Banijay, French Production House Behind ‘Survivor’ and ‘Black Mirror,’ to Go Public

Guy Lodge Film CriticFrench film “The Worst Ones (Les Pires)” is the surprise winner of the top prize at this year’s Un Certain Regard awards ceremony, with Italian actor-director Valeria Golino and her fellow jurors also handing prizes to Pakistani breakout “Joyland,” Romanian drama “Metronom” and “Corsage” star Vicky Krieps.

In a surprise move last November, veteran studio chief and CAA co-founder Ron Meyer and former beIN Media Group executive Sophie Jordan were named CEO and co-CEO of European indie powerhouse Wild Bunch AG. Together, the formidable leadership team will help steer the pan-European film, TV and media company into the next era of expansion.

Catalan artist and director Albert Serra (The Death Of Louis XIV, Liberte) returns to Cannes Film Festival Official Competition with a rarity for him, a contemporary feature film, not what we have come to expect from this filmmaker who usually works in period pieces. And even though he is not French he has made a fascinating movie all in French and set in the colorful French Polynesia island of Tahiti.

EXCLUSIVE: AMC Networks has acquired North American rights to Monsieur Spade, a one-hour drama starring Clive Owen from The Queen’s Gambit co-creator Scott Frank and City On A Hill showrunner Tom Fontana. Black Bear Television also has joined as the series’ studio and will deficit finance.

EXCLUSIVE: Entering the second week of the Cannes Film Festival, Sony Pictures Television has snapped up multi-territory Latin American rights to FilmSharks’ Amor Bandido, with Raymond Murray’s CineNova Releasing taking U.S. rights.

Naman Ramachandran Paris and Mumbai-based production service company La Fabrique Films is looking forward to a further surge in business in the wake of new Indian filming incentives that were announced in Cannes.International productions filming in India can be reimbursed up to 35% of qualifying production spend in the country.La Fabrique, which specializes in European films shooting in India, has been operational since 2013 and films they have provided production services for include “Les Cowboys,” “The Best Is Yet to Come” and “And Tomorrow We Will Be Dead.” La Fabrique has just wrapped work on Laetitia Colombani’s “The Braid” and company principals Déborah Benattar and Javed Wani are currently attending the Cannes Film Market. The initial reimbursement for international shoots in India is 30%, which can go up by an additional 5% for productions employing 15% or more manpower in India.“The incentives will be a great advantage for foreign producers who decide to come and shoot in India also, because there is this bonus of 5%, they may want to employ more Indian technicians, because, from our experience, we have amazing technicians in India.

Facebook post. Benaissa was known for his hoarse voice and comedic acumen and is considered part of the golden age of Algeria’s cinema and theater.

Pat Saperstein Deputy EditorAfter 25 years, the Colcoa (City of Lights, City of Angels) French Film Festival has been renamed the American French Film Festival, with the 26th edition of the festival set for Oct. 10-16.

Naman Ramachandran Revered Algerian actor Ahmed Benaissa died on Friday after a long illness, according to the Algerian Ministry of Culture. He was 78.Benaissa’s latest film, Clement Cogitore’s “Sons of Ramses,” (“Goutte d’Or”) in which he had a key role, playing Ramses’s (Karim Leklou) father, is premiering at Cannes on Friday, as a special screening in the Critics’ Week strand of the festival.“I am deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Ahmed Benaissa,” Cogitore said. “The film would not exist without him and words can’t express our sorrow at premiering the film in Cannes today.”“Sons Of Ramses” is produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond for Kazak Productions.

Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher will see a familiar face as Maria Sten returns for the action series’ second season.

Megan Fox had a star-studded, sparkle-filled birthday this week. The newly 36-year-old actress joined her fiancé, Machine Gun Kelly, at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday before heading to her own celebration immediately afterward. «It's my fiancée's birthday at midnight so we are celebrating her wonderful night,» the  reported from Kelly on the BBMAs red carpet. The couple hosted the event at Tao nightclub in Las Vegas, where they were joined by Mary J.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorA visit from the dead? How chic.The Cannes Film Festival sprung back into action on Tuesday night, as this year’s opening night movie, “Final Cut (Coupez!)” received a 5-minute standing ovation. The gory zombie line, which straddled a tone somewhere between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Call My Agent,” kicked off a festival where few patrons were wearing masks in these COVID times.To commemorate the 75th edition of Cannes, festival director Thierry Fremaux selected a French movie — not to mention a French jury president, “Titane” actor Vincent Lindon — to keep things local at the start of the celebration of movies in the French Riviera.

Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Frémaux took part in a ‘meet the press’ session with journalists in Cannes yesterday afternoon.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentCannes Film Festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux didn’t just have to field questions about Russia and the dearth of female directors at the fest during his meeting with journalists on Monday afternoon. He also had to address a claim that the festival is attempting to censor the press — and confirmed that he has asked publications to revise his quotes.Reading his quotes before publication is just a “French tradition” and “not a big deal,” he told journalists.But Fremaux denies that he has asked to change what journalists have written or to remove certain questions.

Long a bastion of artistic freedom, the Cannes Film Festival has a secret: it censors interviews with festival head Thierry Frémaux.

EXCLUSIVE: Ukrainian-Canadian-American filmmaker Vadim Perelman has inked with Artist International Group for management.

Ben Croll For some time, the French VFX sector suffered an acute case of brain drain, as young professionals would graduate from internationally admired institutions and nearly immediately take their talents abroad.“Years ago, when I spoke with students from [the renowned school] ArtFX, something like 95% of them planned to leave after graduation,” says VFX supervisor Emmanuel Pichereau. “Only when I consulted with this year’s graduating class, I saw many of them change their mind about staying in France.”What changed, of course, has much to do with France’s newly revamped tax plan, which now offers a 40% rebate to productions that spend at least $2.27 million with local VFX studios.

Ben Croll Playing a foundational role in the history of film and benefitting from enough picturesque locales to launch a thousand postcards, France has long attracted directors and crews from across the globe.Keeping them on site for more than a few days, however, was once a different story altogether.The 2009 passage of the Tax Rebate for Intl. Production (TRIP) and the subsequent 13 years of refinements both incremental and substantial have fundamentally reshaped that logic.