Berlin: Celebs Rumors

The news of the death of the last USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Tuesday got little attention outside of the former Soviet Bloc. Thirty three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has moved on. But for a generation of us growing behind the Iron Curtain, he changed the course of our lives and allowed us to pursue careers we never thought possible.

Chrishell Stause, Jason Oppenheim said he didn't think he'd be ready for another relationship for at least another two to three years. So, you can imagine his surprise when he fell hard for Marie-Lou Nurk, while on vacation, no less.The president and founder of The Oppenheim Group opened up to  and revealed how he and the Paris-based model met earlier this year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor BMG has posted the best-ever half-year results in its 14-year history, with revenues up 25% year over year, according to an announcement from the Berlin-based music company and its parent, Bertelsmann. According to the report, revenue for the period that ended June 30 was up 25% to approximately $405.7 million and operating EBITDA increased 46% to $79.8 million. And even as the catalog market is cooling elsewhere due to high prices and interest rates, its spending on catalog acquisitions tripled over the same period last year as part of Bertelsmann’s Boost program. The company’s revenue for the half year was also diversified, with 60% from publishing, and 40% from recordings.

Cinesite has continued to bolster its international footprint with the purchase of a majority stake in the Balkans-based visual effects studio FX3X.

Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at age 91, according to Russian news agencies. His cause of death was not immediately released, but Gorbachev's office had said earlier that he was undergoing treatment at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, according to The Associated Press.Gorbachev served as the eighth and final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who ushered in an era of reform in the Soviet Union and played a role in ending the Cold War with the West, has died, Russian state media and other outlets reported on Tuesday.

The Berlin Film Festival has appointed Los Angeles-based, US industry expert Jacqueline Lyanga as a US delegate as it expands its international network and seeks to consolidate contacts with the US film industry and filmmakers.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Hilary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton’s HiddenLight Productions is co-producing a new feature documentary with the team behind Sundance 2019 title “Gaza.” “In the Shadow of Beirut” is a cinematic portrait of modern-day Lebanon as seen through the eyes of four families living in the impoverished Sabra and Shatila neighbourhoods of the city, the scene of an infamous massacre in 1982. The film will be executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Siobhan Sinnerton for HiddenLight. The doc is filmed over four years with unique access to the families within these largely restricted areas and co-directed by Stephen Gerard Kelly, in his debut, and Garry Keane (“Gaza,” 2019). Kelly built up his relationship with the families over a six-year period.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Steve James’ “A Compassionate Spy” and Evgeny Afineevsky’s “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” are among 11 documentaries making their world premieres at the Venice Film Festival this year, with Poitras’ competition title vying for a Golden Lion — a rare feat for a doc at a major international film festival. The growing number of high-profile non-fiction films in and out of competition at Venice suggests that major European film festivals have finally accepted documentaries as viable, cinematic art.While docs at the Toronto International Film Festival and major U.S. fests, including Sundance, Telluride and South by Southwest, have long been the belles of the ball, the most prominent international festivals, including Venice, Cannes and Berlin, have been slow to embrace non-fiction content, especially in competition.  

EXCLUSIVE: Award-winning Senegalese filmmaker Alice Diop (Saint Omer) has signed with CAA for representation.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticNazi ghouls have figured in plenty of horror movies, whether preserved (1966’s “The Frozen Dead”), newly bioengineered (1978’s “The Boys from Brazil”) or zombiefied (too many to list). Edging close to that terrain, “Burial” revolves around a corpse — the corpse, as far as WWII’s end was concerned — that does not reanimate or otherwise come “back to life,” but poses a grave threat nonetheless.Not-quite-horror despite its macabre theme and mood, this sophomore directorial feature for Ben Parker is a handsomely produced period thriller that delivers in terms of action and atmospherics, even if his somewhat convoluted story doesn’t maximally pay off. IFC Midnight is releasing the Estonia-shot U.K. production to limited U.S. theaters and on-demand platforms Sept. 2.

Shalini Dore Features News EditorAlia Bhatt, the U.K.-born star of Hindi films, has had a busy year. She toplined and produced dark comedy “Darlings” on Netflix, which according to the streamer, scored the biggest opening for a non-English-language film globally. She also toplines “RRR,” which earned lots of fans in the West when it streamed on Netflix earlier this summer. She kicked off 2022 at the Berlin Film Festival with “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” based on “Mafia Queens of Mumbai,” and just finished shooting Tom Harper’s “Heart of Stone,” co-starring with Gal Gadot. On Sept. 9, Disney is releasing “Brahmāstra: Part One — Shiva” worldwide. The fantasy adventure, in which she stars opposite her husband, Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor, features an Indian cinematic universe, the Astraverse. “It’s the first of its kind; it’s a very brave, big giant step [in] that direction,” she says. “It is inspired deeply by Indian mythology and Indian culture and our scriptures and is basically the essence of India.”

Naman Ramachandran Sony Music and Music Women* Germany (MW*G), the nationwide umbrella organization of all music women and female-identifying and non-binary individuals, have revealed the winners of the Female* Producer Prize. The prize aims to support female producers in Germany who often lack visibility and support in the country. The winners include Novaa, producer, songwriter and Berlin based artist who produces her own tracks as well as for Keke, Fløre, Amanda Tenfjord and LEA; Jenny Gerdts, music producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist; and GOTOPO, Berlin-based Colombian-Venezuelan producer and artist.

Christopher Vourlias Producer Ilya Stewart has launched an independent studio based in Europe that will operate on a global scale, working with international talent and focusing on English-language feature films and television series, Variety can exclusively reveal. Hype Studios is the new venture from Stewart, the formerly Moscow-based producer who in recent years has been a fixture at the Cannes Film Festival, where his collaborations with Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov, including “Petrov’s Flu” and “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” have premiered in competition. Among the co-productions with American and European partners currently on Hype Studios’ slate is Zach Wigon’s “Sanctuary,” starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott, which premieres as a Special Presentation next month at the Toronto International Film Festival and was produced with Rumble Films and Mosaic Films, along with Charades. Also on the slate is Pietro Marcello’s French-language “Scarlet,” produced in partnership with CG Cinéma’s Charles Gillibert, which opened this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and will receive its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival.

Margarethe von Trotta To Receive Lifetime Achievement Honor At The European Film Awards German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th European Film Awards. von Trotta will receive the honor at a ceremony in Reykjavik, Iceland, on December 10 where she will be an honorary guest. Born in Berlin and raised in Düsseldorf, von Trotta started her career as an actress, in theatre and appeared in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff before moving behind the camera in 1978 with The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, her solo debut as a director. In 1981, her film Marianne and Juliane about the “German Sisters” Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin won the Golden Lion in Venice as well as two German Film Awards and an Italian David di Donatello. Previous winners of the European Film Academy’s lifetime achievement award include Agnès Varda and Judi Dench.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentGerman film director, screenwriter, and actor Margarethe von Trotta will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th European Film Awards. Set to take place on Dec.

Altitude has boarded international sales and UK and Irish distribution on Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras’s Nan Goldin bio-pic All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, ahead of its world premiere at Venice and North American debut at Toronto.

EXCLUSIVE: Boutique North American streamer Topic has struck its first ever deal with Israeli powerhouse Yes TV for true crime series Embezzlement.

Charlie Burg is a product of his micro-generation. On his debut LP Infinitely Tall, out today via FADER Label, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter’s crystalline countertenor adopts the inflections of Ezra Koenig, Adam Levine, and several other and soft rock singers who hit their strides in the mid and late aughts.

Eight films battled it out in competition at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, but Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s jury—including French director Lucile Hadžihalilović , Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Serbian actor Milan Marić and Israeli producer Katriel Schory—spread the love quite widely.

Naman Ramachandran Vertigo Releasing has acquired Phyllis Nagy’s “Call Jane,” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, for U.K. and Ireland distribution.The film explores the true story of the Janes, an underground collective of women, who in Chicago during the 1960s, came together to secretly provide nearly 12,000 women and girls with safe and secure abortions.

Brad Pitt caused a sensation when he turned up in one — asymmetrical, black linen, accessorized with a matching jacket and pink shirt — at the Berlin premiere of his film Bullet Train. “We’re all going to die so let’s mess it up,” he said later of his sartorial bombshell. Quite.

Michaela Zee editorThe Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is celebrating 73 years of Black film artistry with the new exhibit titled Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971.Curated by the Academy Museum’s Doris Berger and Rhea Combs of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the first-of-its-kind exhibition features seven galleries exploring Black representation in film, from portraits of icons like Ruby Dee and Nina Mae McKinney to home videos of the Nicholas Brothers and Cab Calloway. “It’s really exciting for us to be able to help expand the conversation around American cinema, essentially, by bringing forward these important contributions by Black filmmakers as well as performers and other artisans and technicians,” Combs tells Variety.  Since 2017, Berger and Combs have been acquiring a vast collection of costumes, scripts, drawings and other historical materials for “Regeneration” by digging through multiple archives at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library and even traveling to Berlin and Paris. The co-curators located myriad never-before-shown pieces, including a sequined evening gown worn by Lena Horne in 1943’s “Stormy Weather” and a copy of the rediscovered 1939 film “Reform School,” which they restored in time for the exhibition.About last night…Lena Horne’s gown from 1943’s “Stormy Weather” at the @AcademyMuseum pic.twitter.com/2Dfbvi9lh3— Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) August 19, 2022Through “Regeneration,” Berger and Combs aim to capture the nuances of Black performance and film creation from the start of the motion picture industry to the rise of the Blaxploitation era of the early 1970s. “I really hope that it creates the opportunity for public dialogue and intergenerational dialogue,” Combs says.

Coldplay have shared the new video for their track ‘Humankind’, which was filmed while on tour in Mexico – you can watch the clip below.The song features on the band’s most recent album ‘Music Of The Spheres’, which arrived back in October.The four-piece are currently on tour in support of the LP, and they have today (August 17) shared a new video for ‘Humankind’ which captures the band on stage.Directed by Stevie Rae Gibbs and James Marcus Haney, the ‘Humankind’ video was shot over the course of Coldplay’s four sold-out shows at Mexico City’s Foro Sol stadium back in April.You can watch Coldplay’s video for ‘Humankind’ below.Coldplay will play the fourth of six sold-out shows at London’s Wembley Stadium tonight, before they head to Glasgow for a pair of dates at Hampden Park on August 23-24. You can find any remaining tickets for Coldplay’s UK tour here.So far during their Wembley run, Coldplay have invited Craig David, H.E.R., Max Martin and Natalie Imbruglia to join them on stage.

“Baywatch” alum Donna D’Errico is one of the latest Hollywood talents to join OnlyFans.

Lou Reed performing ‘Men Of Good Fortune’ has been shared today (August 16) – check it out below.It’s the third preview of the upcoming collection, ‘Words & Music, May 1965’ – a new Lou Reed archive. It’s set for release on August 26 via Light In The Attic on what would have been the late singer-songwriter’s 80th birthday.This version of ‘Men Of Good Fortune’ features different lyrics and music compared to the song of the same title that eventually appeared on Reed’s 1973 album ‘Berlin’.Check it out here:Back in July, Reed‘s earliest known demo of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ was released.The 1965 take of the track was put to tape by the legendary singer-songwriter nearly two years before its release on his former band’s landmark debut album ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’.The rare demo finds Reed accompanying himself on guitar and while structurally it is the same as the album version, it is more than three minutes shorter.That followed on from an early demo of ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, which was shared in June.Elsewhere on the tracklist are previously unreleased demos including ‘Buttercup Song’, ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz’ and ‘Stockpile’.

Ezra Miller is seeking treatment for «complex mental health issues» in the wake of a series of disturbing public allegations against the star. In a statement issued to by Miller's representative on Monday, the actor says, «Having recently gone through a time of intense crisis, I now understand that I am suffering complex mental health issues and have begun ongoing treatment.» The statement continues, «I want to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior. I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.»This marks the first time that the star, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, has publicly commented on the mounting allegations leveled against them in recent months.In June, they were captured on video in Iceland, where Miller was seen yelling at a woman outside a bar, «Do you wanna fight? Is that the deal?» The woman responded by putting her arms up as Miller approached her and appeared to grab her by the neck.

EXCLUSIVE: WME has signed the Emmy-winning husband-and-wife filmmaking team of Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel, as well as their non-scripted production company, Sidestilt Films.

EXCLUSIVE: Through its first-look film deal at Universal Pictures, 87North has set up Mrs. K, a re-imagining of Yuhang Ho’s 2016 Malaysian-Hong Kong cult hit, at the studio.

Joss Stone proudly showed off her baby bump as she performed on stage in Berlin – just weeks ahead of her due date. The musician is currently expecting her second child with partner Cody DaLuz, after suffering a heartbreaking miscarriage in October last year. Performing to fans over the weekend, Joss beamed as she took to the stage in a flattering maxi dress with button detailing.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In one of the first deals struck at Chilean industry forum Sanfic Industria, local indie producers Matias de Bourguignon and Equeco have boarded the Venezuelan drama “I Will Mutate Like a Jungle Animal” (“Mutaré como animal del monte”), the feature debut of rising Venezuelan talent Hector Silva.Lead produced by Berlin-based Venezuelan producer Rodolfo Cova whose credits include Venice Golden Lion winner “From Afar” and Michel Franco’s Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “Las Hijas de Abril,” “I Will Mutate Like a Jungle Animal” is among the 28 titles in the Sanfic Industria Santiago Lab which supports Ibero-American projects in development.De Bourguignon and Equeco join international co-producers Pomme Hurlante Films (France), Artrupe Films (Brazil) and Abismo Cine (Ecuador) who were also drawn to the feature debut of Silva whose award-winning short films have played in prominent film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto and Tribeca. “Hector’s shorts deeply moved me.

EXCLUSIVE: The Ukrainian Institute has lambasted the organizers of a prestigious German filmmaker residency program for inviting Russians and Belarusians to take part as well as Ukrainians, slamming the emergency program for the “perpetuation of both an outdated Soviet perspective and Russia’s colonial logic.”

The Scene 2 Seen podcast is back in a major way!

Kaley Cuoco is surrounded by fans in the Berlin apartment where she’s living as she shoots the movie “Role Play,” in which she plays an assassin. “I’m doing all this crazy stuff, and I’m covered in blood!” she says enthusiastically about the role, as she describes (with considerably less ardor) experiencing the heatwave that’s fried Europe this summer.But being hot is a sidebar conversation with Variety — the main topic is Cuoco’s HBO Max comedic thriller “The Flight Attendant,” for which she was nominated for the second year in a row for lead actress in a comedy.

Shirley Halperin Executive Editor, MusicHitCo Entertainment, the music company launched by Antonio L.A. Reid (pictured at left) and Charles Goldstuck (at right) in 2017, has been sold to Concord, Variety has learned through multiple sources.

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has announced the 29 projects selected for this year’s Asian Project Market (APM), a core strand of the festival’s industry activities, including new works from Thailand’s Aditya Assarat, China’s Wang Qi, Vietnam’s Le Bao and Myanmar’s Maung Sun, whose producer Ma Aeint is currently in prison in Yangon.