Berlin: Celebs Rumors

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Paris-based sales and production outfit Totem Films has closed a slew of sales ahead of the Berlinale premieres of their Competition title “My Favourite Cake,” and the Panorama opening film “Crossing.” Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha‘s “My Favourite Cake” sold to Cherry Pickers for Benelux, Camera for Denmark, Arizona for France, Triart for Sweden, Cineworx for Switzerland and BIR for Turkey. Levan Akin‘s “Crossing” sold to Imagine for Benelux, New Story for France, Lucky Red for Italy, Avalon for Spain and Cineworx for Switzerland. As announced previously, a multi-territory deal was also signed with Mubi.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Indian director and cinematographer Jatla Siddhartha has assembled several of the biggest names in world cinema in service of “In the Belly of a Tiger.” The film has its premiere next week at the Berlin Film Festival. Pitched as a blend of surreal horror and selfless love, the film is a fictionalization of reportedly real events in rural India, in which a couple arranges to be eaten by a tiger in order to ensure their family’s financial security.

Naman Ramachandran Film and TV studio Fifth Season has secured international distribution rights to “Monsieur Spade,” the crime drama series starring and executive produced by Clive Owen. Fifth Season will represent the title at the upcoming Berlin European Film Market. The six-episode series is based on Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled private detective Sam Spade, the protagonist of 1930 novel “The Maltese Falcon,” adapted several times for the screen, most notably in 1941 by John Huston with Humphrey Bogart as the sleuth.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Nele Wohlatz‘s “Sleep With Your Eyes Open,” which has its world premiere in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival, has debuted its trailer (below). Rediance has taken world sales rights. Wohlatz’s fiction debut “El futuro perfecto” won Locarno’s Golden Leopard for the best first feature in 2016, and was invited to more than 70 international film festivals.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Netflix Original “The Society of the Snow” won best picture and director for J.A. Bayona at Saturday night’s 38th Spanish Academy Goya Awards. Those plaudits were two of a total 12 prizes, the third-highest kudos count for any title in the Goyas’ near 40-year history.

Annika Pham Seasoned Danish writer-director Birgitte Stærmose, recently credited for the Netflix show “In From the Cold,” Starz’s “The Spanish Princess” and Göteborg 2023 closing pic “Camino,” is due to bow at the Berlin Film Festival’s Dokument program her hybrid pic “Afterwar”. Variety has secured in exclusivity the trailer for the helmer’s anti-war pamphlet produced by Magic Hour Films in Denmark (“Burma VJ”) in co-production with Sweden’s Vilda Bomben Film (“Excess Will Save Us”), Finland’s Bufo (“Fallen Leaves”) and Kosovo’s Kabineti.

EXCLUSIVE: I’m hearing that Oscar nominee and Avengers star Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) is set to lead true-crime thriller Featherwood, which is one of the hottest new scripts ahead of next week’s EFM market in Berlin.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights worldwide to “Between the Temples,” a comedy with Jason Schwartzman and  Carol Kane that earned strong reviews when it debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Nathan Silver, the film follows a forty-something cantor who is at a personal and professional crossroads. That’s when his grade-school music teacher re-enters his life as an adult bat mitzvah student, prompting the pair to form an unusual connection.

EXCLUSIVE: Bankside Films has boarded international sales rights to Caroline Lindy’s Sundance Midnight movie Your Monster, starring Melissa Barrera (Scream).

Good afternoon, it’s been a huge week in international TV and Max Goldbart is here to guide you through. Read on.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The sprawling sand dunes of the Brazilian Lençóis Maranhensesshine on the trailer for Marcelo Botta’s feature debut “Betânia,” set to have its world premiere at the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. Paris-based MPM Premium, known for supporting burgeoning Brazilian talent, is handling sales on the title.

Naman Ramachandran Montreal-based distributor and sales agent Filmoption International has acquired world rights to Nick Butler’s feature directorial debut, “The Legacy of Cloudy Falls.” Filmoption will launch the film at the upcoming Berlin European Film Market. Set in the Cloudy Falls residence, a run-down apartment complex in Niagara Falls that seems destined to be torn down, the film tells the story of a handful of its tenants, chosen at random by the narrator, Rita (Susan Berger), the building’s glib superintendent.

Naman Ramachandran Writer-producer duo Jules Bruff and Alethea Root have set a partnership with Guerrilla Rep Media for sales of their award-winning feature film “Good Side of Bad.” The film, directed by Root, looks at the everyday challenges and realities of living with schizophrenia for both the sufferer and their family as well. In the film, when a young photographer has a severe mental break, her siblings come together to help her heal.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor World sales agency Square Eyes has boarded Vietnamese drama “Cu Li Never Cries,” which has its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. Variety debuts the trailer below. The film is directed by Phạm Ngọc Lân, who wrote the screenplay with Nghiêm Quỳnh Trang.

Naman Ramachandran Altitude is launching international sales on two films featuring iconic British band Blur at the Berlin European Film Market. The band, consisting of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bass guitarist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree, was formed in 1988 and tasted considerable success until it went on hiatus in 2015. The first film is an untitled feature-length documentary depicting the return of Blur, captured across a year in which the band made a surprise return with their first record in eight years, the #1 album “The Ballad of Darren.” It follows the relationship of the bandmates of over three decades as they come together to record 10 new songs ahead of their sold-out shows at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2023.

Germany‘s UFA Group has brought in a senior Netflix exec, as part of a management re-org.

Alex Ritman “Bird,” Andrea Arnold‘s first narrative feature in almost a decade, has been picked up by Cornerstone Films with the company set to launch the feature at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin. Little is known about the film, except that it was shot in the U.K.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A feature-length fully-animated version of smash hit Korean series “Yumi’s Cells” will launch next month at the European Film Market in Berlin. International rights to the property were picked up by Barunson E&A, part of the Korean Barunson conglomerate that also produced Oscar-winning live-action film “Parasite.” “Yumi’s Cells: The Movie” is a 3D feature animation based on the popular Naver webtoon series of the same title that debuted in 2015. Production of the film is by Locus Animation (formerly Sidus Animation), which was previously responsible for “Red Shoes and Seven Dwarfs” and Studio N, a subsidiary of Naver Webtoon.

Join Fox News for access to this content Plus get unlimited access to thousands of articles, videos and more with your free account! Please enter a valid email address. By entering your email, you are agreeing to Fox News Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive.To access the content, check your email and follow the instructions provided. Hollywood's leading men are giving a new meaning to salt 'n pepper.

The Telegraph, Thomas — the former University of Pennsylvania swimmer who won the 500-yard freestyle race in the 2022 NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships — has petitioned the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland to overturn rules prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in world championship events, and at the Olympics, based on their gender identity.Thomas’s victory in the 500-yard freestyle sparked a backlash against transgender athletes in the United States, prompting FINA, the predecessor to World Aquatics, to adopt rules prohibiting transgender females from competing in women’s events if they have undergone “male puberty.”Only those athletes who have never developed secondary sex characteristics, or those who started puberty blockers prior to age 12, are exempt from the ban.World Aquatics has justified the restrictions on transgender participation, saying it based its recommendations on a scientific policy document that concluded that transgender women swimmers retain significant physical advantages over cisgender women, including increased muscle mass and lung size, even when they suppress their testosterone levels. Along with its adoption of the transgender athlete ban, World Aquatics sought to create an “open” category that would be open to individuals, regardless of gender, in which transgender athletes could compete.The category’s first races were scheduled to be held at the World Cup in Berlin last October.

Liberation which is coming to screens later this year through Signature Entertainment in the UK.Starring Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones), Katrine Greis-Rosenthal (A Fortunate Man), Morten Hee Andersen (Herrens veje), Peter Kurth (Babylon Berlin), Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration), Liberation is directed by Anders Walter (I Kill Giants) from a script he co-wrote with Miriam Nørgaard (The War Show). Here’s the official synopsis.This historical drama will make you question how far you’d go to help someone in need. When a folk high school is turned into an internment camp for German refugees, the headmaster couple Jakob and Lis and their children are thrust into an impossible situation. Should the family help the refugees – or stand firm in the Danish resistance against the Germans? Signature Entertainment presents Liberation on Digital Platforms 29th January.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lotte Cultureworks will launch “Holy Night: Demon Hunters,” likely to be one of the biggest Korean movies of the year, at next month’s European Film Market in Berlin. The occult-themed action movie stars Don Lee, the Korean-American superstar who also fronts “The Roundup” comedy-action franchise. The fourth instalment in that series “The Roundup: Punishment” will have its world premiere in the Berlin festival’s Berlinale Special section, with Lee expected to be in attendance, giving Lotte some additional momentum with the new title launch.

The Strangers’ Case from American filmmaker Brandt Andersen and starring French actor Omar Sy will make its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. 

Alex Ritman U.K.-based film production and distribution company Sovereign is expanding across the Atlantic with the launch of a distribution arm in the U.S. With a plan to release two to three titles a year theatrically and across VOD platforms, the first film slated for release from the new entity is Laurent Nègre’s World War II thriller “A Forgotten Man,” which Sovereign also produced. Set in 1945 after the surrender of Nazi Germany, the story follows the Swiss ambassador (played by Michael Neuenschwander) after he leaves Berlin, but finds himself haunted by his past.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Chime,” a mid-length movie by leading Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi, is among three late additions to the Berlin Film Festival’s Berlinale Special section. The two others are “August My Heaven,” another mid-length picture form Japan, directed by Kudo Riho, and “The Strangers’ Case,” a full-length feature directed by Brandt Andersen which will play as a Berlinale Special Gala presentation. In “Chime” Tashiro, a student at a culinary school, hears voices in his head.

AIR have announced new UK and European tour dates for their ‘Moon Safari’ anniversary tour, and a new deluxe reissue of the album.The classic album celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and recently announced ‘One Night Only’ tour dates where they will play the album in its entirety for the first time.Now, they have confirmed that a deluxe reissue of the album will arrive on March 8 and feature a Spatial Dolby Atmos audio version of the original album and a series of rare and unreleased tracks.Also included in the reissue will be the 1998 tour documentary Eating, Sleeping, Waiting & Playing by Mike Mill.New dates have also been added to the ‘Moon Safari’ tour, including a second London date, which will take place at the Royal Albert Hall, and gigs in Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and Vienna.See the full updated list of tour dates below. Tickets for the Royal Albert Hall are on sale on Friday, February 2 at 10am GMT, while Barcelona, Germany and Austria tickets are on sale now.

Julianne Moore will star alongside Tilda Swinton in The Room Next Door, the first English language film from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. 

The list of movies and television shows that Netflix is removing from the streaming service throughout the month of February 2024 have been revealed.

Tribeca Enterprises and Giant Pictures are launching Tribeca Films, a distribution label the partners said aims to support high-quality independent films from the festival circuit. The label is focused on U.S. transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) and advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) with the opportunity for distribution across Giant Pictures’ streaming infrastructure, as well as on the Tribeca Channel.

open letter from the Strike Germany movement, which called for a boycott of state-funded cultural events, claiming that the “use of McCarthyist policies” suppressed “freedom of expression” in relation to displays of solidarity with Palestine and criticism of the Israeli state.The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism cites examples including “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”.Strike Germany claimed that the IHRA definition was “increasingly becoming official state policy, effectively censoring criticism of the state of Israel and anti-Zionist perspectives from the German cultural sphere, furthering a dangerous false equivalency that ultimately harms the fight against anti-Semitism”.A post shared by STRIKE GERMANY (@strikegermany)As of Monday (January 22), however, the clause has been dropped. “I must take the legal and critical voices that saw this clause as a restriction on the freedom of art seriously,” said Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, in a statement (via The Art Newspaper).

A great movie is usually filled with wonderful writing, beautiful cinematography, and incredible performances. But to really rise above and become something special, a film must have a ton of emotion and heart.

George FitzGerald has released his new noughties house-inspired single ‘Gleams’ – listen to it below.The London electronic musician’s new song follows the release of his 2023 EP ‘Not As I’, and marks his first new track of 2024.‘Gleams’ was written last summer while travelling around Germany and France, during which FitzGerald was looking for inspiration in European music of the 2000s.“I was thinking back to the continental house records that I loved so much in the 00s, and the hours spent in record shops in Paris and Berlin discovering them,” he said in a press statement. “This is my take on those memories.”Listen to ‘Gleams’ below.In a post on X (formerly Twitter) this week, the musician wrote that the song was “an idea started on fast trains to Paris and Toulouse and finished in the studio in Berlin.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Totem Films, the Paris-based sales and production company known for arthouse breakouts such as “Compartment No. 6” and “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” has boarded sales on “My Favourite Cake” by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. The Iranian writing-directing duo’s latest feature was just announced in competition at the upcoming Berlinale.

Wave to Earth have announced the Asia and Europe legs of their upcoming 2024 ‘flaws and all’ world tour.Today (January 24), Wave to Earth revealed the the first 13 dates of their brand-new 2024 ‘flaws and all’ world tour. It will kick off in Asia on March 18 with a concert in Hong Kong, before the band head to Taipei and Tokyo in the same week.Thereafter, the trio will bring their 2024 ‘flaws and all’ world tour to Europe, starting with a show in Milan, Italy on March 28.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Chinese filmmaker Lin Jianjie‘s debut feature “Brief History of a Family,” which is being sold by Films Boutique, has debuted its trailer (below), following its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival. The film, which will make its European premiere in the Panorama program of the Berlin Film Festival, was received warmly by Variety critic Carlos Aguilar. In the review, Aguilar says the suspenseful drama was “elevated by its consistent visual inventiveness.” He adds that although at first it seems to be the story of a “cunning infiltrator wreaking havoc in an unsuspecting household,” it then “reveals itself as a tale of wish fulfillment for everyone involved.” Aguilar says that it is this approach which “turns Lin’s debut into an engrossing brain-tickler.” The drama is put in motion by an incident at the high school attended by Wei, an outgoing only son from a middle-class family, and Shuo, his quiet, perceptive classmate.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Veteran Italian film executive Claudio Rapino, prominent producer Andrea Iervolino and entrepreneur Pietro Peligra have teamed to form film and TV distribution and development company Maestro Distribution, which will launch from the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin. Rapino (pictured left), a former head of acquisitions and sales at top Italian companies including Leone Film Group, Notorious Pictures and Koch Media Italia, will head Maestro, which plans to buy and theatrically distribute up to 10 international feature films a year.