story of a housewife (played by Argentinian actress Maria Onetto) suffering from like empty-nest syndrome - the loneliness and even a crisis of confidence that often engulfs people after their children have left home.

Onetto's character receives a jigsaw puzzle as a 50-year-old-birthday present. She finds a new meaning for her life when she starts taking part in jigsaw-puzzle competitions. Motherhood and the fear to move on at watershed moments in life play a central role in Rompecabezas.

"The film tells of someone who discovers something new about herself, and then a whole universe is launched that is small but nevertheless is a new universe within her life," the director said. Smirnoff realized in the process that she was going through a similar process at the personal level: becoming a director, going to prestigious film festivals, and so on.

She is both the director and the scriptwriter for Rompecabezas. During her career, she has worked as an assistant director and a casting director alongside acclaimed directors such as Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero. Indeed, she was assistant and casting director for Martel's La Cienaga, which competed for the Golden Bear in 2001, and La Nina Santa, which competed for Cannes' Palme d'Or in 2004.

Her work in Rompecabezas, Smirnoff said focused on getting "very, very deep into detail" in the approach to characters. "It is those details that make a difference when it comes to seeing something," she stressed. "Observing was always something of a passion for me."Before being actively involved in the film industry, Smirnoff worked as a reporter and believes the experience as another valuable input in the art of "looking profoundly" at a character as a scriptwriter.

As a director, she just went along with the story, as someone who "knows the same as the character but even a little less."A mother of two, Smirnoff mentions the groundbreaking experience of seeing her 7-year-old son take photographs that bore his own imprint: his own look on the world.

So far, Smirnoff's experience in film festivals has been good, since Rompecabezas won an award at the Films in Progress section at San Sebastian and walked away from the northern Spanish city's movie festival with an international agent for her film. She laughs and notes that San Sebastian was quite an experience, and makes it a little bit less daunting to tackle Berlin.

"It meant discovering a whole universe," she says more seriously. "It's like learning to move about in a different place."Confidence and pride in her work, however, makes Smirnoff eager and optimistic about taking her film to the German capital.

Berlinale 2010: "Rompecabezas", de Natalia Smirnoff (trailer)

Jurado y películas en competencia por el premio Opera Prima - Berlinale 2010

The Berlinale has been even more committed to supporting the next generation of film makers since 2006, when it introduced the Best First Feature Award. The award is endowed with 50,000 Euros, donated by the GWFF (Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrecht), a society dedicated to safeguarding film and television rights. The prize money is to be split between the producer and the director of the winning film. Additionally, the director will be awarded with a high-quality viewfinder as both a useful instrument and memorable trophy.

Debut feature films from the sections Competition, Panorama, Generation Kplus and 14plus as well as debut films from the Forum will compete for the award. The winners will be announced at the official award ceremony in the Berlinale Palast on February 20.

A three-person jury will decide on the Best First Feature:

Michael Verhoeven ( Germany) – head of the jury
Michael Verhoeven, one of the formative personalities in German film, presented his feature film debut The Dance of Death in 1967. In 1970 his anti-war film O.K. led to a scandal among the members of the Berlinale Competition jury. Verhoeven, who has his own production company, has made numerous highly regarded films about the German past including The White Rose (1982) and The Nasty Girl (1990).

Ben Foster ( USA )
Ben Foster is one of the most versatile young actors of his generation. He has played a troubled teenager (Bang Bang Your Dead, Six Feet Under), a comic hero (X-Men: The Last Stand), a volatile cowboy (3:10 to Yuma ) and received the 2006 Young Hollywood Award for his role in Nick Cassavetes' Alpha Dog. He was a guest at the 2009 Berlinale Competition with his lead role in the acclaimed drama The Messenger.

Lorna Tee ( Malaysia )
The producer Lorna Tee is a well-known personality in the Asian film scene. In 2005 she managed the marketing and distribution at Focus Films Hong Kong. Today she is both general manager of the Hong Kong based Asian investment fund Irresistible Films and proprietor of her own film production company Paperheart ( Malaysia ). With Paperheart she produced Rain Dogs, At The End of Daybreak and My Daughter.

The following films have qualified for the Best First Feature Award:

Competition (3)

Rompecabezas (Puzzle) by Natalia Smirnoff , Argentina /France
Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier (If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle) by Florin Serban , Romania / Sweden
Shahada by Burhan Qurbani , Germany

Panorama (9)

Besouro by João Daniel Tikhomiroff, Brazil
Bróder! (Broder!) by Jeferson De , Brazil
Die Fremde (When We Leave) by Feo Aladag , Germany
Due vite per caso (One life maybe two) by Alessandro Aronadio, Italy
El mal ajeno (For The Good Of The Others) by Oskar Santos, Spain
Propavshyi bez vesty (Missing Man) by Anna Fenchenko, Russian Federation
Open by Jake Yuzna, USA
Red Hill by Patrick Hughes, Australia
Veselchaki (Jolly Fellows) by Felix Mikhailov, Russian Federation

Forum (8)

Au revoir Taipei (Yī yè Tái běi) by Arvin Chen, Taiwan/USA/Germany
Eine flexible Frau (The Drifter) by Tatjana Turanskyj , Germany
El vuelco del cangrejo (Crab Trap) by Oscar Ruíz Navia , Colombia /France
Imani by Caroline Kamya, Uganda/Sweden
The Man Beyond the Bridge (Paltadacho Munis) by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar , India
One Day (Yǒu yī tiān) by Hou Chi-Jan , Taiwan
Our Fantastic 21st Century (Neo-wa na-eui i-shib-il-seki) by Ryu Hyung-ki, Republic of Korea
Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man (Portretul luptătorului la tinerețe) by Constantin Popescu , Romania

Generation Kplus (2)

Knerten by Åsleik Engmark , Norway
Bestevenner (Rafiki) by Christian Lo, Norway

Generation 14plus (1 or 2)

Retratos en un mar de mentiras (Portraits In A Sea Of Lies) by Carlos Gaviria, Colombia
Sebbe** by Babak Najafi , Sweden

**The film denoted with ** is no longer qualified for candidacy if it wins an award at the Göteborg IFF (January 29 – February 8, 2010).

"Rompecabezas", de Natalia Smirnoff, en competencia en Berlín

More Titles for the Competition of the 60th Berlinale Confirmed

26 films will participate in the Competition programme of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. In addition to the seven titles announced earlier (see press releases from December 15, 2009), a further 18 films have now been confirmed. These include productions from Argentina , Austria , Denmark , Germany , France , Great Britain , Japan , Norway , People´s Republic of China, Romania , Russian Federation , Sweden and USA . The complete programme will be presented on February 1, 2010.

These films will celebrate their world premiere or international premiere in the Competition of the 60th Berlinale:

Caterpillar Japan
By Koji Wakamatsu (Secrets Behind The Wall, Sex Jack, Go Go Second Time Virgin, Ecstasy of the Angels, United Red Army)
With Shinobu Terajima, Shima Ohnishi
World Premiere

En Familie (A Family) Denmark
By Pernille Fischer Christensen (En soap, Silver Bear 2006, Dansen)
With Jesper Christensen, Lene Maria Christensen, Pilou Asbæk , Anne
Louise Hassing
World Premiere

En ganske snill mann (A Somewhat Gentle Man) Norway
By Hans Petter Moland (The Beautiful Country, Aberdeen , Gymnaslærer Pedersen)
With Stellan Skarsgård, Jannike Kruse Jåtog, Jan Gunnar Røise
World Premiere

Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier (If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle)
Romania/Sweden
By Florin Şerban – debut film
With George Piştereanu, Ada Condeescu, Clara Vodă, Mihai Constantin
World Premiere

Greenberg USA
By Noah Baumbach (Margot at the Wedding, The Squid and the Whale,
Mr. Jealousy)
With Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh
World Premiere

Howl USA
By Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman (Common Threads: Stories from the
Quilt, The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175)
With James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Mary-Louise Parker
International Premiere

Jud Süß - Film ohne Gewissen Germany/Austria
By Oskar Roehler (The Elementary Particles, Angst, No Place to Go)
With Tobias Moretti, Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Justus von Dohnanyi, Armin Rohde
World Premiere

Kak ya provel etim letom (How I Ended This Summer) Russian Federation
By Alexei Popogrebsky (Prostye veshchi – Simple Things, Koktebel - Roads to Koktebel)
With Grigory Dobrygin, Sergei Puskepalis
World Premiere

Mammuth France
By Benoît Delépine, Gustave de Kervern (Aaltra, Louise-Michel)
With Gérard Depardieu, Yolande Moreau, Isabelle Adjani, Miss Ming
World Premiere

Otouto (About Her Brother) Japan – Closing Film
By Yoji Yamada (Kabei, Love and Honor)
With Sayuri Yoshinaga, Tsurube Shofukutei, Yu Aoi, Ryo Kase
International Premiere / Out of Competition

Please Give USA
By Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, Friends with Money)
With Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steele, Ann Guilbert
International Premiere / Out of Competition

Rompecabezas (Puzzle) Argentina/France
By Natalia Smirnoff – debut film
With Maria Onetto, Gabriel Goity, Arturo Goetz, Henny Trailes
World Premiere

San qiang pai an jing qi (A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop) People´s Republic of China
By Zhang Yimou (Hong gao liang – Red Sorghum, Wo de fu qin mu qin – The Road Home, Ying xiong – Hero)
With Sun Honglei, Xiao Shenyang, Yan Ni
International Premiere

Shahada Germany
By Burhan Qurbani – debut film
With Maryam Zaree, Carlo Ljubek, Jeremias Acheampong, Sergej Moya
World Premiere

Submarino Denmark
By Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, Dear Wendy, It’s All About Love)
With Jakob Cedergren, Peter Plaugborg, Patricia Schumann, Gustav Fischer Kjærulff, Morten Rose
World Premiere

The Kids Are Alright USA/France
By Lisa Cholodenko (Dinner Party, High Art, Laurel Canyon , Cavedweller)
With Julianne Moore, Annette Benning, Mark Ruffalo
International Premiere / Out of Competition

The Killer Inside Me USA/Great Britain
By Michael Winterbottom (The Road to Guantanamo , In This World, A Mighty Heart)
With Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson
International Premiere

Tuan Yuan (Apart Together) Volksrepublik China – Opening Film
By Wang Quan’an (Tuya's Marriage, Golden Bear 2007)
With Lisa Lu, Ling Feng, Xu Caigen, Monica Mo, Ma Xiaoqing
World Premiere