Berlin’s Indian Trio Marks Sophomore Efforts of Acclaimed Emerging Filmmakers

You can buy a piece of television history for $225,000.

Harrison Ford revealed that he can’t escape the music of John Williams, who scored Ford’s “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars” movies — even during a certain delicate medical procedure. “As I often remind John, his music follows me everywhere I go — literally,” Ford, 81, said in a Variety profile of the “Indiana Jones” theme song.“When I had my last colonoscopy, they were playing it on the operating room speakers.”Ford, who’s a famous curmudgeon, also said that his admiration for Williams’ music extends beyond the movies on which they’re both associated.

Taking place alongside Filmart, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) is one of Asia’s oldest and most established project markets, helping a string of award-winning films to get made. 

Mark Dodson, whose unique voice characterizations propelled creatures in the films Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Gremlins, has died at 64.

“Star Wars” franchise, has reportedly died after suffering a massive heart attack on Saturday. He was 64. In a statement released by Dodson’s daughter, Ciara, to TMZ, the “Gremlins” voice actor suffered a “massive heart attack” while he was asleep at a hotel in Evansville, Indiana where he was scheduled to appear at HorrorCon.Ciara later told the outlet her father “never ceased making me proud.”The Evansville Horror Con, where Dodson was slated to appear, also posted a tribute to Facebook to the voice actor.

Caroline Brew editor Mark Dodson, a voice actor known for “Gremlins” and “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” died Saturday. He was 64. Stellar Appearances, Dodson’s talent agency for personal appearances, shared the news on Facebook.

An Indiana man was charged with the murder of a 44-year-old woman who disappeared last month — after she predicted he would kill her in a video posted to social media! According to court documents obtained by WT

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical has acquired North American rights to The Speedway Murders, a true crime doc examining the real-life unsolved Burger Chef murders that made national headlines and gripped 1970s Speedway, Indiana, home to racing spectacle, the Indy 500.

When director Amber Fares came out with her documentary Speed Sisters, about the Middle East’s first all-women race car driving team, the New York Times praised it as “unconventional in form as well as content.”

A high-politicized edition of the Berlin Film Festival ended Saturday, but divisions surrounding political messaging during the festival appear to be ongoing. 

With his debut feature Last Swim, an ambitious and quietly radical portrait of young life in London, Sasha Nathwani has achieved one of the most difficult tasks for a new filmmaker: cutting through with a festival audience. 

Martin Scorsese was at the Berlinale this week for the first time in a decade. His presence to collect an honorary Golden Bear was a reminder of the festival’s glories of yesteryear.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its world premiere today at the Berlin Film Festival, Cohen Media Group has secured all North American distribution rights to Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinetic Media has signed award-winning Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali (Fremont, Land) for management across all media.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, has debuted its trailer (below). The film, directed by Andreas Dresen, centers on a group of young anti-Nazi activists in Berlin during World War II. (Read Variety‘s review here.) The film, which is being sold by Beta Cinema and is produced by Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel for Pandora Film, stars “Babylon Berlin” breakout Liv Lisa Fries and Johannes Hegemann.

Naman Ramachandran British actor Solly McLeod‘s career is on an upward trajectory with Berlin-premiering “Last Swim” and Viggo Mortensen-directed “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” which premiered at Toronto 2023 and is bound for Glasgow next. Set over a hot summer day in London as the high-school year is ending, “Last Swim,” from feature debutant Sasha Nathwani, follows British-Iranian teen Ziba (Deba Hekmat) as she leads her friends on an eventful journey across the city, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. McLeod plays Shea, one of the key members of the group.

Ed Meza @edmezavar An unsung master of movie magic, Solon Luigi Colani has worked on some of the biggest Hollywood movies ever shot in Germany and beyond, among them works by Quentin Tarantino, Ron Howard, George Clooney, Denis Villeneuve, Paul W.S. Anderson, Gore Verbinski and the Wachowskis.

A youthful crowd of industry professionals filed into a bustling room at the Gropius Bau Saturday afternoon for the inaugural AfroBerlin symposium here at the Berlin Film Festival. 

The first-ever edition of AfroBerlin put Africa in the spotlight at the Berlin Film Festival and in one key session asked how festivals, streamers, and the wider industry can — and should — support films and filmmakers from the continent.

Christopher Vourlias Greek filmmaker Yorgos Zois, who’s set to bow his sophomore feature, “Arcadia,” in the competitive Encounters strand of the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 18, is developing his first TV series. “Play” follows a lone cinephile who joins a mysterious group of strangers that reenact scenes from movies in real life.