Berlin Film Festival Taps Jenni Zylka to Scout for Emerging German Filmmakers

Naman Ramachandran Chinese superstar actor and producer Fan Bingbing will be the 2023 recipient of the Singapore International Film Festival‘s (SGIFF) Cinema Icon Award. The festival will screen three of Fan’s films, curated by her – the recent “Green Night,” “Buddha Mountain” and “Double Xposure” – and the star will walk the red carpet on opening night, Nov. 30.

“The pandemic has finally passed, and cinema has returned to normal, but the way people think has changed dramatically,” Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou concluded when quizzed by Deadline about cinema post-Covid 19 during a brief chat at the Tokyo Film Festival (TIFF). 

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Without Taylor Swift and Martin Scorsese, the October box office would have been a ghost town long before Halloween hit. It was thanks to two unconventional releases — “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” one distributed by an exhibitor and the other backed by a major streaming service — that anyone went to the movies at all. It may get worse before it gets better.

Thierry Frémaux is best known internationally as the long-time head of France’s Cannes Film Festival, which is organized out of its offices in Paris’s trendy Marais neighborhood.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Justin Edgar, a well-established British filmmaker and advocate for disabled people, has pushed the boundaries for accessibility films with “The Letter,” a drama shedding light on a lesser known deaf community in Germany during the WW2. Now in post, “The Letter” was directed by Edgar, who is hard of hearing, with an entire cast and crew of deaf artists.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Taylor Swift’s movie is presiding over Martin Scorsese’s in North American theaters, but the “Mean Streets” director has outstripped the “Mean” singer at the international box office. Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a crime epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, has generated $21 million from 63 overseas markets. In terms of weekend ticket sales, it’s pacing ahead of Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” which added $10.5 million in its second weekend of release.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While at the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon, German film master Wim Wenders said he shares Martin Scorsese’s deep concern over Hollywood’s obsession with sequels, and worries about AI in line with U.S. actors who are still on strike.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Netflix has dropped a teaser for J.A. Bayona’s highly anticipated survival thriller “Society of the Snow,” which will represent Spain in the Oscars international feature film race. The film world premiered on closing night of the Venice Film Festival and is playing this week at the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Unveiling a raft of international shows at Mipcom, Newen Connect‘s managing director Rodolphe Buet said the distribution arm of the TF1-owned company is seeing its business model go through “drastic changes” as it now plays a more central role in financing content. In the next two years, Buet said roughly 70% of Newen Connect’s revenues will stem from content it pre-finances and/or co-produces, rather than licensing deals.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Broadcasters in France, Germany and Italy have joined forces on “The Emperor’s Stone: The Search of La Buse’s Treasure,” a family adventure series which will be produced under the Alliance, a partnership formed in 2018 by leading European pubcasters to finance ambitious, internationally-driven series. Commissioned by France Télévisions, ZDF and RAI, “The Emperor’s Stone: The Search of La Buse’s Treasure” won the call for projects launched in 2022 by the Alliance.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent France TV Distribution has enlisted a raft of major distributors worldwide for “Sugar and Stars,” a movie starring Riadh Belaïche, a social media influencer-turned-actor. The inspirational drama is based on the true story of Yazid Ichemrahem, an underdog who became a famous pastry chef.

Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).

Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.  

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Berlin Film Festival will be launching a new section, called Newcomer German Films, during its next edition taking place from Feb. 15-25. The section will highlight emerging German filmmakers, and will be part of the main program alongside the Competition, Encounters, Panorama, Generation and Forum sections.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell says that “if you’re prodding at something uncomfortable, that’s what movies are for.”

Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Pierre Branco, general manager for Warner Bros. Discovery in France, Benelux and Africa, is stepping down from his position, Variety has learned.

The San Sebastian Film Festival awarded O Corno (The Rye Horn) with the Golden Shell for Best Film. San Sebastián native Jaione Camborda took the top prize of the night for the feature she directed.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter As New York Film Festival’s artistic director, Dennis Lim has become adept at multitasking. “Sometimes, I have to introduce one film and then run across the street to moderate a Q&A for different film,” he says. “If I have an hour or two free, I will sneak into a cinema and watch something as a way to hide out.” This year, he’ll be bouncing around Manhattan’s Upper West Side to host some of the buzziest movies from Cannes and Venice, like Todd Haynes’ soapy romantic drama “May December,” Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” and Sofia Coppola’s “Elvis and “Me” adaptation “Priscilla.” NYFF will also showcase the world premiere of Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s genre-defying series “The Curse” and the Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal-led sci-fi story “Foe.” Ahead of the 61st edition, which takes place from Sept.