Polish documentarian Michał Marczak is moving into narrative features with “Perfection,” an English-language adaptation of Vincenzo Latronico’s novel about a millennial expatriate couple chasing an increasingly elusive ideal in Berlin.
The film will mark Marczak’s narrative feature debut. He is attached to direct and will also write the screenplay, adding dialogue to Latronico’s atmospheric novel. The project remains in early development, with a treatment and full script still to be written.
“Perfection” was shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize and has been translated and sold in more than 40 countries. Its screen rights were secured following a bidding contest, with Vivo Film partner Marta Donzelli playing a key role in the acquisition. The negotiations were handled with Latronico’s literary agent, Claire Sabatié-Garat.
Donzelli is producing alongside Razor Film’s Roman Paul and Potboiler Productions head Andrea Calderwood. The international team brings together companies based in Italy, Germany and Britain.
A Berlin Dream Begins to Fracture
The story follows Anna and Tom, a millennial expat couple living in Berlin during the 2010s. Working as young digital creatives, they build a carefully curated existence around slow cooking, Danish furniture, sexual experimentation, social media and the city’s round-the-clock party culture.
Beneath that polished surface, however, boredom and discontent begin to grow. Their jobs become repetitive, while friends leave, start families and move into different stages of adulthood. Anna and Tom also become frustrated by the limited real-world effect of their progressive politics.
An attempt at political activism proves fruitless. As the couple feels more confined by the supposedly perfect life they have constructed, they take increasingly radical measures in search of authenticity and purpose.
Speaking to Variety at the Rome MIA Market, Paul said the production team had been searching for material that could capture Berlin’s place in the previous decade.
“I’ve been living in Berlin since 1998 and with all the younger producers in my company — who are either expats or born there — we had long been looking for an original IP about what went on there in the 2010s when Berlin really meant something to the world,” he said.
Calderwood pointed to the story’s examination of early social-media idealism and the promise of a mobile, digitally enabled lifestyle.
“In those early days of social media people were more idealistic about what it could achieve and how it allowed them to live the digital nomad life,” she said. “Because it is such a perfectly formed novel, we feel there is a way to make a perfectly formed film, which will have universal access and appeal.”
Why Marczak Was Chosen
Marczak won the directing prize in Sundance’s World Cinema documentary category in 2016 for “All These Sleepless Nights.” His work is known for a hybrid approach that brings documentary and fiction together, including films centered on younger subjects.
Paul praised the filmmaker’s understanding of young people and described his visual sensibility as “sublime.” Marczak also has an established connection to the setting: He previously lived in Berlin and filmed the 2012 documentary “Fuck for Forest” there.
That documentary concerned a real-life Berlin-based non-governmental organization that raises money for environmental causes by producing and selling eco-pornography online.
Marczak’s most recent work is the multiple prize-winning “Closure,” which follows a father’s relentless search after his teenage child disappears. The film also premiered at Sundance and is scheduled to reach U.S. theaters through 1-2 Special on Oct. 28.
Although Latronico will not directly participate in writing the “Perfection” screenplay, the producers said they remain in “constant dialogue” with him. They also said the author has been highly supportive of Marczak’s selection as director.
ShowBiz Take
“Perfection” represents a significant creative transition for Marczak: Rather than abandoning the territory associated with his hybrid filmmaking, his first narrative feature appears positioned to draw on it. The material revolves around young people, constructed identities and the tension between an idealized image and a more unsettled reality — elements that align with the qualities Paul highlighted in the director’s work.
The project also arrives with several concrete advantages already in place. Its source novel has International Booker recognition, a publishing footprint spanning more than 40 countries and an international producing group behind the adaptation. At the same time, its central conflict is sharply defined: Anna and Tom’s pursuit of a flawless life becomes the very thing leaving them trapped and dissatisfied.
What Happens Next?
The immediate task is development. Marczak is expected to write a treatment before moving on to the English-language screenplay, after which the producers plan to assemble the broader development package.
“We are taking a step-by-step approach, building the development package before we take it to the market,” Calderwood said, adding that there is already “plenty of interest in the IP.”