Month: November 2020

In today’s Global Bulletin, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman fill top spots at the Australian Academy, ITV Studios and Nippon team on a new co-development deal, Abacus Media Rights and Revelation Films announce “The Real Manhunter,” Anderson Entertainment and ITV team on expanding classic sci-fi brands, and the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg announces this year’s
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Snapchat users, put on your thinking Snaps: The app company is launching its first program to pay creators for the most-viewed daily video posts, which will be showcased in a new TikTok-like feed. Snap is launching Snapchat Spotlight, which will show users a stream of publicly submitted posts surfaced based on personalized content algorithms. Snapchatters
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Topic Studios and “The Climb” filmmakers Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin have wrapped production on their second collaboration, a pandemic-set comedy from filmmaker Daniel Antebi titled “God’s Time.” The new project comes as part of Covino and Marvin’s first-look deal with Topic Studios after working together on the Cannes-winning hit “The Climb,” which is
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Scripted dramas drove U.K. TV exports to a record £1.48 billion ($1.97 billion) in 2019/20, a 6% year-on-year increase, according to a report from producers’ trade body Pact. Dramas like “Chernobyl,” “His Dark Materials,” “The War of the Worlds,” “The Feed” and “Doctor Who,” produced by U.K. companies, were the key export drivers and accounted
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On the heels of two momentous performances on Sunday’s American Music Awards and ahead of the arrival of a new Netflix documentary, singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes, along with his longtime manager Andrew Gertler, have announced their entry into original content with Permanent Content, a new film and television production company that will develop scripted and documentary
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Heading into this year’s Guadalajara’s Co-Production Meetings, the team behind Michelle Garza’s maternal horror flick “Huesera” has shared with Variety news of a new minority co-producer, choreographer and key casting details. “Huesera” is produced by Paulina Villaviencio from Mexico’s Disruptiva Films and Edher Campos of Machete Producciones. Villaviencio’s recently produced Simon Hernández‘s 2019 Sitges Documenta
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The Chilean director-producer team of Juan Cáceres, Alejandro Ugarte and Esteban Sandoval are back in Guadalajara, where their first feature “Perro Bomba” dominated the 2018 Guadalajara Construye works in progress section, scooping the Chemistry, Yagán, Mondragon-Disruptiva and Habanero awards, ensuring a strong post-production and aiding in the film’s highly successful international festival run. Variety can
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Topic, the U.S. streaming service from First Look Media, and Non-Stop Production, the Russian film studio behind Oscar nominated “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” will jointly produce “Frozen Land,” an eight-part limited series exploring the story of real-life Russian serial killer Dmitry Lebed, who terrorized a provincial Russian town from 2012 to 2017. It will be the
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Chile’s Storyboard Media and Cine Matriz are teaming with Colombia’s Romeo on documentary feature “Still Stares,” the debut feature of director Patricia Correa. Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Núñez will executive produce for Storyboard Media, with Consuelo Castillo filling the role on behalf of her company Romeo. Storyboard’s latest doc “The Sky Is Red” is playing
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War is blood and bombs and politics, but not in Alina Gorlova’s fascinating, fraught documentary “This Rain Will Never Stop.” Elliptically following 20-year-old Andriy Suleiman, a student Red Cross worker who “left one war for another” when his family fled Hasukah, Syria for his mother’s hometown of Lysychansk, Ukraine, this defiantly oblique, uncannily composed film
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It seems unimaginable: a relationship driven more by affection than the dynamics of power between a Jewish prisoner and an Austrian SS officer at Auschwitz? But the taboo romance between beautiful, young Slovak inmate Helena Citron and her not-much-older captor Franz Wunsch is superbly documented in the fascinating “Love It Was Not” from Israeli helmer
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Taylor Swift won three American Music Awards Sunday night, including the top “favorite artist” honor — explaining her absence as due to being busy in the studio re-recording her entire Big Machine catalog. The climactic favorite artist award came as something as a surprise, since Swift’s name had not come up as a winner any
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The Weeknd literally lit up Los Angeles with his American Music Awards performance, setting a new standard for the how-to-get-creative-with-social-distancing-during-an-awards show. Playing a pyro-loaded medley of “Your Eyes” and “Save Your Tears,” the performance started off with a solo from superstar saxist Kenny G — who performs on the song’s remix — before cutting to The
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The 2020 American Music Awards aired on Sunday night from Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater with host Taraji P. Henson. Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Dan + Shay were the top winners with three apiece. As with all awards shows this season, the AMAs has had to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines by having a limited audience
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“Monty Python” actor John Cleese is being accused of transphobia following a series of tweets in which he defended “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling. In June, Rowling made headlines for stating that she believes one’s biological sex is their “real sex” and criticizing transgender people for “erasing the concept of sex.” In September, Cleese signed
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In a nod to the exponentially growing interest in premium TV content and the swelling number of content-ravenous platforms, the Guadalajara Film Festival (FICG)’s industry section has launched a competitive television section dubbed Episode 0: Series in Development. Its participants will be given the opportunity to network and vie for prizes that consist of post-production
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The casts of Fox Sports’ pregame shows, “Fox NFL Sunday” and “Fox NFL Kickoff” will not appear in Fox’s Los Angeles studios today due to concerns regarding COVID-19. Instead, Chris Myers will host both shows, with analysts Charles Woodson and Reggie Bush also in-studio. Regular “Fox NFL Sunday” cast members Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Michael
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The Guadalajara Film Festival’s industry centerpiece, its Encuentro de Co-produccion, a springboard for Latin American feature film projects, unspools this week online, as directors and producers look to catch the eye of the international marketplace and secure key sales, distribution and production partners. Guadalajara has long rejected the idea that gender-based quotas are needed when
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