Month: February 2023

One of the hottest packages at the EFM has been taken off the table for international. Sources tell Variety that Prime Video has snapped up all international rights, excluding the U.S., to Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” which stars Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in a story about the titular white supremacist organization that operated in

A reboot feature of “Hellboy,” titled “Hellboy: The Crooked Man,” will begin production in March, Millennium Media announced Saturday. Brian Taylor, who co-directed the “Crank” films and “Gamer” with Mark Neveldine and solo directed the 2017 horror comedy “Mom and Dad,” will helm the picture. Mike Mignola, the creator of the “Hellboy” comics, co-wrote the

In the widely covered story of the U.S. intelligence operative harshly sentenced in 2018 for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to The Intercept, the accidental (in)appropriateness of the operative’s name was always an eyecatching detail. Could one of recent reality’s most highly public losers actually be called Reality Winner? Playwright Tina Satter’s

Jeon Do-yeon who earned the Cannes best actress award for her part in Lee Chang-dong’s tragedy-ridden “Secret Sunshine” back in 2007 and has long had the reputation as Korea’s most-admired female actor, gets a chance to show her range in “Kill Boksoon.” The Netflix-backed action film plays in the Berlinale Special section of the Berlin

George Trumbull Miller, an Australian film and television director whose most notable credits include “The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter” and “The Man From Snowy River,” died of a heart attack in a hospital in Melbourne. He was 79 years old. Miller’s death was confirmed by the Sydney Morning Herald. No details regarding a

Depending on the state of your own family network, the relationship between the trio of grown siblings at the center of “The Adults” may strike you as intensely, skin-crawlingly familiar or quite desolately alien. Either way, Dustin Guy Defa’s determinedly quiet family-reunion drama seeks to be discomfiting, gradually giving the viewer that hollow, lurching, pit-of-the-stomach

Oliver Wood, an English cinematographer whose credits include “Die Hard 2,” “Face/Off,” “The Other Guys” and the original “Bourne” trilogy, died Monday, Feb. 13, at his home in Hollywood following a battle with cancer. He was 80. With a career spanning across seven decades, Wood worked across a wide variety of projects, collaborating with directors

The first rule of “Manodrome” is you don’t talk about “Fight Club.” “Fight Club” looms large over writer-director John Trengrove’s unsettling second feature, even if no one overtly mentions David Fincher’s provocative late-’90s movie in this dark psychological-thriller-cum-social-critique, which finds the state of masculinity even more fraught than Fincher did a quarter-century ago. Trengrove, who

In subscription terms, Brazil rates as the Netflix’s second-biggest market in the world, with a 2022 year-end estimate of 16.4 million subscribers, says Ampere Analysis’ Guy Bisson. “The market is huge and the talent outstanding,” agrees Fremantle’s Manuel Marti. As Brazil shapes up as Latin America’s ground zero for streamer wars, where do you find

Breaking out of traditional, male, Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo strongholds to finally embrace regional, Black and Indigenous writer-directors, Brazil’s next generation of cinematic talent tackles a huge gamut of themes, styles and concern about social issues. Variety profiles 10 figures who look set to help shape the future of Brazilian filmmaking. Caru Alves de Souza

“Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” star Sydney Sweeney communicated with the real-life Reality Winner to portray her in Tina Satter’s “Reality,” which world premieres at the Berlin Film Festival. The film, which contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of an FBI audio recording, follows a tense 90 minutes in the life of whistleblower Winner

Uncork’d Entertainment has acquired the North American rights for suspense sci-fi thriller “I’ll Be Watching” from Iuvit Media Sales at the European Film Market in Berlin. The film has also been picked up by Falcon Films in the Middle East and North Africa, while Dolphin Medien has taken German-speaking territory rights. The film is directed

Zurich-based Tellfilm, the Swiss outfit behind this year’s Golden Bear contender “Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert,” has lined up a robust co-production slate, teaming with European partners on the psychological thriller “Motherhood” and the period drama “Gloria!,” while developing their first scripted series “How to Be Sad – The Right Way” with an

Singapore-based film production outfit Potocol, whose “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” by Jow Zhi Wei bowed at the Berlin Film Festival’s Generation 14plus competition, has revealed a diverse Asian slate. Potocol’s recent triumphs include Bangladeshi filmmaker Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s Cannes selection “Rehana Maryam Noor” and Indonesian director Makbul Mubarak’s Venice winner “Autobiography.” The company, led

Five years ago, South African director John Trengove’s feature debut, “The Wound,” scored coveted berths at Sundance and Berlin before being short-listed for an Academy Award — even as the powerful gay drama set in the secretive world of Xhosa initiation ceremonies faced angry protests in his home country. His sophomore effort, “Manodrome,” which plays

Portuguese director Susana Nobre’s first scripted fiction film, “Cidade Rabat,” is about a producer who grew up in the Cidade Rabat neighborhood in Lisbon, and who suddenly has to come to terms with the death of her mother. The title is partly inspired by her own life, since she grew up in the “Cidade Rabat”

Making its world premiere in the Generation Kplus program at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 19, “L’Amour du monde” (“Longing for the World”) is the feature debut from filmmaker Jenna Hasse.  Latido Films manage international sales and will be looking to add to their haul from the previous two years at Berlinale, having won

Adrien Brody is not interested in the culture wars. It’s fascinating, he admits, “but it’s really tragic.” “We see how fractured our world is. Look around: It’s not hard to see,” says the Oscar-winning actor from his home in New York. Brody had to dive into these dark corners when preparing for “Manodrome,” in which

101 Films Intl. has secured worldwide distribution rights for World War II adventure film “War Blade,” starring Joseph Millson (“Casino Royale,” “The Last Kingdom”), Paul Marlon (“Trigger Point”), Michael McKell (“Murder Investigation Team,” “Doctors”) and Rebecca Scott (“The Capture,” “Transhuman”). The sales company is presenting the film to buyers at the European Film Market in

Sean Penn said he was happy to be a “propagandist” for the Ukrainian war effort and called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “creepy little bully” Saturday in Berlin, after the world premiere of his gonzo documentary “Superpower,” a gripping, courage-under-fire portrait of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “This is not an unbiased film because this is

Last November, in a gesture that the actor himself described as “a symbolic, silly thing,” Sean Penn gifted one of his two Academy Awards to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to mark his emotional investment in the country as they continue to fight Russia’s invasion — attracting widespread mockery from social media and the entertainment press