Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer has signed with Cinetic for representation, a move that comes on the heels of his film Rose winning the Silver Bear at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival (Deadline).

Rose is a black-and-white period piece set in the 17th century, following a woman who disguises herself as a male soldier to integrate into a secluded village community. The film debuted in Berlinale competition — the highest-profile section of the festival — where Sandra Hüller won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance for her role (Deadline). The producers are Johannes Schubert, Philipp Worm, Tobias Walker, and Karsten Stöter.

MUBI, the streaming and theatrical distribution platform, acquired Rose out of the festival for multiple territories including North America. The company plans to release the film in US theatres after a November qualifying run — the kind of limited engagement that positions a title for awards consideration (Deadline).

Schleinzer's path to this moment has been anything but conventional. Before directing, he spent years as a casting director, collaborating with Michael Haneke, Jessica Hausner, and Ulrich Seidl — three of the most distinctive voices in European art-house cinema. On Haneke's The White Ribbon, which won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination, Schleinzer cast the child actors and directed their performances on set (Deadline).

Rose is his third feature. His debut, Michael, premiered in competition at Cannes. His second, Angelo, played in competition at San Sebastián and Toronto (Deadline). A filmmaker whose every film has landed at a top-tier festival is exactly the profile Cinetic — a US-based management and sales company known for championing independent cinema — tends to sign.

Schleinzer is already looking ahead. He is developing Klaus, a coming-of-age musical starring Christian Friedel as Klaus Nomi, the German singer who became a fixture of New York's East Village art scene in the 1970s. Nomi was known for theatrical live performances, bold make-up, and unusual costumes, and died from AIDS in 1983 (Deadline). Schleinzer is co-writing the project with Alexander Brom, his collaborator on Rose, with producer Johannes Schubert attached.

Schleinzer continues to be represented by Katrin Näher of Talent Republic Agency in Germany (Deadline).

For audiences, the signing means a filmmaker with a proven festival track record now has US-based representation as his latest film heads toward American screens. With MUBI planning a theatrical release and a awards-qualifying run in November, Rose is the film most likely to introduce Schleinzer's work to a wider audience.