Annecy-Backed HAF Work-in-Progress Animated Film ‘Heirloom’ Examines the Dark Side of Nostalgia While Celebrating Indian Textiles

Naman Ramachandran Indian rapper, singer-songwriter and music producer Badshah has just released his new album “Ek Tha Raja” (literally, there was a king). It is the third studio album for the musician who was born Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia and is known as Badshah, after “ONE (Original Never Ends)” (2018) and “The Power of Dreams of a Kid” (2020).

An A-list cast including Brian Cox, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker, and Bill Nighy will lend their voices to That Christmas, an animated feature from Netflix penned by Richard Curtis and directed by Simon Otto (How to Train Your Dragon trilogy). 

Alex Ritman Brian Cox is set to voice Santa Claus in Netflix‘s upcoming festive animated feature “That Christmas.” Due later this year, the film marks the directorial debut of animation veteran Simon Otto (“Love, Death & Robots,” “How to Train Your Dragon) and comes from Locksmith Animation (“Ron’s Gone Wrong”). “That Christmas” is adapted from the children’s book series by BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated writer and director Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill”).

As David Newlyn Gale reached his mid-80s, he lived in his own home, but not in the most resplendent conditions. He cohabitated with an untold number of mice in a hoarder’s horror of detritus, a place chocked with tins of food that probably fell off store shelves around World War II.

Naman Ramachandran Prime Video has revealed a title and the extended cast for the Indian instalment of “Citadel,” the espionage action series created by the Russo brothers. The Indian series within the “Citadel” universe will be called “Citadel: Honey Bunny.” As previously announced, Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu will lead the cast. Prabhu will play Honey and Dhawan portray Bunny.

Variety Lounge at the 2024 Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (FILMART) emerged as a dynamic hub of creativity and insight. The studio played host to a series of illuminating interviews featuring prominent figures in the global film industry including European filmmaker Cristiano Bortone, producer and co-founder of boutique studio S11 Partners Ltd.

TikTok‘s availability in the US if its parent company doesn’t sell it.On March 1, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24 to 16 to give President Joe Biden the power to enforce a ban on the social media app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. If the ban goes through, it will be the biggest restriction of a social media app in American history.Now, the House of Representatives has passed that bill, stipulating that if ByteDance doesn’t sell, TikTok would be banned across the US.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales agency Lightdox has acquired documentary “Marching in the Dark” in advance of its world premiere at CPH:DOX. The feature debut from Kinshuk Surjan focuses on how the growing number of suicides among farmers in India is affecting the agricultural community. The trailer debuts exclusively on Variety below.

HCG AwardPresented by CAA ChinaTwo cash awards of $20,000 value each. CAA China may board the winning projects later by entering into script development agreements. “Call of Lobster” (Taiwan) Dir.

Naman Ramachandran Revered Indian actor Waheeda Rehman, who was accorded the Dadasaheb Phalke award, India’s highest film honor, last year, has donated her personal memorabilia to the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) for preservation. Rehman, the 86-year-old grande dame of Indian cinema, has worked with most of the legendary filmmakers of her country during her career and the roles she chose were in films that are considered classics in the annals of Indian cinema.

Promoting his new “A Nice Indian Boy” film at SXSW, actor Karan Soni—who plays Wade Wilson’s loyal pal and cab driver Dopinder in the “Deadpool” movies—dished some fun details about “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and previous iterations of the film. While speaking to Screen Rant, the actor reminded everyone that, at one point, “Deadpool 3” was meant to be a Christmas movie.

Naman Ramachandran Shreyom Ghosh’s “The Vampire of Sheung Shui” is unique in that it is a Hong Kong-set horror-comedy with a protagonist of Indian origin. It has been selected for the 22nd Hong Kong — Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), the project market that operates concurrently with FilMart. Written by D.F.W.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated Philippines filmmaker Lav Diaz‘s examination of the human condition continues with “Kawalan.” The work-in-progress has been selected for the 22nd Hong Kong — Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), the project market that operates concurrently with FilMart. In the film, Tomas, the old venerable mayor of the remote town of Kawalan, learns that the invading Japanese will set up a garrison there. He organizes willing members in his community to set up a hidden settlement in the middle of the forest, where they can live unaffected by the horrors of war.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s unprecedented economic and social transformation in the latter part of the 20th century has been picked over in dozens of movies by filmmakers ranging from Jia Zhangke to Wang Xiaoshuai. But with more than one billion people affected by China’s transformation, there is no shortage of personal stories and no end of ways to tell the tale. Sophomore filmmaker Huo Meng trains his eye on one of those stories in his second film, “The Wind Is Unstoppable,” which he is just finishing off.

Naman Ramachandran India premieres of France’s “The Taste of Things” and Korea’s “Exhuma” will open and close respectively the first edition of India’s Cinevesture International Film Festival. Tran Anh Hung won best director at Cannes 2023 for “The Taste of Things,” which was subsequently submitted as France’s official entry to the Oscars’ international feature category.

Veteran producers Cora Yim and Benjamin Lin are launching a production company, S11 Partners, with an equity investment from Hong Kong-listed Medialink Group.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lily Franky, the Japanese acting sensation who starred in “Shoplifters” and “Like Father Like Son,” heads the cast of “Diamonds in the Sand,” a multinational co-production that appears at the Hong Kong — Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) as a work in progress. Developed and directed by Janus Victoria, the film started as an exploration of the Japanese phenomenon of kodokushi, or lonely death, where elderly people who live alone are discovered dead only months after their passing due to the isolated lives that they lead.

Naman Ramachandran Indian sales outfit Indywood Distribution Network has sold Rupesh Paul’s “Kamasutra – The Revenge” wide ahead of Hong Kong’s film rights market FilMart. Starring Sherlyn Chopra, Milind Gunaji and Gajendra Chauhan, and produced by San2Creations, the film follows two princesses – one who is robbed of her dreams when forced to accept a middle-aged king as her husband, and another thirsty for revenge. Indywood has sold the film to Twin (Japan, all rights); A2 Filmes (Latin America TV/VOD); Filmbridge (Mongolia, all rights); Pioneer Film (Philippines, all rights) and RFT Films (U.K./Ireland, theatrical).

Sunetra Sarker is best known for her role as Dr Zoe Hanna on BBC's long-running medical drama series, Casualty. She regularly appeared on the series from 2007 to 2016 and made a short-lived return in 2018.