News

Spain’s Latido Films has acquired Eva Libertad’s upcoming feature “Sorda,” adapted from her 2023 Spanish Academy Goya Award-nominated short of the same name.

“Sorda,” which translates to “deaf” in English, tells the story of Angela, a pregnant deaf woman, and Hector, her hearing partner. Pregnancy brings to the surface her fears about motherhood and how she will be able to communicate with her daughter. The arrival of the girl generates a crisis in the couple and leads Angela to face the upbringing of her daughter in a world that is not made for her.

Libertad wrote and is directing the film, a continuation of her 2023 short of the same name that starred her sister, Miriam Garlo. In addition to a Spanish Academy Goya nomination, the film was selected by more than 110 festivals and won more than 60 awards.

“A few years ago, my sister began to consider becoming a mother,...

The Wholesome Direct showcased over 70 cozy titles by indie developers, offering something for all types of players. Unique games like Caravan SandWitch, Crab God, Tiny Bookshop, and others were featured, highlighting creativity and innovation. The titles presented covered a wide range of genres, from adventure to management sims, promising diverse gameplay experiences.

This year, the span of Summer Game Fest goes much further than the main livestream event, with a host of other showcases and reveals planned for the weekend. One of those is the 2024 Wholesome Direct, which premiered today featuring over 70 different titles. The show is put on by Wholesome Games, which was founded as a community platform for fans of cozier gameplay - a definition which has widely expanded over the years to encompass a myriad of different types of titles.

While Sgf itself is largely home to big, Aaa-developer announcements, one of the most exciting parts of...

Orson Welles famously started but never finished an adaptation in Spain of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes’ beloved 17th-century novel. Terry Gilliam’s first attempt to shoot his take on Quixote fell apart so spectacularly in 2000 that it resulted in a widely viewed “unmaking-of” documentary titled, grimly, Lost in La Mancha.

But they weren’t just tilting at windmills. Gilliam completed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote nearly two decades later, making it one of literally dozens of screen adaptations from around the world based on the widely published novel. In April, Oscar-winning director Alejandro Amenábar (The Sea Inside)will start shooting on The Captive, an origin tale about a young, storytelling Cervantes in an Algiers prison in 1575.

Spanish literature — and its literary figures — have been inspiring filmmakers since the dawn of cinema. According to a now-defunct Cervantes Virtual Library database, considered incomplete by some accounts, in Spain almost 1,200 literary...

Justine Triet’s acclaimed French courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall has won best film at the 2023 European Film Awards, held Saturday evening, Dec. 9 in Berlin.

Sandra Hüller, a double nominee in the best actress category, won for her barnstorming turn in Anatomy of a Fall as a writer who may have killed her husband.

Accepting her prize, Hüller, speaking to the various conflicts raging in and around Europe at the moment, called for a moment of silence from the audience to “silently, strongly, vividly, imagine peace.”

Justine Triet took the best directing honor for Anatomy and shared the best screenplay honor with Arthur Harari for their joint script to the twisty murder mystery. A couple in real life, Triet and Harari said writing the script, which is a piercing dissection of a marriage in crisis, “put our relationship to the test but thankfully we survived.”

Anatomy of a Fall...

Spanish director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s debut feature, 20,000 Species of Bees, a touching and tender drama about an 8-year-old transgender child who begins to transition, is the front-runner for the 2024 Goya Awards, the Spanish film academy’s equivalent to the Oscars.

The film, which won its young star Sofía Otero the Silver Bear for best performance in Berlin in February, picked up 15 nominations for the 2024 Goyas, including for best film and best director. Otero was oddly snubbed in the acting categories, though co-stars Ane Gabarain and Itziar Lazkano were nominated in the best supporting actress category, Martxelo Rubio received a best supporting actor nom, and Patricia López Arnaiz a Goya nomination for best actress.

In its review of the film, The Hollywood Reporter called 20,000 Species of Bees a “moving chronicle of an 8-year-old’s gradual transitioning, and the effect it has on a family over their summer vacation...

The Spanish director will receive the European achievement to world cinema award.

The European Film Academy will honour Spanish director Isabel Coixet with the award in European achievement to world cinema at the European Film Awards.

The director will be the guest of honour at the ceremony on December 9 in Berlin.

Coixet made her debut in 1989 with Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven, which was nominated for best new director at Spain’s Goya awards.

She went on to become the most decorated female filmmaker at the Goyas with nine wins for films including 2003’s My Life Without Me, 2017’s The Bookshop...

Isabel Coixet, the Spanish director of My Life Without Me, Things I Never Told You, The Bookshop and It Snows in Benidorm, will be honored by the European Film Academy with this year’s European Achievement in World Cinema award for her life’s work.

Coixet has carved out an impressive career in what could be called pan-Atlantic cinema, making mainly English-language features with international casts but with a strongly European sensibility. She followed up her promising 1989 debut Demasiado viejo para morir joven (which won the best new director prize at Spain’s Goya awards) with the U.S.-shot drama Things I Never Told You, starring Andrew McCarthy and Lili Taylor. The film premiered in Berlin, a favorite launching pad for Coixet, who returned the German festival in 2003 with My Life Without Me, a romantic drama starring Sarah Polley as a young mother diagnosed with terminal cancer who decides...

The negotiations of adult sexual relationships, as well as the demands forced upon single women in society, are recurring fascinations in the work of Spanish writer-director Isabel Coixet, albeit to erratic effect: In recent years, particularly in such English-language efforts as “It Snows in Benidorm” and “The Bookshop,” her voice has felt unconfident, even a little stifled. But Coixet strikes with a renewed sense of conviction in “Un Amor,” an adaptation of Sara Mesa’s Spanish-language bestseller that plays to her unusual strengths as a full-blooded feminist filmmaker. Making no cozy compromises in its portrayal of a young woman socially and sexually exploited by rural patriarchy — while still foregrounding the consuming strength and autonomy of her desire — it’s a tricky balancing act that mostly works, thanks also to a crackling lead performance by Laia Costa.

The combined draws of Costa and popular, much-translated source material should ensure “Un Amor...

Isabel Coixet recounts that she vowed to never to do another literary adaptation after her 2017 English-language feature The Bookshop based on Penelope Fitzgerald’s critically acclaimed 1978 novel of the same name.

Then the Spanish director read compatriot writer Sara Mesa’s dark 2021 novel Un Amor at the tail-end of the pandemic.

The unsettling work follows troubled translator Nat who quits life in the city for a dilapidated, leaky house in a remote village in Spain’s depopulated rural interior.

It is not exactly clear what prompted the move but she appears to be suffering from some sort of vicarious post-traumatic stress disorder connected to the harrowing refugee accounts she translates for her job.

A figure of curiosity as a lone woman, Nat lives as an outsider and then embarks on an unexpected and inexplicable passionate affair with a local social outcast.

“Sara Mesa is one of the most powerful voices in young Spanish literature.

Penélope Cruz is set to star as Olga, a writer forced to give up her artistic ambitions when her husband suddenly leaves her and their two young daughters, in Isabel Coixet’s English-language adaptation of Italian author Elena Ferrante’s “The Days of Abandonment.”

The deal to make the film, which is now in development, was signed before the SAG-AFTRA strike. While Cruz did not attend the Venice Film Festival, she elicited raves from critics on the Lido for her performance in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” as the angry, lonely, grief-ravaged Laura Ferrari, emotionally estranged from her husband Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver).

“The Days of Abandonment,” which will transpose the novel’s original Italian setting to America, reunites the two top Spanish talents following their collaboration on another U.S.-set film, the 2008 drama “Elegy” an adaptation of Philip Roth’s novella “The Dying Animal,” about an affair between a...

I have been tracking producer Sol Bondy since 2016 when co-production The Happiest Day in the Life of Ölli Mäki won the Un Certain Regard Grand Prize and the European Film Award for Best Debut. He and Fred Burle have been developing The Girl from Köln (aka Köln 75) with writer-director Ido Fluk, the filmmaker behind 2016 Tribeca selection The Ticket since 2019. "This project has been very close to our hearts in the last few years and we're very excited with the way it's been shaped so far," said Bondy, a Variety Producer to Watch in 2018. "It's been such a joy working with Ido on this exciting story and we're thrilled to have put an amazing team together," added Burle, Brazilian born producer who was just made a partner in One Two Films, alongside co-founders Sol Bondy and Christoph Lange. Burle joined One Two in January 2017, having graduated from the German Film and Television Academy (dffb) the previous year. He has previously worked as a film critic, at The Match Factory, and as curator of the inaugural dffb film festival. One Two Films has produced and co-produced award-winning films such as Holy Spider (Read my blog about it here), Vadim Perelman's Persian Lessons (Read my blog about it here), Jennifer Fox's Sundance breakout The Tale, Isabel Coixet's The Bookshop and Juho Kuosmanen's The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.Other titles in the pipeline include Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson's dark comedy Northern Comfort, which premieres in SXSW later this month, Annemarie Jacir's survival drama The Oblivion Theory, Sarah Arnold's debut feature Wild Encounters and Michiel ten Horn's romantic comedy Any Other Night. In Berlin this year it was announced that Bankside would be The Girl from Köln's international sales agent and was launching sales. Alamode Film already has German-speaking territories and is a coproducer, who have very recently secured funding through the Fff, the local fund in Bavaria. It is in early pre-production and will shoot this year in Poland and Germany. The Girl from Köln tells the little-known story of Vera Brandes, who, in 1975, at the age of 17, staged the famous Köln Concert by jazz musician Keith Jarrett, which became the top-selling jazz solo album of all time. With Polish Film Institute backing, Oscar-winning Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska (Ida, Cold War) of Extreme Emotions is co-producing along with Annegret Weitkämper-Krug of Germany's Gretchenfilm (Seneca). Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Oren Moverman (Love & Mercy, Bad Education) serves as executive producer. Moverman also produced Fluk's previous feature, The Ticket. The Tale writer-director Jennifer Fox also serves as executive producer. Stephen Kelliher and Sophie Green executive produce for Bankside. It stars Mala Emde (Skin Deep, And Tomorrow the Entire World) in the lead role, alongside John Magaro (Past Lives) as Jarrett. Magaro was also in Cannes last year with Kelly Reichardt's competition title Showing Up.Other cast attached include Alexander Scheer (Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush), Ulrich Tukur (The Life of Others), Susanne Wolff (Sisi & I, Styx), Jördis Triebel (Dark), Jan Bülow (Lindenberg) and Marie-Lou Sellem (Tar, Exit Marrakesh). The NYU-graduate Fluk was dubbed "a talent to watch" by Variety following his feature debut Never Too Late, the first crowd-sourced Israeli film ever made. His American debut, the Tribeca competition selection, The Ticket, starred Dan Stevens and Malin Akerman. Upcoming projects include 24 Hours in June, a retelling of the final day in the life of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, to be produced by Academy Award winner James Schamus (Brokeback Mountain) and Joe Pirro (Driveways). Fluk is repped by Amotz Zakai, Amy Schiffman, and Kegan Schell at Echo Lake Entertainment. He is also created the recently-announced HBO series Empty Mansions for Fremantle with director Joe Wright (Atonement, Darkest Hour) attached to direct the pilot. "From the moment I heard Vera's story, about how as a high school teenager she organized one of the greatest concerts in history, I knew her story had to be told," said Fluk. "We were immediately exhilarated by Vera Brandes' remarkable female empowerment story. Her strength, courage and sheer belief in herself and the music of Keith Jarrett will entertain and inspire audiences around the world," added Kelliher.

Fresh off her 2023 Goya best actress win for “Lullaby” on Saturday night,” Laia Costa is set to star in the passionate romance drama “Un Amor,” by multi-prized Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet.

Film Constellation, the London and now Paris-based production, finance & sales company, will introduce the new production to buyers at thus and next week’s Berlin European Film Market.

Distributor of Berlin competition entry “20,000 Species if Bees” and La Maternal, a San Sebastian best leading performance winner for Carla Quílez, BTeam Pictures will handle the film’s release in Spain.

Written by Spanish novelist and short-story writer Laura Ferrero and Coixet, “Un Amor” is based on an admired novel by Sara Mesa. A fiction study of emotional dependence in which Mesa returns to the themes of power and subjugation which thread much of her work, “Un Amor” was selected by Spanish newspaper El Pais as Spain’s 2020 book of the year.

Exclusive: Specialized police units are coming under increased scrutiny after the death in Memphis of Tyre Nichols, who was allegedly beaten to death by five officers of that city’s Scorpion street crime outfit.

Baltimore and its scandal-plagued Gun Trace Task Force comes into focus in the documentary I Got A Monster, the feature directorial debut of Kevin Abrams. Greenwich Entertainment has just secured North American distribution rights for the film, with plans to release it in theaters and on home video on March 10. The documentary from Alpine Labs is based on the acclaimed book I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad written by Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg.

Abrams’ film “retells in highly dramatic fashion one of the nation’s biggest police corruption scandals,” Greenwich Entertainment said in a release. “In 2017, Baltimore was rocked by the federal indictment of Wayne Jenkins,...

UTA has signed BAFTA and Golden Globe winning actor Bill Nighy in all areas. The global talent, entertainment and sports company will help build upon Nighy’s career across a range of verticals.

Over a career spanning five decades, Nighy won several awards, including a supporting actor film BAFTA for “Love Actually” (2003), the BAFTA TV best actor award for “State of Play” (2003) and the Golden Globe for best actor in a miniseries for “Gideon’s Daughter.” He is also known for his roles in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Recently, Nighy starred in “Living,” which premiered at Sundance earlier this year. He will soon be seen as the lead in Thea Sharrock’s Netflix feature “A Beautiful Game.” The actor is currently shooting a lead role in thriller “Role Play,” opposite Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo, directed by Thomas Vincent for Studiocanal, Picture Company and Amazon Prime Video.

Other highlights...

Independent film distributor Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American distribution rights to documentary feature “Hockeyland.”

Directed by Tommy Haines (“Saving Brinton”), the film follows rival high school hockey teams in Minnesota’s North Country, one of the breeding grounds for hockey greats who go onto to collegiate and professional play, including the National Hockey League (NHL). Fast on-ice action is paired with an observational approach to examine two communities and their teen heroes through debilitating injuries, off-ice troubles, family health concerns, and the expectations of being a future star in the NHL.

“Hockeyland” is produced by Tommy Haines, Andrew Sherburne, and J.T. Haines, executive produced by Carson Kipfer and is a production of Northland Films, a Midwest-based nonfiction film company. The film has played leading documentary film festivals including Doc NYC, Big Sky, Seattle, Milwaukee and RiverRun.

Greenwich co-president Ed Arentz said: “Tommy and Andrew are Minnesota natives and as...

Berlin-based One Two Films, in Cannes this week with Ali Abbasi’s competition title “Holy Spider,” is prepping a new feature from writer-director Ido Fluk, the filmmaker behind 2016 Tribeca selection “The Ticket.”

“Köln 75” tells the true story of Vera Brandes, who, in 1975 and at the age of 17, staged the famous Köln Concert by jazz musician Keith Jarrett, which became the top-selling jazz solo album of all time. It stars Mala Emde (“And Tomorrow the Entire World”) in the lead role, alongside John Magaro (“First Cow”) as Jarrett. Magaro is also in Cannes with Kelly Reichardt’s competition title “Showing Up.”

Oscar-winning Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska of Extreme Emotions will co-produce, with Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Oren Moverman serving as executive producer. Moverman also produced Fluk’s previous feature, “The Ticket.”

Other cast attached include Alexander Scheer (“Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush”), Ulrich Tukur (“The Life of Others”), Susanne Wolff...

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American rights to the gospel documentary Stay Prayed Up, which premiered to critical acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival and Doc NYC, for release in theaters on June 17.

The film from directors D.L. Anderson and Matt Durning tells the story of Lena Mae Perry, who has spent the last 50 years sharing and sharpening her voice as the steadfast bandleader of The Branchettes, a legendary North Carolina gospel group that has packed churches throughout the South and lifted hearts as far away as Ireland. Pic invites audiences into “Mother” Perry’s close-knit community as the 83-year-old strives to extend The Branchettes’ sacred song ministry ever forward, following the ensemble as they record their first live album—a hallmark in the canon of Black gospel groups. Mikel Barton, Phil Cook, Lena C. Williams and Leslie Raymond served as the feature’s producers.

“We believe Stay Prayed Up offers a well-timed,...

Greenwich Entertainment has taken North American rights to dark comedy-drama “Concerned Citizen,” which had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlinale. Salzgeber has taken the rights for Germany and Austria. Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal is selling the film.

Idan Haguel’s film, a satirical parable on the insidious ways in which privilege can unleash the prejudice within, centers on Ben, who thinks of himself as a liberal and enlightened gay man, living in the perfect apartment with his boyfriend Raz. All that’s missing to complete the picture is a baby, which the couple are trying to make a reality.

Meanwhile, Ben decides to improve his up-and-coming neighborhood in gritty south Tel Aviv by planting a new tree on his street. But his good deed soon triggers a sequence of events that leads to the brutal police arrest of an Eritrean immigrant. The guilt trip that ensues...

“Captain America: Civil War” star Daniel Brühl has boarded Lone Scherfig’s upcoming feature “The Movie Teller,” Variety can reveal.

The BAFTA-nominated actor, who recently reprised his Marvel role in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and has appeared in features including “Rush” and “Inglourious Basterds,” will star alongside Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”) and Antonio de la Torre (“Marshland”) in the film.

Embankment are executive producing the film and have launched worlwide sales, co-repping Latin American rights with Latido Films. A Contracorriente Films’ Adolfo Blanco (“The Bookshop”), Selenium Films’ Vincent Juillerat and Andres Mardones of Al Tiro Films are producing.

Directed by BAFTA nominee Scherfig (“An Education”), “The Movie Teller” sees Brühl star as Nansen, a European outsider who, via his restraint and diplomacy, earns the respect of the families he encounters at a Chilean mine before embarking on a relationship with a local woman, María Magnolia (played by Bejo).

In particular,...

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Ilinca Calugareanu’s documentary A Cops and Robbers Story, with plans for a day-and-date release January 14.

The film’s subject is Corey Pegues, who in the 1990s found himself embroiled in a life of crime as a member of New York’s City’s infamous Supreme Team gang. After a near-death incident forces Pegues away from the streets, he unexpectedly emerges as a rising star in the NYPD. But when his former life is revealed, Pegues’s police career is threatened, raising the perennial question of who deserves – and who doesn’t deserve – a second chance in life.

The feature which made its world premiere at Doc NYC 2020 was produced by Mara Adina, Calugareanu’s collaborator on the 2015 doc Chuck Norris vs. Communism. Brenda Robinson exec produced with Julie Parker Benello, Erika Olde, Nion McEvoy, Sam Roseme, Tanja Tawadjoh, John Battsek,...

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Edgar Ramírez have teamed up for romantic drama “Nobody’s Heart,” directed by Isabel Coixet.

WestEnd Films has launched international sales on the film, which will be presented to buyers at the virtual American Film Market this week. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.

Set in Lisbon in the 1930s, “Nobody’s Heart” centers on a new widow, Lily, who inherits her husband’s cork factory, and begins to form an unexpected relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.

The film, which will begin shooting in January in Portugal, is adapted from bestselling author and screenwriter William Boyd’s short story “Cork,” and is based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. The film is produced by John Fiedler (“Girl in Progress”).

Said Coixet: “This is a fascinating, twisted...

Loki star Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Girl on the Train’s Edgar Ramírez are to star in passionate love story Nobody’s Heart from The Bookshop director Isabel Coixet.

London sales house WestEnd Films has this week launched international sales on the pic, which enters production in January in Portugal and is being introduced at the American Film Market. CAA Media Finance is representing North American sales.

Adapted from William Boyd’s short story Cork and based on the life of celebrated Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, the film follows Lily (Raw), who is forced to confront the sudden and devastating death of her husband. She inherits his cork factory and begins to form an unexpected, highly charged relationship with his enigmatic co-worker, igniting repressed imagination and passion, and discovering unknown truths about both herself and her late husband.

The film is set against the backdrop of Lisbon in the 1930s, with...

Bérénice Bejo, Oscar nominated for “The Artist,” and two-time Goya winner Antonio de la Torre are to star in “The Movie Teller,” which is to be directed by Lone Scherfig, a BAFTA nominee with “An Education.” Embankment is launching worldwide sales on the Spanish-language film at the virtual AFM.

Walter Salles, a BAFTA winner with “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Central Station,” and Rafa Russo have adapted Hernán Rivera Letelier’s novel, which is the story of life in a mining town in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and a tribute to the inspirational power of cinema, reminiscent of “Cinema Paradiso.”

The film is produced by Adolfo Blanco (“The Bookshop”) of A Contracorriente Films and Vincent Juillerat of Selenium Films and Al Tiro Films. Embankment is an executive producer, and co-represents Latin American rights with Latido Films. It shoots in the Atacama Desert in the first quarter of next year.

Bejo stars as María Magnolia,...

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment and levelFILM have struck a multi-year partnership for the Canadian distributor to handle all of Greenwich’s films in Canada starting with the upcoming release of Ebs Burnough’s The Capote Tapes, which explores the explosive unpublished novel Answered Prayers by Truman Capote.

The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, its U.S. premiere at Doc NYC and Greenwich is releasing the film in theaters on September 10.

Founded in 2017, Greenwich is led by Co-Presidents Ed Arentz and Andy Bohn and has grown into one of the leading U.S. distributors of arthouse films and documentaries.

Greenwich handled the record-setting theatrical release of Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s Academy Award-Winning documentary Free Solo, which grossed more thhan $17M at the North American box office.

Other Greenwich releases include Andrew Slater’s Echo in the Canyon, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My...

Madrid-based Zeta Studios, producer of Netflix phenomenon “Elite,” is set to co-produce “Picadero,” a neo-noir six-part detective series already set up at Colombia’s Fidelio Films, one of the highest-flying companies in Latin America, and fast-emerging Barcelona-based Amor y Lujo, whose co-founder Almudena Monzú created “Picadero.”

Isabel Coixet, one of Spain’s greatest modern filmmakers is attached to direct episodes of the series. Her movies take in “My Life Without Me,” with Sarah Polley, “The Secret Life of Words,” starring Polley and Tim Robbins, and “The Bookshop,” toplining Emily Mortimer.

Monzu and Amor y Lujo co-founder and producer Andrea H. Catalá will pitch the series at next week’s Series Mania Forum on Aug. 30.

Drawing inspiration from Spanish film director Iciar Bollaín’s “Mataharis” and great detective classics, “Picadero” turns on Llanos who sets up in Barcelona to escape a dark family past and makes a living as a private...

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment acquired North American distribution rights to Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power, the documentary directed by Peabody winner Abby Ginzberg (Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa). The documentary premiered at Doc NYC and Greenwich will release the film in theaters on August 20.

Featuring interviews with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, Alice Walker, John Lewis, and Van Jones, Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power, is a timely portrait of a congresswoman who has been a true pioneer on behalf of racial and economic justice and the lone voice in opposition to the authorization of military force after the September 11th attacks. An array of political commentators, activists, politicians, and family members add depth to the story of the highest-ranking Black woman in the U.S. Congress.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Greenwich Entertainment to bring the film to a wider audience,” said Ginzberg. “It...

Exclusive: All the Streets Are Silent, a documentary portrait of the skateboarding and hip-hop scenes in New York in the late 1980s and early ’90s, has been acquired by Greenwich Entertainment.

The U.S. rights deal precedes the film’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. The film will be released in theaters on July 23.

Jeremy Elkin is making his feature directing debut with All the Streets Are Silent, which is described as “a love letter to New York” blending elements of Paris Is Burning and Larry Clark’s Kids.

Between the city’s rebound from near-ruin in the 1970s and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Lower Manhattan was home to the thriving subcultures of skateboarding and hip-hop. Their convergence would give rise to modern street style. Eli Gesner, founder of skateboard gear and fashion brand Zoo York, will narrate the film. Hip-hop producer Large Professor, known...

Get ready to sink your teeth into Boys From County Hell, a new Irish vampire comedy headed to horror streaming service Shudder this week. Ahead of the premiere, we’re debuting an exclusive clip from the film, which stars Jack Rowan (Peaky Blinders), Nigel O’Neill (The Bookshop), Louisa Harland (Derry Girls), Fra Fee, John Lynch (The Terror, The […]

The post ‘Boys From County Hell’ Exclusive Clip: “There’s Something Really Wrong” in Shudder’s New Vampire Comedy appeared first on /Film.

Chicago – The legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 74 years young on April 16th, 2021, and the athlete/activist is more in demand than ever. With a commitment to social justice his entire basketball career, his achievements in that pursuit shine as bright as his record-breaking days on the b-ball court. Photographer Joe Arce publishes an Exclusive Photo of Jabbar from 2016, when he appeared at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, through Anderson’s Bookshop.

Born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor in New York City, and topping out at 7-ft-2-in., Jabbar began dominating the roundball scene early with three straight high school championships in the 1960s. At UCLA, he helped Coach John Wooden win three straight NCAA championships from 1967-69. He began his commitment to social justice during his college years, boycotting the 1968 Olympic team due to the treatment of blacks, converted to Islam during the same period and changed his named to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Spain’s Film Factory has acquired international rights on Jaime Rosales’ latest feature “Wild Sunflowers,” a co-production between the director’s own Fresdeval Films, A Contracorriente Films (“The Bookshop”), Oberon Films (Golden Bear winner “The Milk of Sorrow”), and Paris-based production-distribution company Luxbox Films (“Our Time”).

Starring Anna Castillo (“The Olive Tree”) and Oriol Pla (“Petra”), “Wild Sunflowers” follows 22-year-old Julia, a mother of two who falls in love with Oscar, with whom she initiates a powerful and tortuous relationship. However, Julia begins to have doubts about how appropriate a male role model Oscar is for her children before an incident sparks a headlong flight in search of a better future.

“We are pleased to work again with Jaime Rosales, one of the most intimate new filmmakers on the Spanish scene. We are convinced that ‘Wild Sunflowers’ will have a wide international appeal,” said Film Factory’s Vicente Canales in a statement.

Exclusive: AMC Networks’ horror streamer Shudder has picked up North American rights to Boys From County Hell, Chris Baugh’s comedy-horror that recently had its world premiere at Sitges.

The movie was selected for this year’s Tribeca fest before that event was cancelled. Now, it will premiere on Shudder in the U.S. and Canada next year.

Starring Jack Rowan (Peaky Blinders), Nigel O’Neill (The Bookshop), Louisa Harland (Derry Girls), Fra Fee (Animals) and John Lynch (The Terror), the film follows Eugene Moffat, who spends his days drinking pints with his friends and pranking tourists at the grave site of Abhartach — a legendary Irish vampire who may have inspired Stoker’s infamous Dracula. Sinister events unfold when Eugene and his father’s construction crew knock over Abhartach’s supposed resting place and they are attacked by an infected workmate.

The pic is produced by Brendan Mullin of Six Mile Hill Productions...

Barcelona-born filmmaker Isabel Coixet arrived at the San Sebastian Film Festival to receive the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s National Cinematography Prize at a prestigious event hosted at the Tabakalera’s Centro Internacional de Cultura Contemporánea.

Coixet, 60, arrived straight from the post-production suite, where last week she finished work on her thirteenth feature film, “It Snows in Benidorm,” starring Timothy Spall. She revealed that she was shocked when told about the award. “I thought that in ten years they might give me the prize.”

A popular and prolific figure in Spanish film, Coixet helmed Goya-winning movies, “My Life Without Me” the Northern Ireland set “The Secret Life of Words,” and the “The Bookshop,” an adaptation of the Penelope Fitzgerald book.

Coixet’s most recent movie, for Netflix, the black-and-white “Elisa & Marcela,” tells the real story of two women in Galicia who tricked a priest into marrying them in 1901. It was released last year.

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment has picked up the North American distribution rights to Eytan Fox’s Israeli drama Sublet with a plan to release the movie in 2021.

The deal was negotiated by Greenwich’s Ed Arentz and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.

The movie, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, stars Tony Award-winning and Emmy-nominated John Benjamin Hickey and features the debut of Niv Nissim. Sublet focuses on a New York Times writer (Hickey) who visits Tel Aviv after suffering a tragedy. The city’s energy and his relationship with a younger man he meets there (Nissim) bring him back to life.

“I’m so happy that Greenwich Entertainment will be releasing Sublet, because it’s a movie that celebrates the free-dom we had before this Covid-19 outbreak: to travel, explore, make connections and get a new take on the world,” says Fox.

“It’s about...

Special jury prize awarded to Laura Zéphirin for Making Waves.

Films by students from France, the US and Russia were among the winners of the 2020 Gsa Bafta Student Film Awards presented at a digital ceremony hosted by actor Elliot Knight.

The Gsa Bafta Student Film Awards celebrate the next generation of filmmakers from around the globe and nine finallists were selected from close to 700 submissions from film schools in 35 countries across Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

The Bafta Student Film Award for Animation was awarded to Milan Baulard, Ismaïl Berrahma, Flore Dupont, Laurie Estampes, Quentin Nory...

Special jury prize awarded to Laura Zéphirin for Making Waves.

Films by students from France and the US were among the winners of the 2020 Gsa Bafta Student Film Awards presented at a digital ceremony hosted by actor Elliot Knight.

The Gsa Bafta Student Film Awards celebrate the next generation of filmmakers from around the globe and nine finallists were selected from close to 700 submissions from film schools in 35 countries across Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

The Bafta Student Film Award for Animation was awarded to Milan Baulard, Ismaïl Berrahma, Flore Dupont, Laurie Estampes, Quentin Nory and...

Exclusive: Signature Entertainment has picked up a raft of film and TV content for the UK market, including Drake Doremus drama Endings, Beginnings with Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Stan and Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jake Gyllenhaal-produced Sundance horror Relic.

The company has also struck deals for classic library titles including Muriel’s Wedding, Luc Besson action pic Taxi and cult sci-fi series Children Of Dune via separate pacts with TF1 and Sonar Entertainment.

Toronto premiere Endings, Beginnings, from Parasite producer Cj, charts a turbulent and passionate love triangle. Acquired from UK sales outfit Protagonist, it will get a day and date theatrical release in August.

Well-received horror Relic sees Emily Mortimer (The Bookshop) star as a daughter haunted by a manifestation of her mother’s dementia. Acquired from Film Constellation, the film will be released in the UK later this year.

Meanwhile, Signature has struck a deal with TF...

Sales also secured on ‘The Goddess Of Fortune’, ‘Once Upon A Time… In Bethlehem’ and more.

Rome-based sales company True Colours has secured deals on a raft of titles out of the Efm, led by Sergio Castellitto’s romantic drama A Bookshop In Paris.

The film, starring Castellitto and Berenice Bejo, has pre-sold to Taiwan (Andrews Film), Poland (Aurora), Benelux (Paradiso), former Yugoslavia (Stars Media), Sweden (Studio S Entertainment), Finland (Future Film), Denmark (Another World) and Israel (Nachshon).

The romantic drama, now in post-production, marks the last screenplay written by the late Ettore Scola and has subsequently been adapted by Castellitto and novelist Margaret Mazzantini.

HBO Europe has unveiled the first trailer for its Isabel Coixet drama Foodie Love and set a premiere date.

The WarnerMedia broadcaster is to launch the series, which features Laia Costa, star of German crime feature Victoria, and Cromo and Supermax star Guillermo Pfening in December across Europe. In Spain, where the series marks HBO Europe’s first original out of the country, it will launch on December 4 and will roll out across the rest of the continent on December 25.

HBO Europe operates a slew of linear and digital services including Svod services in Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal as well as linear networks across Central Europe. In the Baltics, HBO content is available via partner Telia in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Foodie Love is an eight-part, half-hour series about the relationship between two food lovers who meet through a mobile app.

Costa plays one half of the couple whose relationship is forged between courses.

Berlin-based company to move into international co-productions and branch out into fiction.

Berlin-based production outfit Achtung Panda! Media has appointed Jamila Wenske and Melanie Blocksdorf as new heads of the company. Wenske will served as producer and managing director and Blocksdorf as producer.

Carli Hameder joins as the company’s project manager.

These hires follow the departure of previous head Helge Albers, who has started in his new position as CEO of Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

Achtung Panda! was launched in 2015 by Danny Krausz and Oliver Damian. The pair remain shareholders but aren’t involved actively in productions.

The company has...

German producer Jamila Wenske has left One Two Films to head Achtung Panda!, a Berlin-based film production company.

Wenske succeeds former managing director Helge Albers, who left Achtung Panda! to become the new CEO of regional funder Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

Wenske partnered with Sol Bondy and Christoph Lange to launch One Two Films in 2010. The Berlin company has co-produced domestic and international productions, including Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale,” Isabel Coixet’s “The Bookshop” and Vadim Perelman’s “Persian Lessons.”

Variety selected Wenske and Bondy for its 10 Producers to Watch list last year.

Producer Melanie Blocksdorf, who previously worked at Berlin-based Propellerfilm, is joining Wenske at Achtung Panda!

Established as a joint venture in 2015 between Danny Krausz’s Vienna-based Dor Film and Oliver Damian’s 27 Films in Berlin, Achtung Panda! had largely focused on documentaries under Albers’ management. But Wenske and Blocksdorf, along with project manager Carli Hameder, intend to...

Bondy will continue to run the company.

Jamila Wenske and Sol Bondy, founders and managing partners of German production outfit One Two Films, have decided to part ways.

Bondy will continue to run the company with investor and partner Christoph Lange. Fred Burle, One Two Films’ project manager since 2017, has started working on his own projects as a producer, reporting to Bondy.

Wenske will take her projects with her to Achtung Panda!, the Berlin-based production outfit she is joining as managing director. More details about her role at Achtung Panda! will be revealed soon.

One Two Films has made a...

Bondy will continue to run the company.

Jamila Wenske and Sol Bondy, founders and managing partners of German production outfit One Two Films, have decided to part ways.

Bondy will continue to run the company with investor and partner Christoph Lange. Fred Burle, One Two Films’ project manager since 2017, has started working on his own projects as a producer, reporting to Bondy.

Wenske will take her projects with her to Achtung Panda!, the Berlin-based production outfit she is joining as managing director. More details about her role at Achtung Panda! will be revealed soon.

One Two Films has made a...

The time has come for Hulu to release its list of everything coming and going in the month of August.

This will come in handy after the “Bachelorette” season finale in late July leaves us in desperate need of something else to watch.

In August, a new episode of Hulu’s horror anthology “Into The Dark” arrives, in which a group of social outcasts who are stuck in weekend detention are confronted by the school’s legendary hauntings.

Also Read: 'Mrs. Maisel' Star Alex Borstein Is Frequently Asked to Sign Plungers, and She Thinks It's Weird

Other Hulu originals include: “The Amazing Johnathan Documentary,” in which a filmmaker profiles a dying magician on his final tour, but the lines between reality and magic begin to blur; Season 2 of “Find Me in Paris,” and “Jawline,” a Hulu original documentary that follows 16-year-old Austyn Tester, a rising star in the live-broadcast ecosystem...

Madrid — Beating out other suitors, Madrid-based sales company Latido Films has closed international sales rights on Belén Funes’ anticipated San Sebastian main competition contender “A Thief’s Daughter” (“La hija de un ladrón”). BTeam Pictures will release the film in Spain.

Already one of the most talked-about titles heading to San Sebastian this year, based on word-of-mouth generated by sneak-peak screenings in Madrid and Barcelona, Funes’ feature debut is sparking buzz for both its direction as well as Greta Fernández’s lead performance.

San Sebastian Festival director José Luis Rebordinos readily admits that he and his selection team had originally thought of the film as a candidate for the festival’s New Directors section. After screening it, however, they wanted it for main competition.

Seen in Isabel Coixet’s “Elisa & Marcela,” Fernández plays Sara, a single mother traumatized by her jailed father’s abandonment who attempts to juggle reuniting...

Original film’s writer Alan B. McElroy and director Mike P. Nelson team for reboot.

The Misfits Club and American Assassin star Charlotte Vega will lead the cast of Wrong Turn, a reboot of the cult horror franchise being produced by Constantin Film.

Alan B. McElroy, who wrote the original 2003 version of Wrong Turn, which was followed by five sequels, is teaming with Resident Evil producer Robert Kulzer and 47 Meters Down producer James Harris on the project. Mike P. Nelson (The Domestics) is directing.

Martin Moszkowicz, also of Resident Evil fame, is an executive producer.

London-based Mister Smith Entertainment is commencing sales on the project,...

Laia Costa, star of German crime feature Victoria, and Cromo and Supermax star Guillermo Pfening are to star in Isabel Coixet’s HBO Europe drama Foodie Love.

Production has begun on the series, which is an eight-part, half-hour series about the relationship between two food lovers who meet through a mobile app.

BAFTA Ee Rising Star Costa plays one half of the couple whose relationship is forged between courses. She plays a thirty-three-year-old book editor, smart, and somewhat suspicious of relationships. Argentinian actor Pfening plays the other half, a successful mathematician, cultivated, and at times a little naïve.

The two thirty-somethings embark on getting to know each other with the doubts of those who retain the scars of previous relationships. Over several dates they’ll have to discover if their common devotion to Japanese yuzu or shared distaste for foodie pretension are enough to build the foundations of a lasting love story.

WarnerMedia has denied that owner At&T is considering selling the European arm of HBO. This comes after a report in the Financial Times this morning.

WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey has put his name to the on-the-record denial, an unusual move for a major media company. The newspaper had claimed that At&T had held internal discussions about a sale of HBO Europe to help pay down its debt.

“We normally do not comment on speculation, but when a news outlet is advised that their reporting is factually incorrect and report it anyway, we feel compelled to set the record straight,” said Stankey. “There is no truth whatsoever to the Financial Times’ story saying At&T is or has considered selling HBO Europe. It’s completely baseless and inaccurate. HBO Europe is a valuable asset for our growth plans in Europe.”

HBO Europe has been aggressively growing its original programming business...

Exclusive: Three-time Oscar nominee Laura Linney (Kinsey), Hannah Gross (Mindhunter), and Terry Chen (House Of Cards) have joined the cast of Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut Falling, which is now underway in Toronto.

Green Book star Mortensen wrote the script and leads cast alongside previously announced Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Sverrir Gudnason (The Girl In The Spider’s Web). The Captain Fantastic and Eastern Promises star will play John Peterson, a gay man whose conservative father moves from his rural farm to live with his son’s family in Los Angeles.

Ozark and Tales Of The City star Linney will play Peterson’s sister, Gross has been cast as his mother and Chen will play his partner. Henriksen plays the father.

Producers are Daniel Bekerman (The Witch) of Scythia Films and Chris Curling (The Bookshop) of Zephyr Films together with Mortensen, who previously produced Everyone Has A Plan, Far From Men...

Project will be produced by Miss Wasabi Films.

Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet is set to write and direct her first TV series with Foodie Love, a HBO Europe production.

The eight-part half-hour series will be produced by Miss Wasabi Films and will shoot this year.

The protagonists of the series will be connected by a mobile app that finds couples among foodie lovers. Two thirty-somethings embark on getting to know each other - over several dates they’ll have to discover if their common devotion to Japanese yuzu or shared distaste for foodie pretension are enough to build the foundations of a lasting love story.

Famed Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet, whose credits include multi-prized “The Secret Life of Words” and “The Bookshop,” is directing her first TV series, “Foodie Love,” for HBO Europe.

Coixet is just back from the Berlin Film Festival where her Netflix movie, “Elisa and Marcela,” played in competition. She will now serve up her first series with “Foodie Love,” the story of two thirtysomethings brought together through their love of gastronomy. The Spanish-language series will run to eight half-hours and go into production this year.

It will follow a couple who meet through an app that connects foodies. Over subsequent dates they discover if their common devotion to Japanese yuzu or shared distaste for foodie pretension are enough to build the foundations of a lasting relationship.

“’Foodie Love’ is the fusion of two of my passions: love stories and food,” said Coixet, whose production company is called Miss Wasabi Films. “Every...