Paris-based sales company Reel Suspects has acquired world sales rights to German director Isabelle Stever’s Grand Jeté ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

Based on the 2017 novel Fürsorge (Care) by German novelist Anne Stelling, it revolves around the incestuous relationship between a dancer and her young adult son.

US, Berlin-based actress and dancer Sarah Nevada Grether makes her big-screen debut as a mother who estranged herself from her young son in order to be able to concentrate on her ballet career. When she meets her son again after years, an affection develops that goes far beyond motherly love.

Former child actor Emil von Schönfels, who has more than 20 credits to his name, including Sputnik, The Monuments Men and Babylon Berlin, plays the son.

It is Stever’s fifth feature after the 2015 drama The Weather Inside about an aid worker who embarks on affair with a drifter against the backdrop of a luxury hotel in a war zone.

“The classic family drama is completely turned upside down,” says Reel Suspects founder and head Matteo Lovadina, who has built his company around edgy work and genre fare.

“The audience will have no choice than to surrender to the unseen, they will have to transcend their comfort zone,” he suggested. ”Grand Jeté is a challenge that we are extremely proud to take and bring in front of the audience at this year Berlinale.”

It is produced by Mohammad Farokhmanesh, Frank Geiger, Armin Hofmann under the banner of Hamburg-based Brave New Work Film Productions with Belarussian actress and producer Olga Dihovichnaya on board as a co-producer.

Little Dream Pictures has pre-bought German rights.