Month: November 2021

Diversify the Stage, an organization formed to promote inclusivity in the touring industry, is rolling out an “Inclusion Initiative” today that the group hopes to have companies and individuals throughout the live entertainment business sign onto. Among the industry leaders that have already put their names to the pledge at its launch are such promoters
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Apple Music has unveiled its biggest songs of the year with its annual Top 100 charts, which not only include the most-streamed songs — topped by BTS’ smash “Dynamite” but it has also shared its “Top 100 2021: Fitness” chart—spotlighting the most-played workout music across Apple Music and Fitness+— its top 100 most-Shazamed songs and its
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The Whistler Film Festival is back with a hybrid offering that includes online and in-theater screenings, alongside various talent programs, masterclasses, workshops and its Content Summit. The fest will kick off opening night with the Canadian premiere of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” starring Olivia Colman, Ed Harris and Dakota Johnson. This year, the festival
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Cameron Bailey has been named chief executive officer of the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF’s board of directors announced his promotion on Tuesday, on the heels of word that Universal Music Canada head Jeffrey Remedios had been named new chair of the board. Bailey has been affiliated with the festival for 25 years and is
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Yet another week has passed without any news of a release date for Sony’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which debuted stateside Oct. 1. In China, rumors have quietly circulated that it may be due to two ‘anti-China’ interviews that star Tom Hardy gave at Cannes back in 2012 while promoting the film “Lawless.” Asked
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Maradona documentary “The Death of God” (“La Muerte de Dios”) is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video in Latin America, making it the perfect companion piece to the BTF Media series “Maradona: Blessed Dream,” which bowed Oct. 29 across 240 countries on the streaming giant. “The Death of God” turns on the Argentine soccer icon
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British director Peter Webber (“Girl With a Pearl Earring,” “Hannibal Rising”) is attached to direct an adaptation of Italian psychological thriller “Le Parole Lo Sanno” (“You Will Find the Words”), which is being produced by Rome-based shingle Fenix Entertainment. Webber, who more recently directed ITV miniseries “Tutankhamun” and high-end Arabic historical skein “Kingdoms of Fire,”
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Adele has announced an exclusive residency in the Colosseum of Las Vegas’ famed Caesars Palace Hotel beginning Friday January 21, 2022. Titled “Weekends With Adele,” the singer will perform two shows each weekend through Saturday April 16, 2022 (see full list of dates below) for a total of 12 weeks. The dates appear below. This
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M-Appeal has closed deals for two of its Ventana Sur titles: Marcela Lordy’s “The Book of Delights” to Pigeon Co. in Taiwan and “The Night of the Beast” from Mauricio Leiva Cock to HBO in Eastern Europe. “The Book of Delights” is an Argentina-Brazil co-production between Cinematográfica Marcela and bigBonsai which had already sold in
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Ostinato Cine, one of the high-energy company hubs on Ecuador’s burgeoning film scene, is teaming with Germany’s Rohfilm Productions to co-produce “Alfredo Larón,” the feature film debut as a writer-director of Benjamin Mirguet, an editor on Carlos Reygadas’ “Battle in Heaven” and João Paulo Miranda Maria’s “Memory House.” Developing and financing features for the international
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British television dominated the European Broadcasting Union’s prestigious Rose d’Or TV awards on Monday evening. Among the shows that picked up gongs at the ceremony, which honors international television and audio production outside the U.S., were “Strictly Come Dancing,” the Davina McCall-fronted series “Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace” and “Help,” a drama about the
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Interscope Geffen A&M has announced the promotion of Matt Morris to the position of senior vice president of A&R at the label. He will continue to sign and develop artists for the label as well as oversee the company’s A&R Research department. According to the announcement, Morris is credited with signing 2021’s breakout star Olivia
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The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority has ordered social media giant Meta, formerly known as Facebook, to sell GIF provider Giphy. The move requires Meta to unwind a  $400 million deal that it believed completed in May. Meta disagrees with the decision and is considering an appeal. In August this year, the CMA provisionally found
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Anita Ekberg, the Swedish star immortalized in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” where her character decides to walk into the Trevi Fountain to the delight, and terror, of Marcello Mastroianni, has a “complicated” story, Italian director Antongiulio Panizzi tells Variety. In Panizzi’s “The Girl in the Fountain,” Ekberg is played by another star, Monica Bellucci.
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In Dec. 2018, two years after he had picked up “Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon” at the first edition of Ventana Sur’s Animation!, Edward Noeltner’s Cinema Management Group (CMG) announced he had pre-sold it to over half the planet. Further deals followed with Signature for the U.K. and Rialto for Australia/New Zealand. Even before COVID-19
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Production heavyweights from international markets converged on Monday afternoon to talk talent as part of Ventana Sur’s SoloSerieS. Moderated by Paula Cobo, content and sales manager at ESPotlight, the digital panel also relied on the expertise of Jacobo Aparicio, co-ordinator of international TV and film at Anonymous Content, Nick Lafferty, a scripted global TV agent
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Tapping a widely successful genre, Sony Pictures Int’l Productions (SPIP) is producing the musical romantic comedy “Voy a pasarmelo bien” (“I’m Going to Have A Good Time”) in association with transatlantic production powerhouse, El Estudio and Spanish pop rock band Hombres G. The film is inspired by the music of the iconic band which rose
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Netflix’s “Squid Game” and “The Guilty” have debuted on BARB, the U.K. television audience measurement currency, as the organization has revealed a “once-in-a-generation upgrade.” Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and video-sharing platform measurement has been introduced in BARB’s service bouquet. BARB is now able to measure the reach and total time spent viewing SVOD services such as
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“Gangs of London” producer Pulse Films has secured the rights to Anna Whitehouse and Matt Farquharson’s Sunday Times-bestselling novel “Underbelly.” Released early in August, the book tells the story of two women, Lo and Dylan, who are living parallel lives while being worlds apart. Lo is a middle-class mother with perfectly polished Instagram posts, while
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Gloom, deployed as a storytelling tactic, can exert a strange, unsettling pull when it’s as capably and beautifully conveyed as in Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s “The Stranger,” recently announced as Palestine’s international Oscar entry. A granular depiction of oppression as a kind of inescapable inheritance handed down from father to son, with mothers and
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The first reactions to 20th Century Studios’ “West Side Story” are beginning to pour in following the film’s premiere in New York City on Monday evening. Those who attended the screening took to social media, voicing praise for director Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of the classic musical. In this new version, Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort
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You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have: “The Facts of Life.” But there’s no bad, only good — no, make that great — casting here for next week’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” remake of the classic 1980s sitcom. Joining the previously announced Ann
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