IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to “Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles,” a documentary about one Isreali chef’s attempts to recreate some of the French Monarchy’s most delicious desserts. The film is the latest work from Laura Gabbert, who previously teamed with IFC Films on “City of Gold,” a look at the late food
Month: June 2020
A group of 18 leading film festivals has kick-started a campaign to persuade film festivals running online editions to use geoblocking technology to protect the commercial potential of the films, and the ability of other festivals to stage local premieres of the films. The campaign, led by Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, is in response to
Taika Waititi and Carthew Neal’s production company Piki Films is to embark on three projects with Maori writers from New Zealand. They turn an indigenous eye on the effects of colonization. The projects will be developed by Neal, and producer Morgan Waru who has taken a full-time position at the company, after having worked with
“The Trip” helmer Michael Winterbottom is set to direct a series depicting the U.K.’s muddled response to the coronavirus crisis under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Producer-distributor Fremantle is partnering with “True Detective” executive producer Richard Brown’s nascent production outfit Passenger and Winterbottom’s Revolution Films on the project, which will have a keen focus on Johnson,
Film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov, whose film “Leto” played in competition in Cannes in 2018, was found guilty of embezzlement by a Russian court on Friday, according to news agency TASS. Serebrennikov, a vocal critic of the Kremlin, was accused of being the leader of a group that embezzled 129 million roubles ($1.87 million)
Well Go USA Entertainment has snapped up North American distribution rights to Paraguayan box office hit “Morgue” from Buenos Aires-based sales agent FilmSharks. The deal caps a string of sales across the globe for the supernatural thriller. Hugo Cardozo’s hospital-set film has already sold to more than 40 international territories with HBO Latin America recently
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the annual Asian film prize ceremony that has been held annually in Brisbane, has been put on hold. It was scheduled to be held in November. The Brisbane City Council and its offshoot Brisbane Marketing have notified the organizers that they will not be able to fund the event in
Netflix has ordered Dutch original series “Dirty Lines,” about the rise of erotic phone lines in the late 80s. The screenplay, inspired by Fred Saueressig’s book “06-Cowboys,” is written by Pieter Bart Korthuis (“Fighter’s Heart,” “Penoza”) and produced by Amsterdam-based production company Fiction Valley. The series tells the story of young businessman Frank Stigter. After
Exclusive Britney Spears and Beyonce fans are bickering over who is the real Queen B for no good reason … so says the artist whose painting ignited the whole beef. Here’s the deal … Britney kicked the Beyhive Wednesday when she posted a painting of a bee with a crown and said, “To all my
“No Small Matter” opens on an innovative attention-grabber, spoofing dry, outdated classroom tutorials to make its point: that a child’s early education is fundamental to their maturation into successful community members and American citizens. However, before the sequence finishes and the facts start flowing, it makes the mistake of laying down a whopping guarantee that
“On-Gaku: Our Sound,” an oddball music comedy directed by Kenji Iwaisawa, upends all that is typical of Japanese animation. A wee 71-minute hand-drawn animated feature about three high school lunkheads who form a band, the film’s minimalist expression breaks the mold of Japan’s big-budget studio-cloned anime glutted with mind-bending sci-fi conundrums or elaborate time-slip-body-switching fantasies.
Industry presidents, executives, actors, showrunners and more joined Variety’s virtual TV Summit to discuss how they are navigating the ever-changing business, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic and as America, and Hollywood, addresses its history of systemic racism. During the three-day event, network presidents discussed handling the representation of police on-screen, showrunners addressed returning to production
Lawrence Osborne, the Asia-based writer who has recently enjoyed a spate of film deals for his own novels, is poised to adapt Jon Swain’s Vietnam War-era memoir “River of Time.” Film rights to Swain’s book have been optioned by Indochina Productions for Osborne to script and executive produce. Swain, an award-winning correspondent for the Sunday
Leave it to British composer Max Richter to find a way to apply the language of classical music to today’s most compelling human concerns. “All Human Beings,” released today, is the first track off his new Decca album “Voices” (due July 31). It opens with the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt reading the preamble to the
One would have thought that self-isolation brought about by the coronavirus pandemic could lead to “the most fruitful productive time” for writers, as “Defending Jacob” showrunner Mark Bomback put it. However, Bomback and a group of showrunners and writers from some of the year’s biggest limited series and TV movies testified at Variety‘s virtual “A
The “Council of Dads” will not be re-convening for a second season. A source has confirmed to Variety that NBC has canceled the one-hour drama. News of the cancelation comes as the series is about to air its ninth episode. “Council of Dads” tells the story of an extended family which forms when Scott, a loving father
In episode 8 of the fourth season of “13 Reasons Why,” the students of Liberty High engage in a dramatic and violent encounter with members of the on-campus police force, a scene that — amid protests against racism and police brutality that have erupted around the world in recent days — feels oddly familiar. Of
Nicolas Cage thriller “Willy’s Wonderland” has sold to most international territories, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany and Latin America, by Foresight Unlimited at the Cannes virtual market. Cage portrays an out-of-towner forced to clean a family entertainment center in exchange for having his car serviced after it breaks down. He, along with some
Warner Bros. has again pushed back the release date for Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet.” It’s the second delay for the highly anticipated tentpole that has been primed to reignite moviegoing after lengthy cinema closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. The movie, which cost $200 million, was initially slated to arrive in theaters on July 17, but
The team responsible for the music of Lifetime’s “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel” explains at the Variety Virtual TV Festival how it recreated the iconic religious music of the family’s catalog. Executive producer Dr. Holly Carter admits that the 15-year journey to bring the sisters’ story to TV was at times “discouraging,” but
The cast and crew of “Patsy & Loretta” discuss during the Variety Virtual TV Festival the lives of country music legends Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, and their use of the duo’s discography in the Lifetime film. Executive producer Neil Meron says choosing actors with musical theater backgrounds is always important to him, but was
Like virtually all aspects of the entertainment industry, the volume of broadcast series orders took a massive hit this year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic shut down the traditional pilot season, with almost no pilots completing production. But now with the broadcast networks making their series orders for the 2020-2021 season,
Jenna Marbles, a popular YouTube comedy vlogger who’s been making videos for 10 years, apologized for content she created that offended and hurt people including racist videos. She said she is taking a hiatus from her YouTube channel, perhaps permanently. In an emotional video she posted Thursday, Marbles explained that she has made private “almost
“The Last of Us” is hailed by many as a video game masterpiece, praised for pushing the boundaries of a post-apocalyptic story that rivaled some movies. Developed by Naughty Dog for Sony’s PlayStation 3, the game told the story of Joel and Ellie, a smuggler and a young girl traveling across the United States 30 years
The Recording Academy has announced a summer 2020 call-to-action initiative to help provide pandemic relief for music creators and music businesses, and to promote positive social change through legislation. The seven-week-long effort will culminate with the Academy’s 7th annual District Advocate event. According to the announcement, during the Recording Academy’s “Summer of Advocacy,” members will
Verizon is the biggest advertiser yet to join a boycott of Facebook, with the telco saying it is “pausing” ad spending with the social-media giant until Facebook can address brand-safety problems. Verizon’s decision came after the Anti-Defamation League — one of the groups behind the #StopHateForProfit campaign to pressure Facebook into adopting more aggressive steps
Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre is in active negotiations to direct “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” for 3000 Pictures, led by Elizabeth Gabler. “Life of Pi” scribe David Magee wrote the script. Oscar nominee Laurence Mark and Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent of Blueprint Pictures are producing. Based on the classic D.H. Lawrence novel, the story revolves around the
Universal Music Greater China (UMGC), a division of Universal Music Group, said Thursday that it has signed Sunnee, a former member of popular Chinese idol group Rocket Girls 101, which disbanded earlier this week. Sunnee, a Thai singer of Chinese descent whose full Mandarin name is Yang Yunqing, is the first of the former 11-person
Changes are afoot in the Chicks’ camp, and that’s not just whistling the absence of “Dixie.” On top of a name switch, the superstar country-pop trio formerly known as the Dixie Chicks has also made a management change, Variety has learned. The group is now being represented by John Silva’s Silva Artist Management. There, the
CASH Music, a Portland-based nonprofit designed to provide “open-source tools to artists looking to promote and sell their music online,” is shutting down after 12 years, it announced today. Co-founded in 2008 by Throwing Muses’ singer Kristen Hersh, L7’s Donita Sparks and Jesse von Doom, the organization’s three major components — artist tools, a blog
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