More award winning Berlin film Festival pick-ups from the Film Movement folks to report on, this time they’ve picked up the latest from Hans-Christian Schmid (director of Requiem and writer for And Along Come Tourists). To be released in the Fall, Storm features an international cast pair of female leads in Kerry Fox (who we most recently seen in Bright Star and might remember all the way back to Shallow Grave) and one of my favorite Eastern European discoveries in Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).
Schmid’s Storm sees Hannah Maynard (Fox), prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, is leading a trial against a former commander of the Yugoslavian National Army who is accused of the deportation and later killing of dozens of Bosnian-Muslim civilians. When a key witness commits suicide, it looks like the case will unravel, however Hannah refuses to give in. Hoping to uncover new findings, she travels to the witness’ burial in Sarajevo and meets his sister Mira (Marinca) who she senses has much more to say than she is willing to admit. Despite threats of violence, Mira reluctantly agrees to testify at The Hague. However, she and Hannah must both risk life and limb to make it to the court, only to discover that there are traitors among their own ranks.
Storm won humanitarian and public awards at the Berlin Film Festival in the shape of: the Amnesty International Film Prize, Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas and Reader Jury of the “Berliner Morgenpost”.
