Silver Bear Winner Eidinger Boards Schalko’s Highly Anticipated Next Feature Film Behind The Knothole

International Star Lars Eidinger set to star in the Superfilm and Fun Republic Pictures led co-production

HOLLYWOOD, CA, USA, May 8, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Superfilm CEO, John Lueftner (A Dangerous Method, Kafka), and Fun Republic Pictures’ Emmy-nominated David Cormican (Tulipani, Love, Honour & A Bicycle, The Tall Man) confirmed that the Silver Bear winner, and rising international star, Lars Eidinger (Babylon Berlin, White Noise), is attached to star in the upcoming David Schalko (Kafka, The Way To Live) helmed feature film Behind the Knothole.

Eidinger is set to play the role of Fin, a troubled and unpublished author who begins a complicated love affair with his new neighbour’s wife, Mia. They spend their days in romantic and poetic bliss, while Fin spends his nights tormented by everything he can hear that goes on and is said in Mia’s apartment through a curious section of shared wall. Mia moves and ends the affair but sends a copy of herself to continue the relationship with Fin who can’t help but want the original Mia back.

His participation (Eidinger’s) in this production builds upon a history of collaboration with Schalko as a director and screenwriter, as the pair previously worked together on Schalko’s Me And The Others and most recently on Kafka.

Eidinger is perhaps best known to festival audiences through his performances opposite Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria which was nominated for the Palme d’Or and again opposite Kristen Stewart in Assayas’ Personal Shopper which was also nominated for the Palme d’Or. More recently, Eidinger starred opposite Don Cheadle, Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver in Noah Baumbach’s White Noise and has been recognized by international audiences for his portrayals of Reinhold von Rumpel in the PGA-nominated Outstanding Limited Series for Netflix All The Light We Cannot See with director Shawn Levy and showrunner Steven Knight, Alfred Nyssen in the European Film Award-winning Sky / ARD smash-hit series Babylon Berlin, and opposite Alicia Vikander in Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep for HBO. He (Eidinger) is currently filming in director Noah Baumbach’s untitled (“Jay Kelly”) film opposite George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Riley Keough, Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup and Emily Mortimer.

“Lars (Eidinger) carries every role there is to play within him. For the role of Fin, it's the other way around. No one else but Lars could play him. Fin builds a continent for his love. He is a kind of Don Quixote; however, his giants are the many faces of Mia. For Fin, much like Lars, everything is always about everything. I don't think I could make this film without him”, says director David Schalko whose previous credits includes Old Money and M—A City Hunts A Murderer. “I'm very happy we are going to look behind the knothole together”.

“Behind the Knothole is the most beautiful love story I have ever read”, shares Eidinger. “Because it doesn’t assume love, but approaches it like a strange figure that you first have to approach in order to recognize it. The relationship as the smallest social unit, from which everything that moves us as a whole can be derived —It hurts beautifully.”

Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht (Revanche, Goodnight Mommy) also joins Schalko’s filmmaking team as Director of Photography. Gschlacht’s work on Des Teufels Bad earned him a Silver Bear award win most recently at the 2024 Berlinale, with past wins for his work honoured at the European Film Awards and the Buenos Aires International Film Festival for Best Cinematography on Severin Fiala’s and Veronika Franz’ Sitges-winning and Venice and film festival darling, Goodnight Mommy.

Superfilm recently premiered School of Champions, which Schalko produced and Kafka, which Schalko directed, produced and showran, and which has been praised by both critics and the literary world, including Booker Prize-winner Salman Rushdie who wrote of the biopic “This is the best dramatization of the life of the great Kafka that it’s possible to imagine, perfectly cast, stunningly acted, and weaving the work into the life with extraordinary skill. It does a great service to one of the true giants of 20th century literature.” The company also previously collaborated with Schalko on the smash hit limited comedy series Braunschlag, which was both written and directed by Schalko, and is the most successful Austrian Series from the last twenty years. His body of work has received numerous international awards and nominations. Schalko is considered one of the most prolific series creators in the German-speaking world.

Fun Republic Pictures recently delivered the Slovakia/Canada treaty co-production Réveillon and Cormican is currently producing with financing partners Volume Global the Michael Jai White action starrer Hostile Takeover which is filming in virtual production on the largest LED volume wall in Canada (and second largest in the world), at the John Hopkins Regina Soundstage located in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Behind the Knothole was developed with the financial support of the Austrian Film Institute (Österreichisches Filminstitut - ÖFI). The film will be financed in partnership with Volume Global and is being structured as an Austria/Canada treaty co-production between Superfilm and Fun Republic Pictures. Lueftner and Cormican will produce the film which is written and directed by Schalko. Schalko will also serve as an Executive Producer alongside Superfilm’s Katharina Theissen (School of Champions, M—A City Hunts A Murderer), Karma Film’s Anand Ramayya (Brotherhood, Funny Boy) and Volume Global’s Michael Hamilton-Wright (Dylan & Zoey, King of Killers) and Christopher Rush Harrington (King of Killers, Hustle Down).

The film, which does not yet have an international sales agency partnership, is slated to begin pre-production in Canada later in 2024 and will go to camera in 2025. The rights will be represented at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival marketplace by the producers who are continuing to cast the film’s remaining roles.

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Amy Prenner
The Prenner Group
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