Berlin: Scandi Giant SF Studios Expands U.K. Presence, Launches Survival Thriller 'Don’t Move'

The German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), one of Germany’s most prestigious film schools, has sacked its British director, Ben Gibson, following an incident during the Berlin Film Festival in which he exposed his backside to a female student during a heated argument.

An impoverished laborer returns home one day to find that social services have taken his children, after the family’s increasingly dire circumstances push his wife to commit a desperate act. With a corrupt local administrator blocking the way to a fair hearing to get them back, the man decides to cross the country on foot in order to plead his case to the government in Belgrade.

All3Media-owned Little Dot Studios has acquired London-based production company Wing.

Overshadowed by a grisly, racially motivated shooting in western Germany and the growing pains of new festival leadership, this year’s Berlinale served to illuminate the market dynamics and global issues set to impact the international film and television industry in the run-up to Cannes — provided coronavirus stays away from the Croisette.

Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, whose sixth feature “There is no Evil” won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear on Saturday, is one of his country’s most prominent directors even though none of his films have screened in Iran where they are banned. In 2011, the year he won two prizes at Cannes with his censorship-themed “Goodbye,” Rasoulof was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for alleged anti-regime propaganda.

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s drama “There Is No Evil” took home the top Golden Bear prize at the 2020  Berlin Film Festival.

Cate Blanchett has said that on the back of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction, the industry must move forward and ensure a new culture is established, particularly when it comes to parity.

There's a rich range of voices in Gunda, none of them human. To anyone who cares to listen, the grunts and snorts, the squeaks and squeals, the crowing and lowing communicate plenty.

There's a rich range of voices in Gunda, none of them human. To anyone who cares to listen, the grunts and snorts, the squeaks and squeals, the crowing and lowing communicate plenty.

By Andreas Wiseman

The upcoming Cambodia-set thriller Hunters in the Dark, based on English writer Lawrence Osborne's acclaimed novel of the same name, has unveiled several key additions to its starring cast. Hong Kong American actor Tzi Ma, co-star of Disney's upcoming Mulan, and Ellen Wong, best known for Netflix's Glow, have both boarded the project.

The upcoming Cambodia-set thriller Hunters in the Dark, based on English writer Lawrence Osborne's acclaimed novel of the same name, has unveiled several key additions to its starring cast. Hong Kong American actor Tzi Ma, co-star of Disney's upcoming Mulan, and Ellen Wong, best known for Netflix's Glow, have both boarded the project.

A few years back, the independent film industry was hit with what might be called near-term streamer anxiety. The rapid expansion of on-demand video platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime, coupled with an apparent decline in box office for indie movies, fed the fear that SVOD would kill the cinema star.

Guy Pearce takes aim — quite possibly at a robot — in this first-look still from sci-fi thriller Zone 414.The film from Andrew Baird also starsItalian model Matilda Lutz and was recently shot in Belfast.

Under the new leadership of industry veteran Kristina Zimmermann, Orange Studio, the film/TV division of the French telco group Orange, is launching three new projects at Berlin’s European Film Market: “Last Film Show,” “Old Fashioned” and “Love Song for Tough Guys.”

Hany Abu-Assad, the Palestinian director who landed foreign-language Oscar nominations for both Paradise Now in 2005 and Omar in 2013, is prepping his next feature.Huda's Salon is a tale of blackmail and betrayal set around a hair salon in Bethlehem, its owner Huda and a young mother called Nadia, whose ordinary visit for a haircut turns into something very different.The film marks Abu-Assad's return to the director's chair in his native homeland after 2017's survival thriller The Mountain

The upcoming survival thriller The Beast, co-produced by Japanese internet giant Rakuten and The H Collective, has found its director and star.Norwegian filmmaker Espen Sandberg, best known for Kon-Tiki and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, has signed on to direct, while Morena Baccarin is set to play the lead. The casting was announced in Berlin ahead of the start of the Berlin International Film Festival and European Film Market.