Alia Bhatt Talks Teaming With Sanjay Leela Bhansali On “Powerful” Story ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ – Berlin

EXCLUSIVE: Courtney Henggeler (Cobra Kai, Mom) has signed on to star alongside Joel Edgerton, Callum Turner, Jack Mulhern, Sam Strike, Luke Slattery, Thomas Elms, Tom Varey, Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Wil Coban and Hadley Robinson in The Boys in the Boat, director George Clooney’s latest film for MGM, Spyglass Media Group and Smokehouse Pictures.

Naman Ramachandran Iran’s Leila Hatami, Berlin best actress winner for Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “A Separation,” has called for a wider range of Iranian cinema to be represented internationally.“More various films should be shown internationally from Iran because usually as everything is commercial, people choose the films which are more touristic [because] it gives you an aspect of the society,” Hatami told Variety. “What I would like is that the art of Iran would be shown more, because you see facts, events, moods in Iran – but you can see that everywhere. You can see it in the news.” “It’s good to have films about problems of society and such things, but what I appreciate especially is the art of Iranian cinema,” Hatami said.

Many of Hong Sang-soo’s films are structured around a woman’s solitary wanderings. The single ladies played by Kim Min-Hee in “On the Beach at Night Alone” or “The Woman Who Ran,” or Lee Hye-Young in “In Front of Your Face,” are free radicals, moving from encounter to encounter and disrupting the equilibrium of the people they meet, as meandering conversations reveal a friend’s dissatisfaction or a couple’s disagreement.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“The Novelist’s Film,” which Wednesday earned Korean director Hong Sang-soo the Grand Jury Prize in Berlin, has scored multiple rights deals. With Seoul-based Finecut handling the rights sales, the film was licensed to Ama Films for Greece and Cyprus, Mimosa Films for Japan, L’Atalante Cinema for Spain, Arizona Films Distribution for France and to The Cinema Guild for the U.S.Finecut also did European Film Market business with “Contorted,” an unorthodox horror about a family tragedy.

Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. rights to The Novelist’s Film, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner from South Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo, which recently made its world premiere at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. The film is the third Silver Bear winner in as many years from Hong—who won Best Director for The Woman Who Ran in 2020 and Best Screenplay for Introduction in 2021—and will be the 11th of the director’s works released by Cinema Guild in the last seven years.

BERLIN -- The Catalan family drama “Alcarràs” won the Golden Bear award for best movie at the Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday.Director Carla Simón's film was picked from a field of 18 by a seven-member jury under American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.He said the movie was honored “for its extraordinary performances, from the child actors to the actors in their 80s, for the ability to show the tenderness and comedy of family and struggle, and for the betrayal of our connection and dependence on the land around us.”The film depicts a family that spends its summers picking peaches in an orchard in a village in Spain's Catalonia region, but faces new owners who plan to replace the peach trees with solar panels.Meltem Kaptan took the best leading performance honor for the title role in German director Andreas Dresen's “Rabiye Kurnaz vs.

Alissa Simon Film CriticUzbekistan-born Michael Borodin makes a searing feature debut with the Russia-Turkey-Slovenia co-production “Convenience Store,” a story of modern slavery in Moscow, taking places under the noses of thousands of indifferent witnesses. Demonstrating his interest in pressing social issues, Borodin’s Berlinale Panorama selection was inspired by his personal experience as an illegal immigrant to Russia and the 2012 case of the “Golyanovo slaves,” which is now making its way to the European Court of Human Rights.Developed through the Next Step program of Cannes’ Critics’ Week and other co-production markets, the film, like the case of the Golyanovo slaves, centers on citizens of the former Soviet Republics, who are illegal migrants to Moscow and forced to work long hours, unpaid, in 24/7 convenience shops, without being able to leave the premises.

Marta Balaga Shooting mostly in Iceland and Greenland, the team behind Netflix’s upcoming release “Against the Ice” – now shown in Berlin – had to battle punishing weather conditions and freezing cold, as well as star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.“It was quite challenging, working with Nikolaj. Apart from that, it was alright,” joked actor Joe Cole during the press conference. “My character is quite different from me.

Here’s another walking-and-talking film from festival favorite Hong Sang-soo, encapsulating a sliver of Korean life with his customary elusive delicacy. Shot largely in creamy black and white, Berlin competition entry The Novelist’s Film centers on the meeting between two artists who, for different reasons, have simply stopped working.

Holly Jones By way of improvisation, relying heavily on events to naturally develop, Argentine filmmaker Gastón Solnicki presents a meandering ode to the city of Vienna, its customs, cultures, facades, and the near-sacrilege of enacting a smoking ban in cafes city-wide.In, “A Little Love Package,” two main protagonists become the vehicles through which the minutiae of everyday life in Vienna unfolds. Experimental aural and visual cues present themselves as Angeliki (Angeliki Papoulia) and Carmen (Carmen Chaplin) seek the perfect apartment in a city suspended in time.Produced by Little Magnet Films, out of Austria, and Solnicki’s Argentine production company, Filmy Wiktora, “A Little Love Package” is the fifth cinematic feature for Solnicki, whose entire catalog was recently acquired by MOMA.

Christopher Vourlias Training their lens on the largely untold story of the atrocities committed against Thessaloniki’s Jewish population during World War II, Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis will bow “The City and the City” Feb. 15 in the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Encounters strand.Unspooling in six fragmented chapters, the film tells the story of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community from the first half of the 20th century until the present day, where contemporary life reflects a city that violently and irrevocably lost its multicultural character, almost overnight.Natives who both left Thessaloniki in their twenties, the directors said they wanted to focus on what Tzoumerkas described as a “blind spot” in their respective upbringings, in which the suffering and near annihilation of the city’s Jewish community went virtually unmentioned.

Naman Ramachandran Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, renowned for his epic cinematic vision, now trains his sights on women’s empowerment tale “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” playing as a Berlinale Special Gala on Feb. 16.Starring Alia Bhatt (2019 Berlinale selection “Gully Boy”) in the titular role, the film is based on the book, “Mafia Queens of Mumbai,” written by S. Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges.

Juliette Binoche puts in another tremendous performance in Claire Denis’ drama Both Sides Of The Blade (aka Fire, and also aka Avec Amour Et Acharnement). The Berlin Film Festival competition title is an intimate slow-burner that sets a credible scene, but doesn’t quite deliver on the mystery it promises. 

A determined Turkish mother takes on the authorities in Rabiye Kurnaz Vs. George W. Bush, Andreas Dresen’s drama that takes a light approach to a moving true story. 

“There’s nothing wishy-washing about working with Phyllis Nagy,” Elizabeth Banks tells Deadline of working with the Call Jane director. “She’s very gentle with her direction but she’s also firm with what she expects or wants out of something, which I really appreciate.”

Paul Scholes says Manchester United star Jadon Sancho is starting to become the winger they signed from Borussia Dortmund.

Gary Lineker expressed his delight to "finally" see Jadon Sancho performing for Manchester United.

Ben Croll “I asked myself, why was it so difficult to name a Quebecois film from the past 25 years that treated sexuality as its central theme?” Côté told Variety. “Why could France foster directors who filmed the human body in direct and unselfconscious ways, and Quebec could not? Were Quebecois more prudish than others?”And so the Montreal-based filmmaker started on his 14th feature, which follows three so-called “hypersexual” women, plagued with troubled histories and fragile mental states, as they participate in a month-long therapy retreat. But as he developed the script with a local sexologist, the filmmaker saw potential traps in two very different directions.“The film could never be meant to judge,” Côté explained.

Naman Ramachandran Protagonist Pictures has closed multiple deals for several key territories on Sundance selection and Berlin Film Festival competition title “Call Jane.”Territories sold include DCM for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Umbrella Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Mis.label for Scandinavia, Eagle for Italy, Shaw for Singapore and Empire for South Africa.Directed by Phyllis Nagy, the Oscar nominated writer of “Carol,” the film stars Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara and Chris Messina. The film follows Joy (Banks), a traditional 1960s housewife who unexpectedly falls pregnant and finds the Janes, an underground abortion movement led by Virginia (Weaver).

EXCLUSIVE: George Clooney’s long-awaited adaptation of The Boys in the Boat looks to be gearing up production as sources tell Deadline, Clooney has rounded out his cast with Joel Edgerton, Jack Mulhern, Sam Strike, Luke Slattery, Thomas Elms, Tom Varey, Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Wil Coban and Hadley Robinson joining Callum Turner, who was previously announced. MGM, Spyglass and Smokehouse are partnering on the production with Clooney directing and Mark L. Smith writing the script.