BAFTA North America Appoints Joyce Pierpoline As Board Chair

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Concrete Utopia,” the highly regarded drama-thriller that was South Korea’s Oscars contender and one of the biggest box office hits of 2023, has scored a streaming release in North America. Rakuten Viki, which specializes in Asian content, has licensed exclusive rights to the film in the U.S. and Canada and will begin streaming it to North American audiences from Friday.

EXCLUSIVE: VMI Releasing, the North American distribution arm of VMI Worldwide, has hired Dan Fisher as Executive Vice President. 

nominees. While there are always surprises and snubs, this year’s picks demonstrated that 2024 was an incredible year for movies. In the case of Latino performers and filmmakers, there were a few exciting surprises.

EXCLUSIVE: HanWay Films will represent international sales at next month’s EFM on Berlinale Competition title La Cocina. Fifth Season co-financed the film and is co-representing North America with WME.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Latin America is about to get an array of new thematic channels, thanks to a strategic partnership between Canal+ Group’s Thema America and SPI Int’l. SPI Int’l’s popular channels FunBox UHD, FilmBox Arthouse, Gametoon, FightBox, DocuBox, Fast&FunBox, FashionBox, Erox, Eroxxx, and 360TuneBox, will be distributed across the region via Thema America, which will represent and distribute the channels.

GroupM, the media investment arm of ad agency giant WPP, has named Sharb Farjami as its North America CEO.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Sharb Farjami will take the reins of the North American operations of GroupM, the media-investment giant that is part of WPP. Farjami had been CEO of North American for Wavemaker, one of the big media-buying units of GroupM..

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran filmmaker and industry administrator Park Kwang-su has been nominated as the next chairman of the Busan International Film Festival, following a period of behind-the-scenes turmoil. The event, however, has not yet begun the process of selecting a new festival director.

and so are we — but Mitski sure isn’t.Fans of the wistful indie icon will be pleased to hear that she’s added 15 August and September shows featuring special guests Laufey, Lamp, Alvvays, Arlo Parks, Ethel Cain and Wyatt Flores on select dates to her 2024 ‘The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Tour.’On the first leg of the tour, Tamino, Sunny War, Julia Jacklin and Sarah Kinsley will serve as Mitski’s support acts.With the addition of the second North American leg of the tour, the 33-year-old singer-songwriter now has 51 U.S. concerts lined up this year; that includes seven consecutive New York City and Brooklyn gigs at the Beacon and Kings Theatre this February.“In our efforts to make the show experience extra special, we found beautiful, seated theaters to play over multiple nights, rather than one giant venue per city, in the hopes of offering a more intimate experience to the audience,” Mitski shared on Instagram.And if you’d like to hear her 2023 album “The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We” as well as favorites like “Nobody,” “Washing Machine Heart” and more in intimate settings live, you can grab tickets for all 50+ Mitski shows as soon as today.Although inventory isn’t available for the newly announced August and September concerts on Ticketmaster until Friday, Jan.

Awards Season finally has some twists and turns to contend with before the Oscar nominations are revealed on Tuesday. Today, the 2024 BATA Awards nominations were revealed and snubs and surprises were almost everywhere.

Ben Croll Film Movement will give “A Nice Jewish Boy” a home – several, in fact, as the New York-based distributor has picked up North American rights to Noé Debré’s bittersweet comedy with plans for both festival and theatrical plays later this year. Charades’ Hélène Espeisse brokered the deal with Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg.

Alex Ritman The nominees for the 2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards are set to be revealed on Thursday, with Naomi Ackie and Kingsley Ben-Adir — both former BAFTA Rising Star nominees — making the announcement at 12 p.m. U.K. time (4 a.m.

Bush have appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform their hit song, ‘Glycerine’.On the Tuesday night (January 16) episode of The Tonight Show, Bush’s Gavin Rossdale performed the track alone backed by a string section. With a distorted electric guitar in hand, the frontman sang the 1996 ballad with heartfelt emotion.

Warning: The following post contains spoilers about tonight’s fifth season finale of FX’s Fargo, “Bisquik”

the first active-duty Air Force officer to be named Miss America when she soared into first place in the annual competition on Sunday. “I’m very excited to get to represent women who can break stereotypes,” Marsh said in an interview featured on the official Miss America Instagram page.The blond bombshell is a second lieutenant in the Air Force who is pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. After her crowning moment, Marsh said she wants women across the country to know: “You can achieve anything.”“The sky is not the limit, and the only person that’s stopping you is you,” she added.

Naman Ramachandran Telugu-language Indian superhero film “Hanu Man” has emerged as a hit and is adding screens in North America. The film is set in the fictional village of Anjanadri and follows Hanumanthu, who miraculously awakens Hindu god Lord Hanuman’s power after being involved in an accident near the sea.

So many celebrities stepped out to attend the 2024 BAFTA Tea Party presented by Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic and BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions on Saturday (January 13) at The Maybourne Beverly Hills.

Jaden Thompson GKIDS has announced the acquisition of North American rights to Benoît Chieux’s French animated fantasy film “Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds,” with plans for a theatrical release in 2024. “Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds” was released in theaters in France on Dec.

PVRIS have announced a 2024 UK, US and EU tour set to kick off in April.The tour is in support of the band’s latest release ‘Evergreen’. Kicking off on April 24 in Hanover, the band – comprised of vocalist Lynn Gunn and bassist Brian MacDonald – will make stops in cities such as Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw, Brussels, Prague, Vienna, Milan, Cologne, Paris, Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham.

Alex Ritman The British Academy has appointed award-winning producer Joyce Pierpoline as the chair of BAFTA North America’s board of directors. Pierpoline — whose credits include DOC NYC winner “Mediha,” “Angelica” and Sundance-winning cult classic “Teeth” — succeeds Kathryn Busby, who was given the newly-created role in January 2022 after BAFTA united its New York and Los Angeles entities.