Despite having a rocky world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, thanks to the DCP freezing just minutes before the end of the film, director Cate Shortland's psychological thriller BERLIN SYNDROME is still managing to generate good word of mouth from its screenings at the festival. It's a good thing that the film is being well received, because Vertical Entertainment has already picked up the North American theatrical distribution rights.
Having paid somewhere in the low-to-mid seven figures for the rights, Vertical is planning to give BERLIN SYNDROME an early summer 2017 release. After the theatrical release, Netflix will be receiving all rights to the film, including streaming.
Scripted by Shaun Grant and based on a 2011 novel by Melanie Joosten, BERLIN SYNDROME stars Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt in the story of
an Australian photographer (Palmer) who meets a charismatic local man (Riemelt) while on holiday in Berlin. After a night of passion, she finds herself locked in his apartment and soon realizes he has no intentions of letting her go, ever.
That's a scary concept, and it sounds like Shortland has brought it to the screen in an effectively disturbing way. Having enjoyed watching Palmer take on supernatural horror in LIGHTS OUT last year, I'm totally on board to see her deal with horror that's more grounded and more troubling.