Totem has picked up international sales rights for “Oasis,” by writer-director Jannis Lenz, which has its world premiere in the Horizons competition section at the Venice Film Festival.
The film joins Totem’s sales slate as the company shifts its primary focus to production.
The film centers on a school where a viral video of a student threatening his classmates surfaces online, and the situation spirals into escalating violence. Crushed by the pressure of teachers and parents, three outcasts take refuge in a nearby forest. There, play hardens into ritual and pain becomes an escape, until old wounds surface and the boundaries between them are redrawn.
“ ‘Oasis’ captures the fragility of adolescence with great precision, exploring fear, exclusion and violence through a deeply human perspective,” producer Markus Katsch of Zeitgeist said.
Bérénice Vincent, CEO at Totem, commented: “Jannis is a hugely promising talent, with a rare assurance behind the camera. What impressed us is the way he exposes the contradiction between the violence we’ve normalized and the violence we condemn – and the world as it stands proves his point every day.”
