Jonathan Miller, President of Icarus Films, announced today his company’s acquisition for North American release of theatrical, non-theatrical, television and home video distribution rights for RABBIT À LA BERLIN, a Polish-German documentary short by filmmakers Bartek Konopka, Piotr Rosolowski, and Anna Wydra. The documentary has screened at 32 film festivals worldwide, and is now nominated for an Oscar.
RABBIT À LA BERLIN is a story about thousands of wild rabbits that lived in the No Man’s Land of the Berlin Wall. As if designed especially for them, the zone between the two sections of the wall was full of untouched grass, hidden from the reach of predators and protected by guards who made sure no one “disturbed” the rabbits. The animals lived there for 28 years – enclosed but safe. Unfortunately, the Wall fell down one day, and the rabbits had to look for another place to live.
This is the first film to portray the story of the Wall and the reunification of Europe from such an unusual perspective: the rabbits’ point of view. This uncanny cinematic metaphor of Cold War’s history playfully draws on the conventions of nature films and carries on the Polish documentary tradition of masters like Oscar-nominee Marcel Lozinski and Krzysztof Kieslowski.
RABBIT À LA BERLIN is set to open theatrically at Film Forum in the fall of 2010 in New York City.
