Film Music Reporter

Volker Bertelmann (Lion, The Amateur, Dune: Prophecy, Hotel Mumbai, Adrift, The Day of the Jackal, One Life) has recently scored the upcoming Netflix original film Ballad of a Small Player. The movie is directed by Edward Berger and stars Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Deanie Ip, Alex Jennings and Tilda Swinton. The psychological thriller follows a high-stakes gambler laying low in Macau whose past and his debts start to catch up with him and encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation. Rowan Joffe (The American, 28 Weeks Later) wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same title by Lawrence Osborne. Berger is also producing the project with Mike Goodridge (Touch) and Matt Wilkinson (Yesterday, Amulet. Bertelmann has previously collaborated with Berger on 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front, for which he received his first Academy Award and last year’s Conclave, for which he received another Oscar nomination, as well as on the TV series Parick Melrose. Ballad of a Small Player will premiere on October 29, 2025 on Netflix and will also be released in select theaters earlier that month.