News

The producer of Croatia’s Oscar contender claims the film is getting shortchanged by Croatian officials because its themes, including the oppression of homosexuals by the former communist regime in Yugoslavia, are not to the government’s liking.

Ivona Juka’s Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day was the unanimous pick of Croatia’s 12 film professional associations to represent the country in the Oscar race for best international feature. But the promotional funding provided by the Croatian Audiovisual Center to market the movie to Academy voters is far less than that for Croatia’s Oscar contender from last year.

Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day received 69,550 euro ($73,250) in promotional funding, less than half the budget granted to Dubravka Turić’s Traces last year (the film was not nominated). More egregiously, Nebojsa Slijepcević’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, an Oscar contender for best life action short film, received more than twice that amount,...

It looks like Sex Education star Asa Butterfield isn't quite done with Netflix just yet, seeing as though he's set to star in an upcoming Netflix thriller series titled Out of the Dust. More on his casting and the show below.

Butterfield is best known for starring in the lead role of Otis Milburn in the Netflix teen series Sex Education. He also had roles in the movies The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Then Came You, Your Christmas or Mine?, All Fun and Games and Your Christmas or Mine 2. His next project, other than Out of the Dust, is an upcoming animated sci-fi film called Rogue Trooper. Besides Sex Education, he has starred in one other Netflix project, the horror-thriller film Choose or Die.

Now that it's been announced that he'll be in Out of the Dust, this marks his second Netflix series and his third Netflix project overall.

An Ohio woman was scammed out of around $122,000 by someone pretending to be former Journey frontman Steve Perry, according to Wkyc in Cleveland.

The unnamed 75-year-old victim took her story to the Westlake Police Department last month, claiming she was first contacted by someone pretending to be Perry on Facebook in January. According to the cops, the fake Perry told the woman he had “business opportunity for investment” and that he “needed a woman in his life.”

Over the next few months, as the scammer corresponded with the woman over text and WhatsApp,...

Earlier this month, Trev Lukather and Nic Collins’ new band the Effect released their version of Journey’s 1986 deep cut “It Could Have Been You” — featuring new vocals by Steve Perry. When Rolling Stone hopped on Zoom to hear how the song came together, Perry told us that he has other projects in the works.

“I just signed with a new label,” Perry says. “I’m very excited about it, and I’ll have an opportunity very soon to work with these very, very musically creative people. I’ll probably...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Suits star Patrick J. Adams, Connor Swindells (Sex Education, Sas Rogue Heroes), Merritt Wever (Unbelievable, Godless) and Eddie Marsan (Ridley Road, The Pact) are part of the the cast of the upcoming six-episode series Lockerbie, about the December 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103, for the BBC and Netflix.

Further castmembers unveiled Tuesday include Peter Mullan (Ozark, Payback), Tony Curran (Mary & George, Mayflies), Lauren Lyle (Karen Pirie, Vigil), Andrew Rothney (The Undeclared War, Traces), Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey, Guilt), Parker Sawyers (Spy/Master, P-Valley), James Harkness (The Sixth Commandment, The Victim), Khalid Laith (Vigil, Cobra) and Amanda Drew (The Gold, Wolf).

The BBC and Netflix didn’t detail what roles each castmember will play, but said that filming on the show, described as a “factual drama” made by ITV Studios banner World Productions, has begun in Scotland.

“The six-part series is based on the real events surrounding the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the joint Scottish-u.

With the 2024 Oscars shortlists for 10 categories arriving in late December, one key element to look out for is the international contenders with the legs to make it into categories past Best International Feature Film. This time last year, Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” established itself as a possible Best Picture nominee with multiple craft mentions, and by the March ceremony, the Edward Berger film collected the majority of Academy Awards given to below-the-line artisans.

This year, lightning may strike twice, as established Hollywood filmmaker J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow” (Netflix), Spain’s official submission for Best International Feature Film, landed on four shortlists. A last-minute premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the moving retelling of the harrowing story of how the Uruguayan rugby team survived a plane crash in the Andes in 1972 has been building momentum as a must-watch among voters this holiday season.

Still...

First titles include Oscar entries for Croatia, Switzerland and India.

Screen International is hosting a series of online FYC screenings focused on the 2023-24 awards campaign.

Sign up for the screenings below

For a fourth year, Screen is partnering with Archipel Market, a film market platform powered by Cascade8, enabling industry professionals to interact and replicate film market activities online, all year round.

Find out more about the titles:

Traces – Croatia (Dubravka Turic)

Traces premiered at Warsaw and secured three technical prizes at Pula Film Festival. It marks the feature directorial debut of Dubravka Turic, whose short Cherries played Cannes...

The official Oscar selection from Croatia, “Traces” is an elegant, mood-suffused drama about an anthropologist named Ana (Marija Skaricic) who is grappling with loneliness, loss and an uncertain future.

“The ideas of vanishing and pain and changes in our lives, these are things I think about,” said the film’s director, writer and editor Dubravka Turić during a virtual conversation for TheWrap’s 2023-24 International Film Screening Series. After directing several award-winning short films, Turić is now in the awards conversation with her feature debut.

While foremost a film about this one woman’s journey, “Traces” also offers fascinating glimpses into the an ancient burial ritual that the character is researching. Namely “Mirila,” the word for measuring, a practice in which exposed stones in a burial area would mark the length of a deceased person’s body, and therefore leave a sign — a trace — of the life that had been lived.

Kyiv-based Kovalenko already has two films playing at IDFA film, ’Girl Away From Home’ and ’We Will Not Fade Away’

Ukrainian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, whose new film Girl Away From Home (co-directed with Oscar nominated Simon Lereng Wilmont) world premieres at IDFA this week, has revealed further details of her two new projects.

Kovalenko is already at work on what promises to be a harrowing film about Ukrainian women who survived captivity, torture and sexual violence at the hands of Russians from 2014 onward.

“It is a very heavy topic. There are six women…it’s a psychological multi-portrait. All the...

Oscar voters in the Best International Feature Film category have received their group assignments for this year’s initial round of voting, with 89 films included on the seven lists that the Academy has sent to members.

The lists, which were obtained by TheWrap, include presumed favorites “The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom), “The Taste of Things” (France), “The Promised Land” (Denmark) and “Perfect Days” (Japan), along with a number of documentaries, among them Estonia’s “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Brazil’s “Pictures of Ghosts” and Ukraine’s “20 Days in Mariupol.”

The 89 films are four short of the record of 93 qualifying films in the category. The list of group assignments does not make up the Academy’s official list of eligible films; it’s possible that assigned films might still fail to qualify before first-round voting begins on Dec. 18. For the most part, though, films that are included in the group...

Exclusive: Benjamin Zephaniah’s memoir Life and Rhymes is being developed into a TV series by Baby Cow and Timewasters creator Daniel Lawrence Taylor.

The project forms part of a funded development slate from Steve Coogan’s indie, unveiled by CEO Sarah Monteith to Deadline earlier this week, which also features shows about Margaret Thatcher and forensic scientist Patricia Wiltshire.

The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah tells the story of the celebrated poet, artist, activist and Peaky Blinders actor who was born into poverty and produced radical poetry that led him to perform in every continent of the world, meeting the likes of Nelson Mandela and The Wailers along the way.

Sarah Monteith. Image: Baby Cow

BAFTA-winning Timewasters creator Lawrence Taylor is developing with Zephaniah on the show that is in late-stage development with a yet-to-be-revealed UK broadcaster.

Having been elevated to CEO two years ago, Monteith said Life...

Coming Next from Spain, a showcase of five series, unspooled at Series Mania on March 21 just after a Spanish series, “Wrong Side of the Tracks” from Mediaset España and Alea Media, had scored 149.6 million watching hours in three weeks on Netflix for Seasons 1 and 2.

That platform connection and power of Spanish series threaded most of the series and much of the commentary at Tuesday’s Next from Spain, supported by Audiiovisual from Spain.

At least in terms of titles now ready to hit the market, there’s little sign as yet of platform pullback in Spain. Rather, it remains a ground zero in the streamer wars.

2023 will see the release of 70 new Spanish scripted series and 27 returning seasons of titles such as “Elite” “Rapa” “30 Coins” and “Veneno,” presenter Irene Jiménez, at Audiovisual 451, told a Next From Spain audience.

Of these new titles, 36% will be produced by linear TV broadcasters,...

Luther’s back. Being banged up at the end of Series 5 didn’t stop that growly genius from taking on a new case and a new villain in Bond-inspired Netflix movie The Fallen Sun. And, since most of his former colleagues were spectacularly killed in the line of duty, the man’s being joined by a fresh cast.

Dermot Crowley returns as John Luther’s former boss Dsu Martin Schenk, who’s joined by Cynthia Erivo as Luther’s replacement on the team, and far from his biggest fan. Going toe-to-toe with Idris Elba’s John will be Andy Serkis as surveillance tech billionaire David Robey, possibly the detective’s darkest foe yet.

And what of Ruth Wilson’s Alice, last seen taking a short drop off a tall tower? She’s not listed among the cast this time, but there’s no saying that wily brainbox won’t find...

There’s something for everyone this month on Netflix, including the streamer’s first-ever live-streamed global event: Chris Rock’s comedy special “Selective Outrage.”

The last time the comedian was on a stage of this scale, he was slapped in the face by Will Smith. You’ll have to tune in at 7 pm Pm Pt/10 pm Et on Saturday, March 4 to find out if he addresses the Oscars incident!

On the drama front, the second half of “You” Season 4, starring Penn Badgley, returns March 9. Fans of political intrigue will want to tune into “The Night Agent.” Former child star Gabriel Basso stars as a vigilant FBI agent who answers a call that plunges him into a deadly conspiracy involving a mole at the White House. Idris Elbra returns as disgraced London detective John Luther in “Luther: The Fallen Son” on March 10. And of course, we can’t forget the steamy series “Sex/Life,...

George Harrison would have turned 80 years old today. Though he died over two decades ago, his work continues to inspire people all across the globe.

Just this week, Yusuf, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, covered “Here Comes the Sun” and signed with Harrison’s label, Dark Horse Records. “While most of my generation were just into the music, I was a bit like George, where music became the key to something much higher,” he said. “I’m happy to sing one of his songs, especially as it represents the returning...

Vera really likes to keep us waiting. Series 11 of this beloved British detective series began broadcasting back in summer 2021, and after four episodes were released between then and January 2022, there’s been a year-long unexplained wait for the last two feature-length episodes of the series, which finally began airing on ITV1 on Sunday 15th January.

But like buses, you wait for one series of Vera and two arrive at once, as straight after Series 11 finishes we’ll be getting four more weekly episodes making up Series 12 as well, starting on 29th January.

Not only that, there’s another Vera instalment, The Rising Tide, on the way later this year, based on Ann Cleeves’s latest Vera novel of the same name.

So what can we expect from the upcoming episodes of Vera? More gruesome murders, of course, and more stunning Northumberland scenery, but there’s also going to be more...

To be a well-paid anthropologist living in a luxurious Austrohungarian apartment in the center of Zagreb, researching and writing a book on old Slavic traditions - such is the fate of disillusioned Ana (Marija Škaričić), the protagonist of writer/director Dubravka Turić's enigmatic-to-a-fault debut drama Traces. While working on a book, academically accomplished but spiritually unfulfilled, Ana starts noticing symbols and traces that may or may not relate to her life. Cinematographer Damjan Radovanović's carefully composed wide shots convey a feeling that everyday life is filled with meaningful patterns. Unfortunately, narratively and thematically Traces soon delves into the overly familiar territory of European art house cinema - bourgeoise existential crisis. Ana's father (Mate Gulin) is sick and soon dies, an event that pushes her even deeper into a crisis of meaning.

Corrosive modernity looms large over Ana and the world she inhabits. She frequently listens to an audiobook recording of Ts Elliot's.

Plenty of us have experienced helicopter parenting, but how many have had their dad’s film premiere hovering over their own?

First-time feature director Mary Nighy, for one. On Sept. 11, she’ll attend the Toronto Gala world premiere of her psychological thriller “Alice, Darling” just hours after her actor dad Bill Nighy’s drama “Living” has its Canadian debut that afternoon.

“He was joking that I’ve got the ‘cool’ time slot — we were laughing about that,” she says. “‘Living’ is beautiful, and I’m so proud of his work. He watched ‘Alice’ and is really excited for me. I think it will be lovely to do this together.”

But that’s where the synergy ends. Nighy’s parentage (her mom is actress Diana Quick) had nothing to do with Lionsgate financing “Alice” at the script stage. Their confidence stemmed from her early shorts, episodes of the U.K. crime...

Shetland’s Series 7 return is a bittersweet one for fans of the Scottish BBC crime drama. The six-episode run will be actor Douglas Henshall’s last in the lead role of Di Jimmy Perez. Henshall’s departure though, doesn’t mean the end for Shetland, which has been renewed for an eighth series due to arrive in 2023. A new, as-yet-unannounced, lead actor will be joining the returning cast for that run.

Series 7, which starts on BBC One on Wednesday the 10th of August at 9pm, promises to tie up Perez’s loose ends and follow up on last series’ will-they-won’t-they frisson with Irish carer Meg. Before Perez says his final goodbye to the evidence board though, there’s a missing person case to solve, and a host of new characters to interrogate. Here’s who he’ll be meeting…

Shauna Macdonald as Rachel Cairns

Rachel Cairns is the mother of Connor and Abbey,...

Jim Seals, half of the soft-rock troubadours Seals and Crofts, died Monday at the age of 80. No cause of death was announced, but Seals’ cousin Brady Seals, a country singer, confirmed the singer’s death on Facebook.

“I just learned that James ‘Jimmy’ Seals has passed,” Brady Seals wrote. “My heart just breaks for his wife Ruby and their children. Please keep them in your prayers. What an incredible legacy he leaves behind.”

When the soft-rock boom hit pop music in the early Seventies, Seals and Crofts, which also included...

Steps down just over 18 months after replacing Nicola Shindler.

Sarah Doole has stepped down as chief executive of It’s A Sin producer Red Production Company after just over 18 months.

Doole exited StudioCanal-backed Red this month, having taken over in October 2020, following the departure of founder and long-term chief Nicola Shindler.

Doole was previously Fremantle’s global drama director.

During her tenure at Red, Doole oversaw a company which delivered Netflix’s Harlan Coben mystery drama adaptation Stay Close, ITV thriller No Return and the second series of Alibi’s thriller Traces - though these projects were won and helmed by Shindler.

The annual BAFTA film awards will stream exclusively on BritBox, the British programming focused subscription streaming service from BBC Studios and ITV, in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

The 75th Ee British Academy Film Awards will stream at the same time as it is broadcast on the BBC in the U.K. on March 13 from London’s Royal Albert Hall. “Pitch Perfect” star Rebel Wilson will host this year’s award ceremony.

BritBox and BAFTA had previously partnered in 2019 to stream the Britannia Awards live to North American audiences.

“Dune” and “The Power of the Dog” lead the BAFTA nominations this year with 11 and eight nods respectively.

Emily Powers, head of BritBox North America, said: “BAFTA has been incredible to work with in the past. Being the home to the largest collection of British entertainment, we only thought it natural to bring the biggest awards show to our BritBox viewers.

UK’s Alibi Acquires ‘Pretty Hard Cases’

UKTV channel Alibi has secured UK rights to Canadian drama Pretty Hard Cases starring Orange Is The New Black’s Adrienne C. Moore. The 10-parter follows two vastly different female detectives who are at the top of their respective games. It is produced by Cameron Pictures in association with CBC and Universal Studios, with Charlie Charalambous acquiring for UKTV. Alibi hosts an array of international and UK drama including Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Traces and We Hunt Together.

Screen Manchester Launches Database

UK screen organisation Screen Manchester is building a crew and facilities database to allow local productions to gain easy access to the talent pool. Former BBC and ITV Studios producer Elli Metcalfe is leading the initiative, charged with building an essential resource that will give producers in the North West of England access to the best crew and facilities. UK...

Leave No Traces Venice, day nine. There’s something almost ineffably melancholic about watching a festival empty out. As I type these words, twenty-four hours or so before the awards will be announced, the press room I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time in, is now home to a smattering of survivors. The end is nigh, people are flocking home, and the jury led by Bong Joon-ho is busy picking this year’s winners somewhere on the island. It’s been a strange, uneven ride, with a lineup so front-loaded it was perhaps only natural that the fest’s second week wouldn’t live up to the sheen of the first few days. But the last stretch was still home to some belated surprises, among them, Jan P. Matuszyński’s Leave No Traces. A follow-up to his 2016 Locarno prizewinning The Last Family, Matuszyński’s second feature is based on...

Exclusive: Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick is reteaming with Lionsgate for the psychological thriller Alice, Darling, which is now in production in Canada.

Kendrick previously starred for Lionsgate in the Paul Feig dark comedy hit A Simple Favor which grossed close to $100M WW.

The pic reps the feature directorial debut of Mary Nighy and follows Alice (Kendrick) who is behaving strangely, keeping secrets about her mercurial boyfriend (Charlie Carrick) from her two best friends (Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn). When the three friends take a girl’s trip out of town, all secrets are revealed when a local girl goes missing and Alice’s boyfriend arrives unannounced. Alanna Francis wrote the screenplay which is produced by Katie Bird Nolan, Lindsay Tapscott, Christina Piovesan, and Noah Segal, and executive produced by Kendrick and Sam Tipper-Hale.

Alice, Darling is a Babe Nation Films, Elevation Pictures, and Castelletto Films production. The film is...

Warning: contains spoilers for the Line of Duty series six finale.

“The genuine answer is we don’t know,” Line of Duty actor Martin Compston told the Shrine of Duty podcast last week about whether or not the BBC One crime drama will return. “But that’s nothing different for us. Jed always takes his time.” As reported by Radio Times, Compston explained, “After a series, [creator Jed Mercurio] always takes a couple of months… I think he likes to take the emotion out of it and sit down and look at all that.”

To judge by series six’s mammoth audience numbers, a seventh series would seem like a no-brainer, and yet there’s still no commission announcement.

In previous years, the BBC commissioned two Line of Duty series at a time. After the hit second run featuring Keeley Hawes as Lindsay Denton, a third and fourth series were ordered.

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. Eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and will be displayed next to revision date.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective

Draft>>>Pre Season>>>Regular Season>>>Post Season

2021 Oscars Predictions:

Best Animated Short Film

Updated: Feb. 25, 2021

Awards Prediction Commentary: The Academy announced the shortlist for the animated short contenders, and they produced an interesting crop of selections. Netflix is placing all their power and influence behind the emotional “If Anything Happens I Love You.

Two Pixar shorts, including one in which a young man struggles to tell his parents that he is gay, have made the shortlist in the Oscars Best Animated Feature category, the Academy announced on Tuesday.

“Out,” by Steven Clay Hunter, is the first Disney or Pixar movie to feature a gay main character. It made the shortlist along with another film from Pixar, Madeline Sharafian’s “Burrow.” Three other Pixar films — “Float,” “Loop” and “Wind” — were submitted but did not make the list. The company has won two of the last four Oscars in the category.

Other shortlisted films in the animated category include DreamWorks Animation’s “To Gerard”; “The Snail and the Whale,” from the filmmakers behind the 2010 nominee “The Gruffalo”; Netflix’s “If Anything Happens I Love You,” about the aftermath of a school shooting; and a number of films from around the world, including Iceland’s “Yes-People,...

In early 2020, Journey frontman Arnel Pineda flew back to his native Manila after playing a corporate gig in Texas. He was gearing up for a big year in which Journey would cut their first new record since 2011’s Eclipse and play amphitheaters all over North America with the Pretenders.

The pandemic changed all that and he’s been in Manila ever since, but Journey still found a way to work remotely on the record. It’s their first full-length since parting ways with drummer Steve Smith and bassist Ross Valory.

UK producer is behind Netflix drama series ‘The Stranger’ and ‘Safe’.

UK drama producer Nicola Shindler has launched a new production company named Quay Street Productions, backed by ITV Studios.

The drama producer, known for Netflix’s The Stranger and the BBC’s Happy Valley, previously spent more than 20 years at Red Production Company and is an executive producer on Nora Fingscheidt’s upcoming, untitled feature in which Sandra Bullock plays an ex-con.

Quay Street aims to produce premium drama for the UK and international market, with Shindler targeting projects “across the spectrum” of the scripted landscape and for a range of broadcasters and platforms.

Veteran British drama producer Nicola Shindler has launched a new scripted venture in Quay Street Productions, backed by ITV Studios.

Based in central Manchester, the outfit will focus on working with new writing talent and producing premium drama for the U.K. and international market. Quay Street Productions is named after the famous Manchester street where Granada Television was based and where Shindler spent a part of her early career. International distribution for the company’s slate will be handled by ITV Studios.

Shindler launched her career at Granada as a script editor on Robbie Coltrane drama “Cracker.” After winning her first BAFTA Award as a producer on ITV drama “Hillsborough,” Shindler launched Red in 1998, producing cult hit “Queer As Folk” and BBC’s “Clocking Off.” In 2019, Shindler was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) and took home one of BAFTA’s highest honours, the Special Award, for her services to British Broadcasting.

Steve Perry believes that any great song should be able to withstand a campfire test. “You take any song and sit near a campfire with an acoustic guitar and sing it, the song should be able to survive,” says the former Journey frontman. “It should work just as a melody with lyrics. If the vocal is strong enough to stand on its own, you’ll know it right away.”

About six months ago, Perry began thinking that the songs from his 2018 comeback LP Traces could survive such a test. He...

On August 26th, 1973, Joni Mitchell arrived at Studio Instrument Rentals in Los Angeles, where Neil Young and his band the Santa Monica Flyers were recording the boozy Tonight’s the Night. Joined by guitarists Ben Keith and Nils Lofgren, drummer Ralph Molina, and bassist Billy Talbot, Mitchell and Young tore through “Raised on Robbery,” soon to be released on her album Court and Spark.

If the Tonight’s the Night sessions were indeed a “drunken Irish wake,” as Talbot later recalled, this take on “Raised on Robbery” was the eulogy.

Steve Perry has kept a low public profile ever since he shared a lockdown rendition of the 1963 Beach Boys classic “In My Room” in April, but he tells Rolling Stone that since that time, he’s been busy creating new music. “I have a studio and I’m always writing and always recording stuff,” he says. “I have lots of music, so much stuff.”

First up is an acoustic version of his 2018 comeback LP Traces that he plans to release on December 4th. “It’s eight songs from the Traces...

Principal photography started this week in Naples on Michele Placido’s fourteenth film as a director, Caravaggio’s Shadow. The film will focus on the intricate, adventurous and tumultuous life of the great Italian painter from the 1600s. Starring are Riccardo Scamarcio as Caravaggio, Louis Garrel as the mysterious Shadow, Isabelle Huppert as the Marquise Costanza Colonna and Micaela Ramazzotti as ‘Lena’. The Goldenart production, made with Rai Cinema, is an Italian-French co-production between Charlot, Le Pacte and Mact Production, in co-operation with the Campania Film Commission and Qmi. Wild Bunch handles sales.

UK distributor Curzon has picked up well-received Italian drama Il Mio Corpo (pictured), which played as part of the Acid program at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Michele Pennetta’s docu-drama follows two young men living separate but equally tough hardscrabble lives on the margins of Sicilian society. The film is scheduled for release in the...

Neil Young has announced the complete track list for his long-awaited Archives Volume 2 box set along with a release date of November 20th. Spread chronologically across 10 discs, it begins with the songs he recorded shortly after the release of Harvest in 1972 and goes all the way to his March 1976 Asian/European tour with Crazy Horse.

The package has 12 songs that have never been released before this in any format as well as 50 previously unreleased versions of songs. The exact details of the release have yet to be announced, but a...

Roster of participants includes 44 female producers out of 73 in total.

The latest projects from producers of French Exit and The Babadook are among the roster at the virtual 15th Ontario Creates International Financing Forum (iff) set to run from September 13-14.

The co-financing and co-production market takes place in association with Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and serves international and Canadian producers developing mostly English-language projects.

The two-day schedule includes networking opportunities for producers with international sales agents, financiers, distributors, agents, and executive producers, as well as an exclusive state-of-the-industry panel discussion, producer drop-in sessions, and access to a TIFF case study on co-productions.

Roster of participants includes 44 female producers out of 73 in total.

The latest projects from producers of French Exit and The Babadook are among the roster at the virtual 15th Ontario Creates International Financing Forum (iff) set to run from September 13-14.

The co-financing and co-production market takes place in association with Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and serves international and Canadian producers developing mostly English-language projects.

The two-day schedule includes networking opportunities for producers with international sales agents, financiers, distributors, agents, and executive producers, as well as an exclusive state-of-the-industry panel discussion, producer drop-in sessions, and access to a TIFF case study on co-productions.

Roster of participants includes 44 female producers out of 73 in total.

The latest projects from producers of French Exit and The Babadook are among the roster at the virtual 15th Ontario Creates International Financing Forum (iff) set to run from September 13-14.

The co-financing and co-production market takes place in association with Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and serves international and Canadian producers developing mostly English-language projects.

The two-day schedule includes networking opportunities for producers with international sales agents, financiers, distributors, agents, and executive producers, as well as an exclusive state-of-the-industry panel discussion, producer drop-in sessions, and access to a TIFF case study on co-productions.

UKTV’s Alibi has greenlit Barcelona-set drama The Diplomat from Bodyguard producer World Productions and Cobra writer Ben Richards.

It marks the third original drama from the broadcaster following We Hunt Together, which was recently picked up by Showtime, and Red Production Company’s Traces.

The six-part series, which is described as Spooks meets The Good Wife, follows Laura Simmonds and her Barcelona Consul colleague and friend Alba Ortiz as they fight to protect British nationals who find themselves in trouble in the Catalan city. Mixing the roles of lawyer, counsellor and cop, Laura and Alba’s diplomatic skills are stretched to the limit by the stream of cases that walk through the Consul’s doors.

The series opens on the unexplained death of a young British barman working around Barcelona’s notorious marina. While Laura supports the boy’s angry father, neither the Spanish police nor the Foreign Office...

Latest round will support 20 fiction, one animation, and five documentary films.

New projects from Danish director Niels Arden Oplev and Portugal’s Miguel Gomes are among the 26 selected in the latest Eurimages co-production support funding round.

The 26 films have been awarded a total of €6.1m (£5.5m). 52% are directed by women, with those projects receiving €2.5m (£2.3m) – 41% of the total funding.

Arden Oplev’s new film Rose will receive €280,000, and is a co-production between Norway and his native Denmark. Oplev’s previous features include 2009’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and last year’s Daniel.

Also included is Gomes’ Savagery,...

British broadcast network UKTV claimed a 4% rise in viewing last year, fueled by a spate of original programming and rapid growth for its on-demand service UKTV Play.

The 4% figure refers to an increase in “Share of Commercial Impacts,” a metric broadcasters employ to quantify viewing in the digital era for their advertisers, where one “impact” is one advert viewed by one person once.

UKTV’s slate of originals accounted for seven of its top 10 shows last year. On-demand service UKTV Play was the broadcaster’s fastest-growing brand, with year-on-year views up 43%, and more than three million users registered by year’s end. The company also expanded commercial revenue opportunities with UKTV Ventures, a multi-million-pound airtime for equity investment fund, which reached its first full year of operations in 2019.

The UKTV channels group was originally a joint venture between Scripps and BBC Studios, the British pubcaster’s commercial arm. After Discovery...

Ray Stevenson, Sai Bennett, Andrew Buchan and Peter Egan have joined the cast of Starz’s The Spanish Princess, as production begins on the final eight episodes of the limited series. Shooting takes place on location and in The Bottle Yard Studios, Bristol, UK.

They join returning leads Charlotte Hope and Ruairi O’Connor reprising their roles as the ruling couple Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. Other key cast also returning are Stephanie Levi-John, Georgie Henley and Laura Carmichael.

Stevenson will play Meg’s boorish husband, King James IV of Scotland. Bennett portrays Henry and Meg’s sister Princess Mary, now of age to forge a political alliance for the Tudors through her own marriage. Buchan joins as the upwardly mobile Sir Thomas More and Egan will play Tudor stalwart General Howard.