Month: February 2022

Studio Hamburg Enterprises has signed its first-ever co-production deal with Germany’s Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion to produce high-end documentary series “Reeperbahn Special Unit 65.” The show is the first non-fiction series to receive an invitation to present at the Berlinale Series Market showcase Up Next: Germany, which runs from Feb. 14-16. Now in production, “Reeperbahn Special
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TrustNordisk has sold “Nothing to Laugh About,” Petter Næss’s Norwegian drama comedy which played at the Zürich Film Festival in 2020. Næss is best known for his Oscar-nominated film “Elling” and has been working in TV and theatre in recent years. Set in Oslo, Norway’s capital, the heartfelt dramedy is about a 40-year-old stand-up comedian
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Four years after the death of his brother Vittorio, with whom he shared a celebrated career, Paolo Taviani is back in the Berlin competition solo, with “Leonora Addio.”  The brothers won the Golden Bear in 2012 with “Caesar Must Die,” about high-security inmates performing Shakespeare. The free-form film he made –– screening on Feb. 15
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Thrown into uncertainty by the tragic death of star Gaspard Ulliel, production on Betrand Bonello’s “The Beast” will still go forward, the director confirmed to Variety. Bonello and Ulliel recently collaborated on the hybrid, essay film “Coma,” which premiered in Berlin’s Encounters sidebar. A sci-fi melodrama set in 1910, 2014 and 2044 and dealing with
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Image Nation Abu Dhabi and low-budget U.S. genre label Spooky Pictures have announced “Late Night With the Devil,” the second title under their multi-picture deal following Chloe Okuno’s  “Watcher,” which made a splash at Sundance. “Late Night With the Devil” will be helmed by Australian writing/directing duo Colin and Cameron Cairns (“100 Bloody Acres,” “Scare
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Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, renowned for his epic cinematic vision, now trains his sights on women’s empowerment tale “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” playing as a Berlinale Special Gala on Feb. 16. Starring Alia Bhatt (2019 Berlinale selection “Gully Boy”) in the titular role, the film is based on the book, “Mafia Queens of Mumbai,” written by
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Acclaimed Nepalese filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar has cast Indian actor Tannishtha Chatterjee as one of the leads in his upcoming feature “The Sky Is Mine.” Chatterjee’s credits include “Brick Lane” (2007), for which she scored a best actress nomination at the British Independent Film Awards, “Parched” (2015) and “Lion” (2016). She won the Asia Star Award
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Training their lens on the largely untold story of the atrocities committed against Thessaloniki’s Jewish population during World War II, Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis will bow “The City and the City” Feb. 15 in the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Encounters strand. Unspooling in six fragmented chapters, the film tells the story of Thessaloniki’s Jewish
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Since its launch in 2015, the Berlinale Series section has emerged as a kind of a boutique scripted TV fest set within a major film festival. The Berlinale was famously the first A-list festival to embrace changing viewer habits and to officially incorporate television drama into its lineup — and this head-start is reflected in
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Audrey Diwan, the BAFTA-nominated filmmaker of the Venice Golden Lion-winning “Happening,” is set to make her television debut with Haut et Court TV in France, Variety has learned. Haut et Court TV is one of France’s leading production companies with credits ranging from the supernatural drama series “The Returned,” to “Panthers” with Tahar Rahim and
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Peter Nadermann’s Nadcon Film and South African genre specialists Gambit Films (“Indemnity”) are teaming up to adapt a trilogy of best-selling crime thrillers, Variety can reveal. The “Revenge Trilogy” is based on the Cape Town-set novels from South African author Mike Nicol. The books will be adapted for screen by Gambit’s Daryne Joshua and will
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ZDF Enterprises, a key production-distribution component of one of Europe’s biggest public broadcaster powerhouses, Germany’s ZDF, is set to operate under the new name of ZDF Studios. Effective from April 1, the title, announced by ZDF Enterprises President and CEO Fred Burcksen on Monday in Mainz, captures much better ZDFE’s current business reach, scale and
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Spanish media giant Atresmedia is joining forces with Portocabo, the production outfit behind Movistar Plus hit series “Hierro,” for a remake of Showtime drama “Your Honor,” starring Bryan Cranston. The Spanish redo is currently at the script stage and initiating casting. With an undisclosed number of episodes, the project production is scheduled to kick off
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The comedy community and “Ghostbusters” fans everywhere are remembering Ivan Reitman, who died Saturday at 75. Actors and filmmakers, including several people who worked closely with Reitman, paid tribute to the Canadian director and producer who directed the megahit “Ghostbusters” and helped ignite the movie careers of comedians including Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. Reitman
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Producer-director Ivan Reitman, whose wildly successful comedies of the ‘70s and ‘80s included the blockbuster spookfest “Ghostbusters,” died in his sleep on Feb. 12 in Montecito, Calif., his family confirmed to the Associated Press. He was 75. The cause of death was not released. “Our family is grieving the unexpected loss of a husband, father,
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The exhilarating, Bible-inspired, pitch-black comedy “Redemption of a Rogue” centers on a prodigal son returning to his rural Ireland hometown to seek redemption for his sins. Based on this ambitious, sardonic feature debut, writer-director Philip Doherty (who is also a playwright and theater director) scores as a promising talent, one who might be the spiritual
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A later-life love story of the gentlest kind, Li Ruijun’s “Return to Dust” is an absorbing, beautifully framed drama that makes a virtue — possibly too much a virtue — of simplicity. The story is straightforward: Two lonely middle-aged people, each barely tolerated by their more worldly family members, are pushed into an arranged marriage,
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Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg have been named the hosts of NBC’s upcoming singing competition “American Song Contest,” the U.S. adaptation of “Eurovision Song Contest.” Per NBC, “Based on the worldwide phenomenon ‘Eurovision Song Contest,’ organized for 65 years by the European Broadcasting Union and watched by 200 million viewers annually, this amazing musical spectacular
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