Breaking News: SCREENDAILY// EXCLUSIVE : Reel Suspects moves in on Dominican romantic drama ‘Interior Apartment Day’ ahead of Rotterdam premiere

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Reel Suspects moves in on Dominican romantic drama ‘Interior Apartment Day’ ahead of Rotterdam premiere

By 26 January 2026

EXCLUSIVE: France’s Reel Suspects has boarded Dominican directing duo Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas’ Interior Apartment Day (Interior Apartamento Día) ahead of the film’s screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

Maia Otero and Juliano Kunert star in the Spanish and English-language film that is set to play in the festival’s Harbour section for contemporary cinema.

Interior Apartment Day is about a couple of creative freelancers in Santo Domingo, excited about the changes a promising job opportunity will bring. But unexpected conflicts arise that test their relationship as they try to balance their work commitments with their love for each other.

It is produced by Dominican production outfits Lantica Studios, Purpleline Productions, and Aurora Dominicana.

Interior Apartment Day world premiered at the 2025 Sao Paolo International Film Festival in October.

A real-life couple, Dominican Republic-born Guzmán and Mexico-born Cárdenas are IFFR regulars who were last at the festival in 2023 as producers of Guzman’s first solo effort La Hembrita in competition and of Pablo Chea’s Chroma Kid in the Bright Future section. They were also at the festival with their joint directorial effort Sand Dollars in 2015.

Reel Suspects will talk to buyers about the film at next month’s European Film Market (EFM). Its EFM lineup also includes Luiza Schelling Tubaldini’s Brazilian vampire romance Love Kills, Portuguese body horror Bodyhackers, Polish vampire debut feature Life For Beginners, Christian Neuman’s sci-fi horror Stargazer and Alex Phillips’ comic erotic thriller Anything That Moves.

Breaking News: CINEUROPA // EXCLUSIVE : Reel Suspects mise sur Life For Beginners

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EXCLUSIF : Reel Suspects mise sur Life For Beginners

par Fabien Lemercier

– Le vendeur international français lance les ventes du premier long métrage du Polonais Paweł Podolski, un film de vampire produit par Autograf Karol Wożbiński

A shy vampire has one night to persuade a suicidal vampire whom she created — and accidentally condemned to eternal life — to accept immortality. She’s helped by a young mortal with an enduring love for life. That’s the crux of Life For Beginners, the feature debut by Poland’s Paweł Podolski (who made a splash in 2020 with the short Do Monsters Eat Kiwi?, which triumphed in Austin and Portland). The movie was unveiled in the Gdynia Film Festival last October (just ahead of its domestic theatrical release via Aurora Films), and French company Reel Suspects – headed up by Matteo Lovadina – has just snapped up international sales rights for the work.

Penned by the director together with Lynn Kucharczyk, the screenplay centres on an introverted but highly functional 26-year-old vampire called Monia. Her job in a care home allows her to feed on blood samples and limits her interactions to chats with elderly people with dementia. It’s a comfortable life for her – a little lonely, but very stable. Monia could probably have kept this up for years, were it not for a 23-year-old Czarek – who doesn’t have much time left to live – coming into her life. He’s is the only one to notice Monia, who doesn’t feel like herself around him and would probably blush at the sight of him if she could. He’s also the first to discover the young woman’s secret. Meanwhile, some strange events begin to unfold. Bite marks are found on the bodies of deceased patients… Another vampire is prowling the home: 35-year-old Mirek, a suicidal man turned vampire by Monia. Mirek hated his life when it was finite and he hates it even more now that it’s eternal. He asks Monia to kill him. But killing a vampire isn’t that easy. Stakes and crosses are useless, and only the one who created a vampire can kill them. Mirek gives Monia an ultimatum: either she kills him, or he will kill all the residents in the care home…

The cast includes Magdalena Maścianica, Michał Sikorski, Bartłomiej Kotschedoff, Małgorzata Rożniatowska and Wojciech Machnicki. The film’s cinematography is by Ernest Wilczyński while the music was composed by Hubert Walkowski.

Life For Beginners was produced by Anna Wereda and Alicja Gancarz for Autograf Karol Wożbiński as part of the Polish Film Institute’s micro-budget programme. The latter is also supporting the filmmaker’s next feature, a dramedy currently in development entitled A Bit of Meaning.

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