Global Constellation has boarded worldwide sales rights to Jan Holoubek’s World War II noir thriller “Wild, Wild East,” hot off its inclusion in the Gap Financing Market at the Venice Film Festival. Global Constellation will introduce the film to distributors at the Toronto Film Festival.
The film stars Itay Tiran (“Run Boy Run,” “Demon”) and Joanna Kulig (“Ida,” “Cold War”), and is produced by leading Polish producers Bogna Szewczyk-Skupień and Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska for Madants (“The Brutalist,” “Lamb,” “Silent Twins”), and Ewa Puszczyńska (“The Zone of Interest,” “Cold War,” “Ida”) for Extreme Emotions, together with Holoubek.
Currently in pre-production, “Wild, Wild East” will start principal photography in October in Poland and Latvia.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Polska will distribute the film in Poland.
Set in occupied Poland in 1943, the film follows Martin Wolff, a German official sent to a remote village to investigate the disappearance of a Jewish lawyer. His arrival unsettles the fragile order between scarred villagers, corrupt collaborators, and Nazi authorities, unearthing a web of betrayal and greed tied to whispers of the lawyer’s hidden fortune. Yet as the village’s darkest truths come to light, Wolff’s search may be hiding more than it reveals.
The film marks the latest directorial effort from Holoubek, following the critically acclaimed box office hit “25 Years of Innocence” and the Netflix series “The Mire,” “High Water” and “Heweliusz.”
Holoubek said: “This script has been years in the making, but its themes feel more urgent than ever. Hatred does not disappear; it resurfaces, reshaped with each generation. At the heart of our story is this cycle of violence, and the need to confront it head-on.”
Fabien Westerhoff, head of Global Constellation, said: “A noir thriller presenting the narrow frontier between wilderness and civilization, the film reframes a remote Polish village as a haunting mirror of wartime collapse, where fractured identities lay bare the deepest truths of survival, collaboration, and resistance. We look forward to introducing the film to our distributors in Toronto!”
The film is co-produced by TVN Warner Bros. Discovery, Adam Gudel at Moderator Inwestycje, Filip Friedman and Michał Wawrzynowicz, and is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, Wrocław Feature Film Studio in association with Mid MarchMedia. Latvian services are provided by Alise Gelze at White Picture.
“Wild, Wild East” is the latest acquisition for Global Constellation, which is part of the Vuelta Group. Its Venice slate includes out-of-competition Marianne Faithfull documentary “Broken English,” by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, along with Venice Critics’ Week titles “Ish” by Imran Perretta and “Straight Circle” by Oscar Hudson.
The company will head to Toronto with the world premiere of Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Captive,” and the North American premieres of Lloyd Lee Choi’s “Lucky Lu” and Fernando Eimbcke’s “Olmo.”
