Rome-based Intramovies has taken global sales rights to “White Snail,” the first fiction feature by Austrian-German artistic duo Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter which world premieres in main International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival.
Filmladen in Austria and Real Fiction in Germany will handle respectively theatrical distribution rights on “White Snail.”
Shot in Belarus and inspired by real-life stories of non-professional actors, the film narrates an unconventional romance involving two outsiders.
Kremser and Peter previously directed “Space Dogs,” a Moscow streets-set documentary which premiered in 2019 in Locarno and was shown at more than 70 festivals worldwide, snagging multiple awards.
“White Snail” is produced by Lixi Frank and David Bohun at Panama Film (“The Trouble with Being Born”), alongside Kremser and Peter for their Vienna-based company Raumzeitfilm.
Heino Deckert and Tina Borner at Leipzig’s Ma.ja.de. and ZDF/Das Kleine Fernsehspiel co-produce, in collaboration with European state-backed network Arte and Austrian public broadcaster ORF’s Film/Television Agreement.
The film follows Masha (Marya Imbro), a Belarusian model dreaming of a career in China who finds herself drawn to Misha, a mysterious loner (Mikhail Senkov) working the night shift at a morgue.
Their encounter unsettles her sense of body, beauty and mortality, and leads to a fragile love story of two outsiders who turn each other’s worlds upside down, discovering that they are not alone.
“A haunting exploration of connection in isolation, this unconventional romance unfolds against the backdrop of Belarus, an overlooked urban landscape,” said Geremia Biagiotti, Sales, marketing & acquisitions manager at Intramovies.
He adds: “The film excavates the profound loneliness that permeates contemporary life, challenging traditional notions of love while exposing the delicate threads that bind—and break—human relationships.”
“We’re confident the film will resonate with festival audiences and boutique theatrical distributors alike,” he added.
“In ‘White Snail,’ we devote ourselves to two outsiders, who emanate an uncompromising and yet fragile radiant power – in the midst of living conditions that affect them in two ways: through state repression and shamanic superstition,” explained writers-directors Kremser and Peter.
The artistic duo added: “After we met our main characters Masha and Misha in Minsk, we developed a cinematic plot rooted in their biographies. Two people, who would never meet in real life, play themselves in a fictional setting.
Together, the film characters dream of an outbreak that is at the same time inhibited by fear and self-shame. Shame for not being recognized by society as an artist, for living in severe depression and not being able to enter relationships out of fear of humiliation.”
“Our film is about a turning point,” they continued. “Whether it concerns the relationship of the two characters or the recent history of Belarus: it is about rearing up against suppression, about the open questions to a not yet decipherable future, like something smoldering in the haze of sultry summer nights.”
“White Snail” won a Berlinale Kompagnon Script Award and participated at the Torino Feature Lab. It was funded by the Austrian Film Institute, Eurimages, ÖFI+, Filmfonds Wien, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and Creative Europe Media.
The 78th Locarno Film Festival runs Aug. 6-16.
