Month: February 2024

Leading European distributor Global Screen, part of Westbrook’s Telepool, has sold premium spy drama series “Davos 1917” to North America and to additional free-to-air broadcasters in Europe. Global Series Network picked up the series for its innovative SVOD feed Walter Presents in North America. National broadcaster RTP in Portugal has also acquired the series, as
0 Comments
M-Appeal has closed distribution deals in key territories for “Sex,” which had its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama section. The film, the first part of the “Sex Dreams Love” trilogy by Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud, has garnered attention for its thought-provoking exploration of sexuality and gender roles. All rights for the film have been
0 Comments
Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” which is nominated for best international feature film at the Oscars, has smashed the all-time global box office record set by the German director’s previous films. While it has yet to be released in all territories, “Perfect Days” has amassed a worldwide box office total of $24.3 million as of Feb.
0 Comments
Actors Kate Phillips, Amber Anderson and Rosie Day have joined forces to launch a new female-led, London-based production outfit called Just John Films. Just John will option, develop and produce projects, both independently and in partnership with third parties. The company’s artist-led viewpoint will give it a unique eye to focus on diverse and compelling
0 Comments
DEALS Banijay U.K. have invested in Immovable Studios, the production outfit co-founded by hip-hop artist, author and entrepreneur Akala and his business partner and manager Chanelle Newman. As part of the agreement, Immovable Studios will also have a first look distribution deal with Banijay Rights. Newman leads the studio’s television production arm and has overseen
0 Comments
Industry executives, creatives and international buyers came together to preview an exclusive selection of upcoming high-end German series at the Up Next: Germany showcase at the Berlinale Series Market, the dedicated serial content arm of the EFM running between Feb. 19-21.  Four projects were selected for the showcase: Dystopian drama “A Better Place” imagines the
0 Comments
Sidse Babett Knudsen went “completely visceral” in Gustav Möller’s prison drama “Sons,” premiering in Berlinale’s main competition.  “My approach was almost animalistic. That’s how she felt to me. She doesn’t know how to live: she has resigned into someone who can just survive,” says the acclaimed “Borgen” and “Westworld” actor who plays Eva, a prison guard with a
0 Comments
Martin Scorsese will soon be seen on the big screen, and he won’t be playing himself. The master director, who is being feted with Berlin Film Festival‘s honorary Golden Bear on Tuesday night, has a small but powerful role playing an elderly sage who influences Dante Alighieri while he is writing “The Divine Comedy” in
0 Comments
A loose adaptation of absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” director Amos Gitai’s “Shikun” unfolds in a multi-use housing project, where it follows the stream-of-consciousness travails of a diverse cross-section of characters in Be’er-Sheva, Israel. Bound by the French-language narration of Irène Jacob — a one-woman Greek chorus and de-facto liaison between sides of the fourth
0 Comments
Amongst a slate of auspicious Brazilian films and series featuring in Berlin, “Cidade; Campo”– the latest from arthouse helmer Juliana Rojas – saw its world premiere on Monday, screening as part of the Encounters strand that aims “to foster aesthetically and structurally daring works from independent, innovative filmmakers,” according to the fest. Backed by Brazil’s
0 Comments
Keshet International has acquired worldwide distribution rights for thriller series “Conflict.” Produced by Backmann & Hoderhoff and XYZ Films, “Conflict” is a six-part political thriller about an enemy force trying to incite a global conflict with a surprise attack. The series was created and produced by Andrei Alén and Aku Louhimies (“Rebellion”). Louhimies also directs.
0 Comments
Oscar-winning writer Simon Beaufoy – behind “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours” or “The Full Monty” – has joined “S.O.L.”  The six-episode thriller, presented at Berlinale’s Co-Pro Series and developed with TV4, is produced by Warp Films (UK) and Rainy Days (Sweden). It was created by Ruth McCance. Diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, she died in December, aged
0 Comments
Simmering teen angst meets social awareness in “Red Flags,” an Atresplayer Original created by award-winning author and playwright Nando López, whose novel “The Age of Anger” was previously adapted for television by Lucía Carballal (“Locked Up”) and backed by The Mediapro Studio (“The Head”) and Atresmedia TV (“Money Heist”). The project features within the second
0 Comments
Since its establishment in 2018, Gaumont Germany has produced a wide range of series and TV movies, among them such timely shows as the critically acclaimed “Deutsches Haus” (“The Interpreter of Silence”), which was nominated for the Critics Choice Awards, and the Ukrainian series “In Her Car.” A subsidiary of the French entertainment powerhouse, the
0 Comments
Streamer Lionsgate Play has teamed with Grameenphone, a leading telecom services provider in Bangladesh, to expand its presence in the country. Grameenphone, part of Norway’s Telenor Group, has some 82 million subscribers, to whom it offers a bouquet of streaming services. Lionsgate Play has been available in Bangladesh since August 2021. This is the first
0 Comments
David Bowie: “Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth)” (LP, black vinyl, 8000 copies) Here’s a space oddity: An alternate version of the “Ziggy Stardust” album that has a significantly different track listing, put together provisonally in late 1971 before the record took a different turn with some additions and subtractions in
0 Comments
“True Detective: Night Country” finished off with a season-high viewership for its finale, drawing 3.2 million across HBO and Max. The Feb. 18 audience came in 57% higher than the “Night Country” premiere in January, indicating strong word-of-mouth for the six-episode season. It also marks an 18% uptick from the season’s third episode three weeks
0 Comments
“Bohemian Rhapsody” star Lucy Boynton smoulders as 1950s nightclub owner Ruth Ellis in a new image from upcoming ITV drama “A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story.” Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain in 1955 after she was convicted of shooting dead her lover, racing driver David Blakely. Boynton is joined
0 Comments
Brian Dietzen‘s Jimmy Palmer is now the chief medical examiner on “NCIS,” having taken over that function as the character’s mentor, David McCallum‘s Ducky character, slid into an emeritus role a few seasons ago. When McCallum died in September, it fell into Dietzen’s real-life lap to become something of a grief examiner, as he took
0 Comments
Iris, the petite enigma at the center of “A Traveler’s Needs,” dresses at once to be noticed, and to disappear. Over a bright sundress, spattered all over with red and violet blossoms, she wears a cardigan of a most assertive, eye-searing green. It’s the grassy hue, in fact, of green-screen backdrops, as we notice when
0 Comments
Brazilian activist and sociologist, Herbert de Souza, inspires the latest Globoplay Original series “Living On A Razor’s Edge,” (“Betinho: No Fio da Navalha”) featuring in Berlin as part of the European Film Market’s Berlinale Series Market Selects, an exclusive advance on anticipated titles with farer-reaching potential.  The title, teased at Content Americas, was created by
0 Comments